Oh! The Horror… | of Our Grief-Stricken Thoughts
Reader, be warned, there be spoilers ahead… There are all sorts of monsters that lurk in dark recesses. Some are fictional—lingering between the pages of a book and the flickering celluloid of films—while others are imaginary but are given psychical…
Oh! The Horror… | of a Very Scary ‘Black Christmas’
Before ‘The Shape’ ever stepped foot back in Haddonfield, Illinois and Jill Johnson was warned that the terrifying phone calls were coming from inside the house, there was ‘Billy,’ the perverted killer in the sorority house attic who wreaked terror…
Oh! The Horror… | of ‘Scariness’ and Horror Cinema
Towards the beginning of 2016, in their discussion of this year’s indie horror darling, The Witch, within the context of 1973’s cult classic, The Wicker Man, The Next Picture Show podcast (hosted & produced by former writers for, the now defunct, The Dissolve) considered…
Oh! The Horror… | of Double Features
I am so pleased this week to be collaborating with a good friend of mine, Joseph Nooft, who is a contributor for Mockingbird. We wanted to bring to you a couple of suggestions each for some double features—a non-horror film…
Oh! The Horror… | Of ‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’ (2016)
The problem with being a genre film fan and critic is at some point the surprises stop happening, the cinematography stops being impressive and each genre film becomes an amalgam of prior films seen already. Horror may be the genre…
Oh! The Horror… | Of The Highway Stretched Out Before Us
If much in the world were mystery the limits of that world were not, for it was without measure or bound and there were contained within it creatures more horrible yet and men of other colors and beings which no…
Oh! The Horror… | Of Making It Through The Film
Blake gets very introspective in this weeks edition of “Oh! The Horror…” as he examines 2010’s “A Serbian Film”. What is it that might drive a person to watch something gratuitously cruel and nasty? Blake dives in head first and concludes, among other things, that “Good film persuades; it makes us feel its truth and meaning. It does not force feed it down our throats.”
Oh! The Horror… of Broken Bodies & Dreadful Revelations
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. — Matt. 11:12 (KJV) “Martyrs are exceptional people. They survive pain; they survive total deprivation. They bear…
Oh! The Horror… of ‘Blair Witch’ (2016)
Oh! The Horror… | Of Blair Witch (2016) “A third and final transformation to the magic circle has to do with the disappearance of the circle itself, while its powers still remain in effect. During [Lovecraft’s story, “From Beyond”], as…
Oh! The Horror… of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ (1999) & ‘Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2’ (2000)
The Blair Witch Project’s promotional attack in 1999, leading up to its July release, was a marvel on the levels of The Exorcist and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Matter of fact, it may have been the perfect combination of…