HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES

Filmed in 2000 and shelved for three years due to NC-17 rating concerns and being dropped by BOTH Universal and MGM studios after they saw the finished movie (and later picked up by Lionsgate, home of Saw – go figure!), rocker Rob Zombie’s directorial debut, House of 1,000 Corpses, is an all-out assault on the senses and good taste. It’s disjointed. It’s sick. It’s depraved. It’s disturbing. And it’s fantastic. The story concerns a group of four friends who are traveling the country backroads in search of serial killers and other local legends – most notably, the one of a sadistic madman known as “Dr. Satan”. When they stop at an intriguingly weird gas station/circus sideshow hybrid, they unknowingly step into a world of murder, cannibalism,...

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WOLFEN

Veteran director Michael Wadleigh delivers a heavy-handed horror film about the consequences of man’s encroachment on nature and society in probably one of the finest examples of a great “werewolf” movie to ever hit the screen. Released in 1981 (the same year as the wildly-popular werewolf movies An American Werewolf in London and The Howling), Wolfen is one of those rare horror films from the 80’s that showcases great skill – both in front of and behind the camera. Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Edward James Olmos, and Gregory Hines star as members of the NYPD embroiled in a gory murder mystery surrounding the death of a successful architect, his wife, and their chauffeur. At first, the murders appear to be the work of a ritualistic killer,...

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SILENT SCREAM

This odd horror film is neither scary nor bloody but, rather, a fairly entertaining thriller that was released in 1979 (which, by the way, was a GREAT year for horror movies). While Silent Scream is undoubtedly a “bargain-basement” cheapie, the story is actually pretty solid. Four college students rent rooms at an old mansion run by a creepy family with some dark secrets of their own. When the teenagers start showing up dead, two detectives set out to uncover the mystery. Although the ending is a bit of a letdown, the journey getting there is actually pretty entertaining. The film is competently made and its entertainment value has not waned over the years (remarkably, it has aged extremely well). However, it does seem to suffer from an ending...

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