The Killing Floor: What Happened At Rue Morgue Festival Of Fear 2011

By Less Lee Moore

Every August, Rue Morgue hosts its annual horror convention Festival Of Fear as part of FanExpo Canada (which also includes Gaming, Comics, Sci-Fi, and Anime). Every year, I await their list of guests and schedule of events. This year they presented a Near Dark screening with Lance Henriksen (read more here), a Q&A with Tom Savini (read more here), a 30th Anniversary cast and crew reunion for My Bloody Valentine (read more here), and much more, like events and panels with Malcolm McDowell, Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), Elvira, and John Waters. There are literally too many things for one person to do. If ever there were a compelling reason to clone myself, it would be for Festival of Fear.

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Horror Films Of The 1970s, By John Kenneth Muir

By Less Lee Moore

As a film fan, I’m an unabashed lover of the 1970s. In the introduction to Horror Films of the 1970s, film and television critic John Kenneth Muir describes why in two words: “savage cinema.” There truly was something different about films of that decade, and horror films of the ’70s are no exception. In fact, sometimes lines between horror and non-horror were blurred so successfully that it’s difficult to define the exact genres of films like Deliverance or Straw Dogs, both of which are discussed in Muir’s book.

Part of what makes the “savage cinema” so unique and thrilling, claims Muir, is that it presented viewers with a universe in which there were no answers. Yet, he quotes documentary filmmaker Adam Simon, who says that horror can be “open to the traumas of the world” in a way which will “naturally convey truths.” This nexus between no answers and universal truths is precisely why horror films of the 1970s are so unique and so thrilling.

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Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark

By Less Lee Moore

Horror fans of a certain age surely remember the 1973 TV movie Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark. To me, it was always known as “the movie about the things in the fireplace,” which was enough to keep a scaredy-cat kid away for many years. Although I didn’t see it until more recently, I quickly became a big fan; the movie still provides plenty of genuinely creepy moments which make me glad I never saw it as an impressionable youth.

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who produced the terrific remake that’s out today in theaters, has called the original “the most terrifying on earth.” But the new Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark isn’t a movie full of jump scares like the also-terrific Insidious, which came out earlier this year. It’s more of an old-fashioned haunted house movie, where the unease and dread build slowly and inexorably towards a horrible climax.

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Don’t Be Afraid Of The DVD?

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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Ten Instruments Of Evil: Popshifter‘s Horror Movie Picks (And Five To Avoid)

With Less Lee Moore and Megashaun

Here are our ten horror movie picks for this issue of Popshifter. We’ve tried to keep the Popcast as spoiler-free as possible so as not to ruin your enjoyment of any of these great movies. And in order to avoid playing favorites, we’ve listed them in alphabetical order.

We’ve also got the scoop on five movies that we wish we hadn’t watched, even in part.

And don’t forget to check out “Five More Instruments Of Evil,” too.
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