Welcome to the Wider Screenings Horror/Thriller section.
This section is devoted exclusively to horror and thriller films and operates independently of the main DVD Review Archive, although is linked to it. Many reviews here are of films not in the archive.
Latest Horror Additions to the DVD Review Archive
Monkey Shines: George (Dawn of the Dead) Romero tackles the subject of animal intelligence and human-monkey tele-kinetic vengeance! read more
Orca the Killer Whale: To a haunting Ennio Morricone score is perhaps the most poetic and visually breath-taking of the 1970s revenge of nature cycle. read more
Spotlight on the newest Terror DVD releases: Umbrella DVD's latest batch of retro-horror DVD releases include horror films from two of the genre's finest directors: Wes Craven and John Carpenter. In fully re-released versions are Craven's anthropological voodoo fantasy The Serpent and the Rainbow and Carpenter's remake of the classic English chiller Village of the Damned. Also available from Shameless DVD in the UK are new releases of classic Italian giallo and horror classics, including three films from one of the genre's most admired practioners - Lucio Fulci: The New York Ripper, Manhattan Baby and The Black Cat. It's a trip for horror fans with releases of several key films from the back-catalogue of horror's finest now available on DVD for sale and/or hire.
Asian J-Horror turns to a Lethal Psychology
J-Horror was a term coined specifically to refer to the contributions of a recent wave of Japanese horror films to the horror genre as a whole. The Japanese horror films favoured psychological tension over visceral shock and often relied on folk religious mythology concerning ghosts, spirits, poltergeists and other supernatural phenomena. Themes of exorcism, possession, and pre-cognition saturated many of these films. The West became aware of J-horror after the phenomenal international success of The Ring by director Hideo Nakata. Remade by Hollywood, it signalled the American appropriation of J-horror. Nakata, after a brief sojourn in Hollywood returned to Japan for a period film which looked at the origins of the J-horror genre in traditional Japanese ghost story fiction for Kaidan (pictured). Alongside the recent work of director Takashi Miike, Hideo Nakata remains perhaps Japan's most influential contemporary director and his films draw the interest of not only horror film fans but international art-house critics. The Wider Screenings J-Horror subsection begins with Nakata's latest film... Kaidan.
Vincent Price
Out Now on DVD for devout Horror Enthusiasts
Two Rare Collector's item DVDs from director David Schmoeller:
One of the star directors at Charles Band's Empire Studios, alongside such as Stuart Gordon and Ted Nicolau, Schmoeller is amongst the genre's least appreciated toilers. Two of his best films are now profiled: Klaus Kinski takes to voyeuristic serial murder, setting up his own private concentration camp in Crawlspace AND Chuck Connors is the demented host of a roadside museum of mayhem in the film that author Stephen King in the book Danse Macabre labelled one of his all-time favourite horror movies, Tourist Trap.
New additions to the Horror/Thriller Section
What if Alfred Hitchcock made a porno movie in Hollywood? The next best thing... Brian De Palma's controversial Body Double: the film that made feminist groups in America take to picketing theatres; the film that made director DePalma answerable to charges of misogyny in his gleeful sexualization of violence against women.
Why did Stephen King only direct the one movie? When Stephen King decided to make the horror movie as "junk food", he turned his directing debut Maximum Overdrive into an AC/DC heavy metal head-banging, revolt of the machine outer space plague horror movie reviled by the critics as sheer drek!
How did Sherlock Holmes defeat the Hound from Hell? Two contrasting versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles, one from Hammer Horror and one from Paul Morrissey and the Carry On gang of British comedians.
AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORES NOW: SERIAL KILLER CINEMA - AN ANALYTICAL FILMOGRAPHY WITH AN INTRODUCTION
The release of Silence of the Lambs in 1991, which swept the major Academy Awards categories, legitimized the serial killer movie, a genre that dates back as far as the silent era. From Absence of the Good to Zodiac Killer, this reference work allows a detailed study of the development of the serial killer film as a distinct genre with its own character types, narrative patterns and styles. An introduction outlines the historical evolution of this film genre and covers the whole range of cinematic interpretations from the response to Jack the Ripper and other real life serial killers through the late 1960s to the current state of the genre. Arranged alphabetically by title, the filmography covers over 500 feature films and select television movies. Each entry contains a listing of the film’s main credits, a synopsis of the film, a summary of the film’s respective merits and a discussion of how they fit into the themes and structures outlined in the introduction.
All trailers courtesy of YouTube are for illustrative review purposes and promotion only.
Music For Browsing the Horror / Thriller Home Page: with DJ Drifter
(courtesy of YouTube embedded video)
"Alice Cooper was the shock sensation of the 1970s, condemned by the Christian Church who labelled his music obscene blasphemy and "filth". Songs like "I'm Eighteen" became anthemic and his popularity grew to the point of launching a solo career with the epochal album "Welcome to My Nightmare". His latest CD is Along Came a Spider and on it is a little tribute to the torments heaped upon this beer-drinking, woman-chasing minister's son by a narrow-minded, bigoted Church community.
But I'm a man too far fallen to think there's a chance for me,
too cynical an atheist to want to believe:
but in a moment of doubt under pressure of mortality
if I were to wonder what lies in store for me,
there's one question I'd have to ask:
any chance of "Salvation"? (Alice Cooper)
..."
The Wider Screenings Horror / Thriller Section is proudly associated with:
