31 Nights of Frights

Night #20: The Last House On The Left

/ hintonblogs / Leave a comment

There was a period in American Horror, from the 70’s onward, that spawned a certain type of film. Ostensibly it was seen as a reaction to the Vietnam War, not a politically motivated action, but a subconscious one. The violence that was shown on television at the time permeated into the violence you would see on screen. With the leaps being made in special effects (What better frame of reference than some news footage on TV) it meant that filmmakers could push the boundaries of what was seen before. Indeed, filmmaking itself was getting cheap and mobile enough that it was easier for a Director with no budget to go out and shoot something.

It’s this perfect storm of influences that led to Wes Craven’s The Last House On The Left.

Continue reading →

Night #19: Hellraiser

/ hintonblogs / Leave a comment

While the 80’s was the brief reign of the slasher film, the decade also gave rise to the body horror concept. Though it wasn’t a new phenomena (You could argue that something like The Wolf Man is body horror), the special effect advances allowed filmmakers to be more adventurous with what they did.

Hellraiser is one of them.

Continue reading →

Night #18: Night Of The Comet

/ hintonblogs / Leave a comment

I was a strange child of the 80’s. That might come as no surprise to any of you that know me, but while people look back fondly at movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (Seriously people, Ferris is a sociopath. How can you not see this?) or The Breakfast Club or any plethora of so-called ‘classics’ I was developing something more of an…askew taste. 

So it’s no surprise that Night of the Comet was right up my alley.

Continue reading →

Night #17: Detention

/ hintonblogs / Leave a comment

Music video Director Joseph Kahn first burst on the scene with Torque, a mostly misunderstood film that pointed out how ridiculous The Fast and Furious films were. Sadly this was mistaken for an attempt to jump on the F&F bandwagon by audiences and critics who seem insistent on taking things at face value and will forever be on the same shelf as Biker Boyz in your local Blockbuster. So what do you do when you’re reeling from a failure like that? Well you self finance a bizarre and brilliant film and unleash it on the unsuspecting public.

Continue reading →

Night #15: Friday The 13th: Jason Lives

/ hintonblogs / 1 Comment

Our journey, faithful reader, into the saga of one Jason Vorhees, ends here with the sixth installment in the series.

Jason Lives is, for some reason, the entry I’m most familiar with. It seemed like it was always the one that was getting aired on TV and it was the one I was looking most forward to in this re-watch. Gone is the psychological slant of Part II, out the window goes the sexually infused makings of The Final Chapter, instead we have a different beast entirely.

Continue reading →

Night #14: Final Destination 5

/ hintonblogs / Leave a comment

Ah plans. There’s some saying about plans are the best way to make God laugh. And that’s what happened when I said I was going to view Jason Lives tonight. DVD problems prohibited that and for some reason all the films were taken off Netflix on the 1st October – great timing there.

So instead we’ll take a look at another long running franchise that reduces the slasher formula to it’s most base elements.

Continue reading →