By Less Lee Moore
As a fan of the 1973 made-for-TV movie Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark, the news of the upcoming remake made me skeptical.
Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark was one of those movies from my childhood that could scare me just thinking about it. I can’t even remember if I actually ever saw it, but like I said a few years back, I always remembered it as “the movie with the things in the fireplace.”
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By Hanna
When The Wolfman’s release date was announced, feminist blog Jezebel asked why there aren’t many female werewolves, concluding that because werewolves are disgusting and hairy, people don’t want to equate that with women. They also pointed out that vampires are a lot more popular than werewolves at the moment, and described that position with regards to sex.
Although the answer to the question about women and werewolves lies exactly in those issues, Jezebel drew the wrong conclusions.
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Interviewed by Less Lee Moore
Eric Weber is an incredibly interesting and inspirational person. He’s a cult movie junkie, horror film fanatic, Divine devotée, and luckily for us, he writes about these things for Popshifter.
He’s also a visual artist who includes sketching, painting, and photography in his repertoire.
When he’s not following one of his many artistic and creative pursuits, he reenacts scenes from some of his favorite films in Lego form and photographs them.
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By Jimmy Ether
As a kid, backward masking gave me chills. But, I was also intrigued by the idea of spinning records backwards to see what crazy messages I might hear. The creepiest one to me at the time was Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” As the urban legend goes, Jimmy Page purchased Aleister Crowley’s mansion and was, effectively, living with Satan. He then encoded backwards messages of this experience into “Stairway to Heaven”. If you play the fifth verse of the song backwards, you hear an account of life with this terrifying Prince of Darkness.
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By Lisa Anderson
As Halloween approaches, we start hearing certain seasonal songs like “Monster Mash” and “Spooky”; we may also dust off our copies of albums by supernaturally-themed acts like Rob Zombie. However, I would like to share my list of the top five vampire songs that aren’t really about vampires.
Some of these are from my vamp-loving early adolescence, but they all taught me that a song can be about more than one thing. They may be heard at any time of year, but scratch the surface, and they still remind me of everyone’s favorite children of the night. (The last one? Is just for fun.)
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By Julie Finley
A few weeks back, I was out at dinner, and some guy walked by sporting a rather alarming tattoo on his arm. . . in blood-dripping scrawl, it read “Junkie.” My partner and I laughed to ourselves. We got in the car, and it got me thinking of other bad tattoos I’ve seen on various people who have passed my way.
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By Jemiah Jefferson
Moon is a great example of how to make an engaging, gripping science fiction film with not too much money, but a solid appreciation of cinematic and narrative possibility. It is a remarkable achievement from well-regarded journeyman actor Sam Rockwell and director Duncan Jones, who knocks it way out of the park on his first feature film.
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By Jesse Roth
Earlier this decade, I happened upon several articles and a rather interesting (and frightening) documentary dealing with a relatively recent Halloweentime event. Inspired by both the creative possibilities and horror potential of the haunted house, as well as their own ultraconservative evangelical beliefs, several churches across the southern United States were inviting the public to tour their “hell houses.” For a nominal fee (or sometimes for free), tour goers could navigate an otherwise typical but intricately decorated haunted house that substitutes ghouls and chainsaw assassins for graphic depictions of both biblical and modern “sin” (adultery, abortion, etc.). At the end of this joyride, members of the sponsoring church would invite members to absolve their various sins by committing their lives to Jeebus, and maybe some gratis candy and cider.
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By David Speranza
When Star Wars came out in 1977, I was among its more ardent fans, seeing it upwards of ten times before it left theaters. But as the years passed and my tastes matured, it became apparent that the coming of Star Wars had essentially meant the end of thoughtful, adult science fiction in movies.
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By Laura Thomas
October has long been associated with horror movies, Halloween outings, scary music and more, but what about graphic novels? Horror comics are a popular genre of graphic novels that have been popular since the 1940s. They have managed to survive to this day, despite the Senate subcommittee hearings of the 1950s that saw the end of many other genres of comics. In the last ten years or so, horror comics have exploded in the market with one-off graphic novels and ongoing comic book series. So strong is their hold that many movies are being produced based on these graphic novels and comics, and they are often greeted with great success at the box office.
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