REVIEW: The Funhouse [1981]

God is watching you. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that the pitch Universal Pictures used to court director Tobe Hooper for Lawrence J. Block‘s The Funhouse script was something akin to “think The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but at a carnival.” That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Four kids looking for a good time stumble across a deranged family that has no qualms with killing them if they get in the way of living life way outside of the law. Rather than just be rednecks in the woods,…

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REVIEW: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974]

“If I have anymore fun today, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to take it” Depending on your source, the budget for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ballooned from $60,000 to as much as $300,000 by its completion. Some shady dealings allowed profit shares to be sold with intentionally misleading percentages, production ran a crazy schedule spanning seven-day work weeks consisting of long hours to cut equipment rental costs, and a lawsuit over profits sprang up almost immediately after it debuted. Writer/director Tobe Hooper also hoped to earn a…

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REVIEW: Silent Night, Bloody Night [1974]

“The last two victims in a house of victims” What’s Christmas without a holiday themed horror film? Not Christmas at all. As such, I viewed the 1974 genre flick Silent Night, Bloody Night with some friends to get in the festive spirit. Released the same year as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, director Theodore Gershuny decided to go in a more abstract surreal direction with his thrills, while keeping to a similar low-budget aesthetic. Because of this, while not being nearly as good as that Tobe Hooper classic, Gershuny’s work has a…

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REVIEW: The Descent [2005]

“Love every day” I am not a big fan of the horror genre. Many of them are just too campy or schlocky to be terrifying, too derivative of each other, or too slow and drawn out while trying to be suspenseful. Besides the first two masterpieces of the Hellraiser series and the original, read only good, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I could do without the genre completely. I don’t mention Hostel here, because as I’ve said in my review for that film, it isn’t as much a horror as a thriller…

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