1980s
Plot: the Shelleys visit Byron and compete to write the scariest story they can. Even the most talented and serious of directors like to unwind from time to time and indulge themselves in what by all accounts should be considered pulp. For British filmmaker Ken Russell that was Gothic. To
2010s
Plot: who or what lurks within the darker bowels of the English countryside? The 1970s were a decade of constant and grand innovation in horror and exploitation. No other subgenre went through greater evolution than the vampire movie. Hammer, the British film studio that once led the charge in revitalizing
1990s
Plot: abused woman is impregnated by alien and becomes its murderous host. France was absolutely the last place you’d expect to find a genuine horror gem at the dawn of the decade that all but killed the genre. A simple concept can go a very long way when executed
2010s
Plot: scholar falls in love with a beautiful girl who might, or might not, be human. The Extreme Fox (非狐外传) is about the last thing you’d expect from actor-producer-director Wellson Chin Sing-Wai. Chin started out as an assistant director under famed action choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping
1980s
Plot: kept woman is targeted by psychotic killer in luxury high-rise tenement. Amidst the mid-80s slasher deluge Mexico contributed an old-fashioned suspense and terror flick in the British and American tradition that feels a decade older than it is. It might not have the sheer weirdness of
2010s
Plot: vigilante cop purges town of criminals and other undesirables. In the eight years separating War Machine (2010) and Death Kiss (2018) there has been exponential evolution in the work of California writer-director Rene Perez. Not only did he helm the lucrative The Dead and the Damned (2011-2015)
1980s
Plot: not everything is what it seems in this retirement home…. La Nuit de la Mort! (or Night Of Death! back at home, re-released in 1988 by Colombus Video as the more colorful Les Griffes de la Mort or The Claws Of Death to fully exploit the advent of
2010s
Plot: Spaces Babes crash-land on Earth. Hilarity ensues! Apparently quite a few people are longing for the halcyon days when exploitation cinema catered to every discerning taste that Hollywood couldn’t or wouldn’t. In this day and age of superheroes and multiverses something like this is a breath
1980s
Plot: aunt Marta will kill to see her estranged family – or are they already dead? Don't Be Afraid Of Aunt Marta (released domestically as Non aver paura della zia Marta and for some reason released in North America as either The Murder Secret or The Broken Mirror) is
2010s
Plot: scholar falls in love with a beautiful girl who might, or might not, be human. It’s obvious that Mural (画壁) was supposed to be the next logical step in epochal Sino filmmaking on a big budget. A grand and sweeping ghost romance set against the backdrop of ancient
1960s
Plot: secret agent investigates disappearances in Scotland. Hilarity ensues! Hailed as the ultimate in 60s kitsch and camp Zeta One had disaster written all over it. Produced by Tigon on an estimated budget of £60,000 Zeta One was a genre hybrid that could only have materialized in the late
1980s
Plot: tourists are stalked by cannibalistic killer on remote Greek island. The nineteen-eighties were an interesting time for American cinema. The old fashioned terror and suspense films were given a new coat of paint and updated for the new decade. Halloween (1978) was instrumental in that regard. John Carpenter’