Retrospective

Wolfen isn’t a werewolf movie. I should make that clear from the start. In fact, Wolfen has more in common with the monster animal genre of films so popular in the 1970’s like Willard, The Food of the Gods, and Night of the Lepus.

Hot vampire chicks, leather-clad with guns blazing. That’s the appeal of Underworld, yes? It certainly doesn’t hurt, that’s for sure. And while the ever-expanding franchise blasts its way into theaters with a fourth entry this weekend, I’d argue there’s more to these things than sexy British chicks wielding all kinds of deadly weapons.

At last it's time for the sixth and final installment of Dread Central's Six Slays of Christmas feature! We're now just one day away the year's biggest holiday, and to celebrate the coming of Saint Nick (or whomever you believe in), we've been taking a look at a different yuletide horror flick each day until the 25th! Think of it as a cinema crazed Advent calendar!

Hello, kiddies! Time is getting short as there are just two days left before the big day. And now it's time for another installment of Dread Central's Six Slays of Christmas feature! It's nearly time to celebrate the coming of Saint Nick (or whomever you believe in) so we're taking a look at a different yuletide horror flick each day until the 25th!

Okay, show of hands ... who's down for some savage naked Santa action? Good! We're now just three little days away from the year's biggest holiday season, and to celebrate the coming of Saint Nick (or whomever you believe in), we'll be taking a look at a different yuletide horror flick each day until the 25th! Think of it as a cinema crazed Advent calendar!

Hello, kiddies! It's time for another installment of Dread Central's Six Slays of Christmas feature! We're now just four little days away from the year's biggest holiday season, and to celebrate the coming of Saint Nick (or whomever you believe in), we'll be taking a look at a different yuletide horror flick each day until the 25th! Think of it as a cinema crazed Advent calendar!

Welcome back to the second entry of Dread Central's Six Slays of Christmas feature! We're now just five little days away from the year's biggest holiday season, and to celebrate the coming of Saint Nick (or whomever you believe in), we'll be taking a look at a different yuletide horror flick each day until the 25th! Think of it as a cinema crazed Advent calendar!

We're just six little days away from the year's biggest holiday season, and to celebrate the coming of Saint Nick (or whomever you believe in), we'll be taking a look at a different yuletide horror flick each day until the 25th ... starting NOW! Think of it as a cinema crazed Advent calendar!

If you've ever seen Tom Holland's original Fright Night, then I probably don't need to tell you just how special the characters are in the film because you're already well aware. But for those of you out there who may not be as familiar with Holland's story, allow this writer to indulge a bit in the world of my favorite horror film of all time and take this opportunity to bring you up-to-speed on just what makes Fright Night so special, even after 26 years.

As a child of the 80s, to me there were two distinctive kinds of horror movies: the kind you watched if you really wanted to scare the crap out of yourself (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Thing) and the kind that you enjoyed because they treaded on the lighter side of genre fare (The Monster Squad, Ghostbusters, Gremlins), and Fright Night definitely fell into the latter category, making it an almost instant classic for myself and worldwide fans alike when it hit VHS shelves everywhere in late spring 1986.

At the time Columbia Pictures was set to release writer/director Tom Holland's Fright Night in theaters on August 2nd, 1985, the horror world was much bleaker than the story created by Holland in the flick, which gave genre fans a change of pace from the endless cavalcade of slasher flicks that preceded its release in the late summer of 1985.

Welcome to Fright Night! Before making his directorial debut in 1985 with the original Fright Night, Tom Holland was just getting started establishing himself as one of the Masters of Horror. Prior to creating his modern twist on Rear Window with vampires, Holland was a genre writer coming off of a hot streak of well-performing scripts including The Beast Within, Class of 1984, Psycho II and Cloak & Dagger.

This writer has a very short list of films that I could watch endlessly over and over again. As an awkward horror-loving girl who taped Freddy Krueger posters to her wall instead of the New Kids on the Block, the horror genre was always my escape.

When Lucio Fulci concluded The Beyond with the words "And you will face the sea of darkness, and all therein that may be explored", he might as well have been referring to the banner year of 1981.

I know, I know… How many times can this one be written or read about? Well, the fact is Halloween II wasn’t my first pick to revisit this go-round. I was torn betwixt this: