Tag Archives: 1983

Psycho II featured

Still Crazy After All These Years? Psycho II Was a Sequel Worth Waiting For

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The Bates Motel. No Vacancies.

We see a woman named Marion, clad in a dressing gown, in one of the rooms. She walks into the bathroom, undresses, leaves the gown on the toilet, and steps in the shower, turning it on. There’s a moment of happiness for her as she basks in the water, but that doesn’t last long. Look closely at the background. The door has opened. A figure walks through. Looks like a woman. Suddenly the shower curtain has been drawn and the figure is brandishing a knife. Marion screams, but nothing can save her […]

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The Hunger featured

Bela Lugosi’s Dead: The Hunger and the New Vampire Movie

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When one thinks of vampire films of the 1980s, the first example that comes to mind is probably The Lost Boys, the 1987 hit that fused the teen rebel movie with Gothic horror to spectacularly popular effect.

From there you might move on to Near Dark, released that same year, which was the darker, meaner, more poetic sibling to Joel Schumacher’s pop-culture rush. Then there’s the delightful Fright Night, one of the best combinations of comedy horror ever made, and while we’re at it, let’s spare a thought for its fun but inferior sequel, Fright Night Part II, and wonder why it still isn’t available on Blu-ray or even DVD […]

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Sleepaway Camp featured

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

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There have been many unexpected twists in the slasher canon; in fact, a shock finale is pretty much a prerequisite for a sub-genre that relies so heavily on jump scares and gross-out shock factor.

Also known as Nightmare Vacation, Sleepaway Camp is a very different animal—different in the sense that it not only relies on its twist, it lives and dies by it. It is because of that twist—one of the most shocking and unexpected in all of cinema—that the movie would go on to spawn several increasingly shitty sequels, achieving the kind of cult status that most low-budget schlock can only dream of. So monumental was the movie’s shock reveal that […]

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Darkest Before Dawn: The Best Horror Trailers of the 80’s

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Question: What do you miss most about those halcyon home video days?

Cover art is something that stands out – it made that oh so joyous experience of choosing your rental all the more joyous. Choice is the second thing that springs to mind. Sometimes you would arrive home on a Saturday evening and be thoroughly disappointed with a movie that promised so much and delivered so little. But that was part of the fun, particularly when you unearthed the kind of gem that you couldn’t wait to rent again […]

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