Giallo a Venezia, or as it should more accurately be called, Gore and Regret in Venice, is the cinematic equivalent of accidentally sticking your hand in a blender and then wondering why it hurts. Mario Landi’s 1979 excursion into Italian giallo takes every subtlety and nuance the genre might have had and mercilessly throws it … Read More “Giallo a Venezia (1979), or as it should more accurately be called, Gore and Regret in Venice” »
Effects (or The Manipulator, because why settle on one title when mediocrity allows you three) is a horror film that doesn’t just fail to scare—it manages to make you question why you’re still alive watching it. Dusty Nelson’s 1979 attempt at “meta-horror” is like a horror-themed college film project that someone accidentally released to the … Read More “Effects (1979) (or The Manipulator, because why settle on one title” »
Directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and adapted by Clive Exton, this ITV Playhouse episode is a masterclass in creeping dread delivered at a polite British pace. Gone are the blood fountains and exploding heads of Italian exploitation; here, terror whispers through corridors, rustles through library shelves, and occasionally manifests as a giant demonic spider in … Read More “Casting the Runes (1979)—the 1979 British supernatural drama” »
Beyond the Darkness—a film that makes you wonder if horror was invented by someone with a taxidermy hobby and a caffeine addiction. Watching it is like being trapped in a taxidermist’s fever dream where someone sprinkled equal parts necrophilia, bad dubbing, and South Tyrolian fog. It’s the kind of movie that feels like it was … Read More “Beyond the Darkness (1979)—a film that makes you wonder if horror was invented by someone with a taxidermy hobby and a caffeine addiction.” »
Vayanadan Thamban (1978) is ostensibly a horror film, but watching it today feels less like creeping down a shadowed corridor and more like being trapped in a fever dream narrated by someone who ate too many expired bananas. Kamal Haasan plays a 100-year-old warlock who keeps turning back the clock by offering virgin girls to … Read More “Vayandan Thamban (1978) a haunted house built out of papier mache” »
The Swarm (1978), a cinematic disaster so vast it makes the bees themselves look like competent performers. Where to even start? Picture this: Michael Caine and Henry Fonda, two acting legends, valiantly flapping their arms against a CGI-free army of angry insects, while the rest of the cast stares blankly, wondering if their careers are … Read More “The Swarm (1978) a cinematic disaster where bees are the best actors” »
The Redeemer (or The Redeemer… Son of Satan! / Class Reunion Massacre)—a title that promises something serious and terrifying, but delivers something closer to a fevered fever dream where Satan, bad acting, and creative budgeting all collide in the most absurd ways possible. Strap in. Watching this 1978 horror oddity is like attending a ten-year … Read More “The Redeemer (1978) Satan, bad acting and low budgets” »
Nightmare in Blood—a film that feels like it was conceived during a caffeine-fueled fever dream at a horror convention, directed by someone whose credentials basically read: “I watch scary movies for a living, now I get to make one.” Let’s take a leisurely tour through this 1978 masterpiece of cinematic confusion and unintended comedy. Watching … Read More “Nightmare in Blood (1978)” »
The Manitou—a film that somehow makes “body horror” sound like a midlife crisis crossed with a garage-sale spiritualism convention. Let’s dive in and sprinkle some dark humor on this 1978 supernatural disaster. Watching The Manitou is like being trapped at a cocktail party thrown by Tony Curtis and a possessed neck tumor. It begins innocuously … Read More “The Manitou (1978) Body horror as a midlife crisis” »
’Twas the Night Before Therapy Christmas Evil is the rare holiday movie that answers the question, “What if Miracle on 34th Street and Taxi Driver had a baby, and then that baby grew up in a dumpster behind a dollar store?” Written and directed by Lewis Jackson, it stars Brandon Maggart as Harry Stadling—a man … Read More “Demented (1980) The title works—just not in the way the filmmakers hoped” »