Everybody Scream
I've loved scary movies for a very long time, and began watching them before I was a teenager. While a bloodfest is enjoyable, even if it's comedic, the thrillers that get into your head are the ones that I really get excited about.
I remember seeing Nightmare on Elm Street at around 9 years old. My sister and I were watching it and there is a scene where Freddy calls the main character Nancy and says "I'm your boyfriend now, Nancy". Right after that scene, the phone in my sister's room rang and she screamed so loud I swear it cracked her bedroom window. That's the kind of thing I love about horror movies, they give you that unsettling feeling, like the main character experiences. If it's a good movie, you'll actually start squirming in your chair as if you were in any kind of danger.
For some reason I got sucked into the series films like Nightmare on Elm Stree and Friday The 13th, because I wanted to see just how far the directors would be willing to go to keep the story moving along. Personally, my favorite movies from both of those series are the last ones. "Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday" was well done, I thought, and "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" had an impressive number of cameos on hand to bid farewell to the gloved one.
**All links take you to a Wikipedia film page which contains spoiler alerts**
With the release of "The Ring", a new breed of horror movies was unleashed which was far more terrifying than the films that relied on buckets of blood and guts. The Ring is the kind of movie that gets under your skin, as the character brings her wrath on anyone who watches a special videotape and gets a phone call saying "seven days", referring to the amount of time before the viewer will die.
The Ring was followed by "The Grudge", an American remake of the Japanese film Ju-On, both filmed by Japanese director Takashi Shimizu. In this film a family is killed in a small house in Japan and a caregiver is sent to the house, not knowing of the curse that lurks inside. The character is similar to that of the ring, with an eerie appearance and very disturbing crawling movement accompanied by a horrible sound. The director did a very good job of relying on scaring the audience with a terrifying character instead of using gore.
I saw The Grudge with my wife Kacy and for 97% of the film she had her eyes covered. Even as the terrifying character provides the stuff that nightmares are made of, just hearing the row of girls screaming behind us was enough to keep Kacy from wanting to see the screen.
I did not see the sequel to either The Ring or The Grudge but someday I might give them a shot. While I used to love sequels, I am of the opinion that a good horror movie can stand on its own and a sequels are made only for profit......of course, there are exceptions.
Even after years of seeing horror movies, both genuine and laughable, nothing prepared me for the two films created by Rob Zombie. If you don't know who Rob Zombie is, you've missed a lot. After finding success in the music business, he turned to filmmaking to show another side of his creative abilities. He directed all of his own music videos, and provided the psychadelic LSD hallucination sequence from "Beavis and Butthead Do America." After four years of filming, Rob released his first feature film as a director, titled "House of 1,000 Corpses." The film was successful from a financial standpoint and became a cult favorite for horror film fans, considering it was slammed by many film critics. The success of "House" opened the door for a sequel, "The Devil's Rejects", which received a much warmer reception from critics and displayed a much more mature style of filmmaking.
**More information on both of these movies can be seen on my Must See: Movies post**
"Halloween" is regarded as an instant horror classic, but remains the only horror film that spawned sequels which I never closely followed. One of the original film's biggest fans is none other than Rob Zombie, who will release his version of Halloween on August 31st, 2007. After receiving the blessings from John Carpenter, creator of the original film, Rob quickly got to work on shining new light on the origin of Michael Myers. Carpenter told him to "make it his own" and that's exactly what Rob Zombie is doing. During interviews on the set, Rob has expressed his wishes to tie up some loose ends by explaining some of the events from the original and provide some backstory for how Michael became a killer.
Rob Zombie's Halloween will hit theaters on August 31, 2007 and I can honestly say that aside from his first two films, I've never been more excited to see any movie. TRAILER
I remember seeing Nightmare on Elm Street at around 9 years old. My sister and I were watching it and there is a scene where Freddy calls the main character Nancy and says "I'm your boyfriend now, Nancy". Right after that scene, the phone in my sister's room rang and she screamed so loud I swear it cracked her bedroom window. That's the kind of thing I love about horror movies, they give you that unsettling feeling, like the main character experiences. If it's a good movie, you'll actually start squirming in your chair as if you were in any kind of danger.
For some reason I got sucked into the series films like Nightmare on Elm Stree and Friday The 13th, because I wanted to see just how far the directors would be willing to go to keep the story moving along. Personally, my favorite movies from both of those series are the last ones. "Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday" was well done, I thought, and "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" had an impressive number of cameos on hand to bid farewell to the gloved one.
**All links take you to a Wikipedia film page which contains spoiler alerts**
With the release of "The Ring", a new breed of horror movies was unleashed which was far more terrifying than the films that relied on buckets of blood and guts. The Ring is the kind of movie that gets under your skin, as the character brings her wrath on anyone who watches a special videotape and gets a phone call saying "seven days", referring to the amount of time before the viewer will die.
The Ring was followed by "The Grudge", an American remake of the Japanese film Ju-On, both filmed by Japanese director Takashi Shimizu. In this film a family is killed in a small house in Japan and a caregiver is sent to the house, not knowing of the curse that lurks inside. The character is similar to that of the ring, with an eerie appearance and very disturbing crawling movement accompanied by a horrible sound. The director did a very good job of relying on scaring the audience with a terrifying character instead of using gore.
I saw The Grudge with my wife Kacy and for 97% of the film she had her eyes covered. Even as the terrifying character provides the stuff that nightmares are made of, just hearing the row of girls screaming behind us was enough to keep Kacy from wanting to see the screen.
I did not see the sequel to either The Ring or The Grudge but someday I might give them a shot. While I used to love sequels, I am of the opinion that a good horror movie can stand on its own and a sequels are made only for profit......of course, there are exceptions.
Even after years of seeing horror movies, both genuine and laughable, nothing prepared me for the two films created by Rob Zombie. If you don't know who Rob Zombie is, you've missed a lot. After finding success in the music business, he turned to filmmaking to show another side of his creative abilities. He directed all of his own music videos, and provided the psychadelic LSD hallucination sequence from "Beavis and Butthead Do America." After four years of filming, Rob released his first feature film as a director, titled "House of 1,000 Corpses." The film was successful from a financial standpoint and became a cult favorite for horror film fans, considering it was slammed by many film critics. The success of "House" opened the door for a sequel, "The Devil's Rejects", which received a much warmer reception from critics and displayed a much more mature style of filmmaking.
**More information on both of these movies can be seen on my Must See: Movies post**
"Halloween" is regarded as an instant horror classic, but remains the only horror film that spawned sequels which I never closely followed. One of the original film's biggest fans is none other than Rob Zombie, who will release his version of Halloween on August 31st, 2007. After receiving the blessings from John Carpenter, creator of the original film, Rob quickly got to work on shining new light on the origin of Michael Myers. Carpenter told him to "make it his own" and that's exactly what Rob Zombie is doing. During interviews on the set, Rob has expressed his wishes to tie up some loose ends by explaining some of the events from the original and provide some backstory for how Michael became a killer.
Rob Zombie's Halloween will hit theaters on August 31, 2007 and I can honestly say that aside from his first two films, I've never been more excited to see any movie. TRAILER
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