Horror by Harrison

  I initially was going to close out 2020 (thank God) by covering Jacob’s Ladder . However, it’s no longer on streaming and due to USPS delays I haven’t gotten the DVD from Netflix yet (yes, I still subscribe to the Netflix mailing service) so I’m covering the next film on my list, The Lost Boys . This is a first time watch for me and was requested by my good friend Erin. The Lost Boys was written by Jan Fischer ( The Golden Girls ), James Jeremias, and Jeffrey Boam ( Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ), directed by Joel Schumacher ( Batman Forever ), and was released on July 31st, 1987. The Lost Boys was made on a budget of $8.5 million, made $5,236,318 upon opening, and went on to make $32,388,898 worldwide. Upon opening, The Lost Boys received positive reviews from both critics and audiences. After moving to the town of Santa Carla, California with their recently divorced mother Lucy (Dianne Wiest, Hannah and Her Sisters ), brothers Michael (Jason Patric, Rush ) and Sam (...

  There were a lot of options for a Christmas theme horror film this week and I thought about it for quite a while before deciding that the original Black Christmas , while a bit obvious, was the right choice. With its obvious influence on Halloween four years later, this (and Peeping Tom before it) was the proto-slasher film before the slasher boom of the 80s. Black Christmas was written by Roy Moore ( Riel ), directed by Bob Clark ( A Christmas Story ) and was released on October 11, 1974. Black Christmas was made on a budget of $620,000 and went on to make $4.1 million. The film received mixed reviews upon release but has received a critical reappraisal in recent years and is now considered one of the best horror films of all time. Black Christmas inspired two remakes, one in 2006 and one in 2019. Black Christmas follows a group of women in a sorority house being harassed and murdered by a killer hiding in the attic of their house during the Christmas holiday. Sorority si...

  “Can you imagine yourself in this picture?” I was initially shocked when researching this film at how poorly it was received at the time of it’s release but, upon reflection, it’s not shocking that the subject matter proved controversial in 1960. It’s a real shame that Peeping Tom nearly destroyed director Michael Powell’s ( The Red Shoes ) career because his direction is a large part of the reason this film is so successful. Peeping Tom was written by Leo Marks ( Sebastian ), directed by the aforementioned Powell, and was released on April 7th, 1960. Peeping Tom was made on a budget of between £100,000-£125,000 and went on to make $24,640 worldwide. As mentioned above Peeping Tom received overwhelmingly negative reviews upon release due to its subject matter (even after being heavily censored), but is considered by modern critics to be a masterpiece (and considered by many to be the first slasher, preceding Black Christmas and Halloween by fourteen and eighteen years respect...

  After two months with Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees, let’s travel back to 1942 and spend some time with a different kind of killer. If I’m being honest this movie wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was an excellent slow-burn suspense thriller.  Cat People was written by DeWitt Dodeen ( The Seventh Victim ), directed by Jacques Tourneur ( I Walked With a Zombie ), and was released on December 25th, 1942. Cat People was made on a budget of roughly $135,000 (about $2 million in 2020) and though official Box Office returns are disputed, it did very well financially. Contemporary reviews were mixed, but modern reviews of the film have been extremely positive. Cat People follows Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon, Women Without Names ), a Serbian fashion illustrator who marries a man named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith, Peyton Place ). She tells him that she is a descendent of a group of witches and cat people, and that if she ever kisses a man she will transform into a cat creature....