There’s a moment in Black Magic Rites when a character stares blankly into the void—motionless, detached, seemingly unaware that the camera is rolling. That moment, like many in Renato Polselli’s overcooked mess of a horror film, feels less like intentional surrealism and more like an existential cry for help from the cast and crew. This … Read More “Black Magic Rites (1973): A Ritual in Incomprehensibility” »
There are horror films that scream at you, and then there are horror films that whisper in your ear, cold and steady, until you feel the breath of dread on your neck. You’ll Like My Mother is firmly in the latter camp — a hushed, frigid thriller that unfolds like a long-delayed panic attack. Directed … Read More “You’ll Like My Mother (1972): A Snowbound Nightmare in Minnesota Gothic” »
What the Peeper Saw might sound like a sleazy grindhouse footnote — and let’s be honest, at times it very much is — but this disturbing little psychosexual thriller is far more than its reputation suggests. It’s a stylish, sun-dappled nightmare of gaslighting, guilt, and Oedipal horror set against a swanky Euro backdrop, anchored by … Read More “What the Peeper Saw (1972): Childhood Is a Hostage Situation” »
Some horror films scream. Others whisper. Tragic Ceremony, a fog-shrouded, occult-tinged slice of Euro-horror directed by Riccardo Freda (under the Anglophilic alias “Robert Hampton”), does both — often in the same breath. It is a film at once lurid and melancholy, confused in tone but hypnotic in atmosphere, punctuated by moments of true dread. Yet … Read More “Tragic Ceremony (1972): Satanic Panic in Satin Gloves — and Camille Keaton’s Star-Making Descent” »
There are bad horror films. There are boring horror films. And then there’s Three on a Meathook, a film so dreary, so deathly dull, that it could be used as a sleep aid in psychiatric wards—assuming, of course, that the patients aren’t triggered by bad wigs and slower-than-molasses pacing. Directed by William Girdler (the same … Read More “Three on a Meathook (1972): A Butchered Attempt at Horror” »
Before Jaws and the bicycle baskets of E.T., before Close Encounters and the blood-soaked beaches of Normandy, there was Something Evil. A made-for-TV movie about demons, dread, and domestic unraveling, it aired in 1972 as part of ABC’s Movie of the Week. It lasted a scant 73 minutes, had no sharks or aliens, and no … Read More “Something Evil (1972): Spielberg’s Satanic Detour Into Suburban Madness” »
Television in the 1970s could be a strange, wonderful place—a twilight zone between network decency and psychological depravity, where aging legends fought unseen horrors and ominous string sections warned viewers of unspeakable things lurking behind neatly trimmed hedges. Into that eerie space walked Olivia de Havilland, once the luminous ingénue of Gone with the Wind, … Read More “The Screaming Woman (1972): Olivia de Havilland Digs Up Madness and Murder in This Gothic TV Gem” »
Imagine if a haunted house was built out of papier-mâché, filled with acid casualties, and directed by someone who had never actually seen a movie. That’s Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood, the one and only film by Christopher Speeth and writer Werner Liepolt. There’s a reason this is their only film. Let’s get this out of … Read More “🎪 Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood (1973): A Fever Dream in a Broken Tilt-A-Whirl” »
There are films that push boundaries. There are films that go too far. Then there is Last House on Dead End Street, a mangled curiosity of underground cinema that crawled out of the gutter with a cigarette in its mouth, blood on its lens, and absolutely no clue what the hell it wanted to be. … Read More “Last House on Dead End Street (1977): A Cinematic Crime Scene in Three Acts of Suffering” »
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a Scooby-Doo episode got drunk, stumbled into a graveyard, and tried to make a horror film without a script, The House of Seven Corpses is your answer. It’s a movie so lethargic, so stubbornly un-scary, it practically dares you to stay awake. And that’s before the zombie … Read More “The House of Seven Corpses (1973): One Dead Movie, Seven Dead Viewers” »