Horror by Harrison

  Now things are gonna get weird. Not that this franchise wasn’t weird from the beginning, but this is where it starts to go really off the rails. For a lot of fans The Dream Master is where the quality of the series takes a serious dip and while I agree that it’s not as strong as the first and third films, I don’t think it (nor the fifth) is as bad as its reputation might lead you to believe. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master was written by Brian Helgeland ( Mystic River ) and Ken and Jim Wheat ( Pitch Black ) and was directed by Renny Harlin ( Deep Blue Sea ). The Dream Master was made on a budget of approximately $6.5 million, made $12,833,403 upon opening, and went on to make $49,369,899 worldwide. The Dream Master was released on August 19th, 1988 to mixed reviews. One year after the events of Dream Warriors , Kristen (Tuesday Knight, Mistress , replacing Patricia Arquette) begins to fear that Krueger (Robert Englund, Chuck ) will return. Her fears prove corr...

  “Hello, Sidney.” The big debate in the Scream fandom is which film is the best in the franchise, the first or the second (although the fourth is finally starting to get the praise it deserves and there are, inexplicably to me, some hardcore defenders of the third). While I maintain that the first is superior, its sequel more than holds its own. Scream 2 was written by Kevin Williamson ( The Faculty ) and directed by Wes Craven ( The Hills Have Eyes ). After the massive success of its predecessor, the sequel was immediately greenlit and was released on December 12th, 1997 (less than a year after the original). Scream 2 was made on a budget of $24 million, made $32,926,342 upon opening, and went on to make $172,363,301 worldwide. It received largely positive reviews upon release. Following the events of the first film, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell, Wild Things ) is now attending Windsor College. Soon she, the other survivors of the “Woodsboro Massacre”, and Sidney’s new cla...

  Happy Birthday (on Saturday) to me! Most years on my birthday I like to go to a movie if there’s something interesting playing (2020 being an obvious exception). In 2019 I treated myself to a matinee of Crawl , which had been released just five days before. Being a Wednesday afternoon I had the entire theater to myself and it was glorious . Crawl was written by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen ( The Inhabitants ) and was directed by Alexandre Aja ( The Hills Have Eyes (2006) ). Crawl was made on a budget of $13.5 million, made $12,005,210 upon opening, and went on to make a whopping $91,542,097 worldwide. It was released on July 12th, 2019 (happy two year anniversary Crawl !) and received positive reviews upon release. Crawl follows Haley (Kaya Scodelario, Skins ), an aspiring swimmer, and her father (Barry Pepper, The Green Mile ) as they are trapped in the crawl space of their house during a Category 5 hurricane with two vicious alligators.  Goddamn. What a logline. I’m...

  Due to some schedule changes brought about by availability, it's been a minute since I’ve covered a film that I hadn’t seen before (the last was The Tingler back in March). While it has been fun to revisit some old (and new) favorites, it was exciting to discover a new-to-me classic. Onibaba was written and directed by Kaneto Shindo ( Children of Hiroshima ) and was released on November 21st, 1964. Onibaba received positive reviews upon its release. Onibaba is set in 14th century Japan and follows a pair of women who kill soldiers who come across their path and steal their possessions. All is well until they encounter Hachi (Kei Satō, Kuroneko ), a man who begins to come between the two women. Onibaba is a beautifully shot film with strong performances from its three leads. Nobuko Otawa ( Story of a Beloved Wife ) as the unnamed Older Woman is the stand-out character and her scenes with her daughter-in-law, the similarly unnamed Younger Woman (Jitsuko Yoshimura, Pigs and...