Tag Archives: Tobe Hooper

Video Nasties featured

Scream and Scream Again: A Brief History of Video Nasties.

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The rape of our children’s minds.

I thought that might get your attention, and although that headline may sound like unrestrained hyperbole from a writer of little restraint, it is actually a snippet from a carefully constructed media campaign designed to criminalise independent filmmakers. I’m talking, of course, about the ‘Video Nasty’ scandal of the 1980’s, a political manoeuvre that would scare working class voters into the Draconian arms of Conservative Thatcherism […]

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Rocky III Featured

This Month in . . . 1983 (February)

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The month of February would get off with a bang for horror fans. Released on the same day, The Entity would go head-to head with David Cronenberg’s body horror classic Videodrome. Directed by Palm D’or nominated director Sidney J. Furie (The Ipcress File), The Entity was based on the real life Doris Bither case and tells the story of a malevolent poltergeist who purportedly raped and tormented her for years […]

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VHS Collage

The Best of Horror Movie Box Art 1

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You’re a child of the 80s and your parents take you for a trip to the veritable cave of wonders that is your local VHS Store. They’re probably in a hurry to get somewhere, and as a result set about influencing your decision, suggesting family-friendly titles such as The Karate Kid, E.T. or The Goonies.

Those movies are all well and good, in fact they’re all brilliant […]

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Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

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Back in 1982, Tobe Hooper directed Poltergeist, a movie that was written and produced by Stephen Spielberg, and in all honesty it may as well have been him behind the camera. Everything about that movie screamed Spielberg, from its familial tone and grandiose set pieces to its high profile marketing strategy and tantilsing teaser poster. The grisly touch of Hooper – a wonderful director in his own right – was nowhere to be found.

Predictably, the movie was an unbridled smash […]

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sleepwalkers-1992

Sleepwalkers (1992)

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Back in the early ’90s the horror genre began to look decidedly second-rate.

Part of this was due to the increasing availability of CGI for low budget movie makers, its bargain basement lows becoming more widespread and accessible. Another, perhaps more telling part, was the plethora of made-for-TV Stephen King adaptions, their overabundance flooding VHS stores at a rate fast approaching that of his fiction […]

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