Horror News

Welcome to the Hammer Factory. This month we dissect The Reptile (1966). While Hammer Studios has been in business since 1934, it was between 1955 and 1979 that it towered as one of the premier sources of edgy, gothic horror. On top of ushering the famous monsters of Universal’s horror heyday back into the public eye, resurrecting the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy in vivid color, the studio invited performers like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt and so many more to step into the genre limelight. Spanning a library...

Writer/Director Dan Brown’s feature debut, Your Lucky Day, elevates a simple concept with palpable tension and intense confrontations. A convenience store at Christmastime transforms into a harrowing battleground when a winning lotto ticket emerges, creating an intense thriller filled with surprise escalations and propulsive action. It’s not just the narrative turns and bleak authenticity that makes Your Lucky Day winsome, but the Christmas caper’s daring commitment to nihilism. An average night becomes anything but for six strangers at a convenience store around Christmas. A criminal, Sterling (Angus Cloud), arrives at the store in a...

It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a tried and true, serious-in-tone creature feature, or at least one in which the creature in question is a real-world animal and not a fictitious monster. This sub-genre often finds its roots planted firmly in horror comedy or, intentionally or not, camp. So it’s refreshing that Infested (formerly titled Vermin), Sébastien Vaniček‘s feature directorial debut, takes a deathly serious approach to the material. There’s still plenty of fun to be had with these spiders, but there’s nothing funny about them. 30-year-old Kaleb (Théo Christine) is...

Few fears are more universal than claustrophobia. Many of us have probably experienced that twinge of anxiety when elevator doors close behind us, but few of us have likely ever been down in the depths of a coal mine, where the elements at play have a potentially fatal outcome. This fear is what writer/director Mathieu Turi tries to tap into in The Deep Dark, to moderately successful results. Following an 1856-set prologue in which a group of miners encounters a mysterious creature before an explosion traps them all underground, we are...

Andrew Cumming’s feature directorial debut, The Origin, executes its high concept with impressive ambition. Not only does it travel back 45,000 years in time to tell the survival thriller, but Cummings and screenwriter Ruth Greenberg developed a fictional language for its characters. Combined with a handsomely shot production, it ensures that The Origin beguiles, though it struggles to mine suspense from its thrills and falters in the destination. The Origin introduces six early human settlers in the midst of an arduous journey to find new land. They’ve traveled countless miles across desolate tundras, with food scarce...

Creator Mike Flanagan’s latest and final series collaboration with Netflix, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” takes on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Much like “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” Flanagan’s latest uses a classic short story as the central narrative framework to remix a variety of Poe’s macabre poems and short stories but with Flanagan’s signature pathos. Unlike previous Netflix series, “The Fall of the House of Usher” eschews the familiar melancholy and dials up the gallows humor for a twisted tale that’s unafraid to get grisly. In the process, however,...

Vinegar Syndrome’s 2023 Black Friday Pre-Order is now LIVE, and the sale is running from today (September 22) all the way through 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, September 24. In addition to the sales and discounted pre-orders, several brand new titles have been put up for grabs today, including The Prophecy 3-film trilogy on 4K Ultra HD! Here’s everything that was announced today… “Our latest VSU, D.A.R.Y.L., the 1985 cyborg/sci-fi Hollywood crossover film from Ozploitation director, Simon Wincer, and starring Mary Beth Hurt, Michael McKean, and Colleen Camp hits 4K...

Writer/Director Brian Duffield (Spontaneous, Love and Monsters) continues his streak of housing affecting metaphors within thrilling genre features with his latest, No One Will Save You. In this instance, a woman alienated from her community finds herself contending with highly intelligent, hostile aliens from another planet. In Duffield’s capable hands, a journey through self-forgiveness gets transformed into a propulsive, nerve-fraying sci-fi twist on home invasion horror. Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) lives alone on the outskirts of town, finding solace from her loneliness through crafts, penning letters, and picking up new hobbies. It’s apparent that Brynn’s...

This October is a MASSIVE month for horror movies on physical media. The studios and physical media labels tend to save some of their best stuff for spooky season, and this year is no exception. The Criterion Collection, Kino Lorber, and Shout Studios all have a huge selection this month, and studios like Paramount, Universal, and Lionsgate are bringing forward some awesome releases with unique packaging that will appeal to collectors. If you haven’t jumped back into the world of physical media, this is as good a time as ever...

It’s been a while since we last saw that teaser trailer for Neill Blomkamp and Gunzilla Games’ multiplayer shooter Off The Grid. The game is still very much in development, but to show just how far it’s come along, Gunzilla teamed up with gaming personalities Dr. Disrespect, Clix, and Imperialhal to present a 17-minute long gameplay walkthrough of the next-gen battle royale game. Off The Grid, a next-generation battle royale, combines an expansive 60-hour narrative campaign envisioned by Blomkamp himself, with 150-player skirmishes, all situated in the vast cyberpunk realm...

Based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Mike Flanagan‘s final series for Netflix is “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and a 2-minute sneak preview clip has arrived today. The limited series from Intrepid Pictures is “based on multiple works from Poe,” and Netflix recently announced that “Usher” will premiere on October 12, 2023. Watch the clip below, which introduces the troubled Usher family in a scene that brings many of Mike Flanagan’s regular actors together for one dysfunctional dinner. “In this wicked 8-episode limited series based on the...

Just over one year after the Deadite-slaying began, the developers of Evil Dead: The Game have made the unfortunate announcement that no new content will be created for the game. The team at Saber writes in an official statement, “Today, we have made the decision not to pursue the development of new content for Evil Dead: The Game. We also confirm that we will not be releasing a Nintendo Switch version of the game.” “We will keep the servers up for the foreseeable future and address any major issues that...

It’s not even October, but Massachusetts is already being spoiled with horror events. A mere week after Silver Scream Con took place in Danvers, Terror Con slashed into the Royal Plaza Trade Center in Marlborough on September 15-17. Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, had the longest lines throughout the weekend. He was joined by several other A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise alumni: Part 1’s Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss, and Ronee Blakeley; Part 2’s Mark Patton and Kim Myers; Part 4’s Lisa Wilcox and Nicholas Mele; Part 5’s Erika Anderson,...

The directorial debut of Fast & Furious actor Sung Kang, Bloody Disgusting’s SCREAMBOX and Fathom Events are bringing Shaky Shivers to theaters this coming Thursday, September 21! Frightening and funny, Shaky Shivers puts the camp back in summer camp when it opens in theaters NATIONWIDE for one night only on September 21 from Fathom Events and Bloody Disgusting’s SCREAMBOX. It’ll be a night of zombies, werewolves, and ice cream. While you wait, you can check out a first-look clip below. The clip was first debuted by ScreenRant earlier today, featuring the two main characters and one very important question… Was...