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*Contains spoilers* “Of all the melancholy themes, the one universally recognised by mankind as the saddest of all is the most obvious one: Death. And that most melancholy theme becomes the most poetic of all, when coupled with the theme ...

“Tell me how you want it. And that’s how we’ll play it” “Up From the Deep”-The Tubes In the wilds of the United States, in the middle-of-the-back-road small cities, the big towns, and even the little burgs, there’s always a ...

The musical does something that other genres cannot do: it marries music with human drama – and together, song and score can conceal truth or expose it. It can give voice to a character’s concerns or lie for them. This ...

While there are a few subgenres adjacent to the horror film that have become beloved over the years—such as nunsploitation, poliziotteschi, or women in prison films—one of the few holdouts that still seems strangely neglected is the German krimi. The ...

Serendipity. It’s defined by Merriam-Webster as, “the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.” It’s also a force that takes you through an unexpected back road that leads to some of the best and most ...

With Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) opening the bloody floodgates of Italian export horror, Bava’s friend and former mentor, Riccardo Freda, responded with a horrific hit of his own; The Horrible Dr Hichcock (1962). Itself one of the best films ...

Angels in the musical arts have gotten a bad reputation. Not even bad in a colorful, smoking-in-the-boys-room kind of way, but bad in a cliched and whitewashed way. Simpy, bloodless, with nary an ounce of passion and power. Once portrayed ...

By 1969, Bram Stoker’s most celebrated creation had appeared in countless films, some loosely based on the novel from whence he came, some so wildly divergent that they almost beggar belief. Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966) and Dracula vs. ...

“Our ancestors had imaginations that were positively – diabolic!”  The Punisher “That’s quite a poetic name to apply to what is after all a brutal instrument of torture,” comments a suspicious Rhineland doctor after being shown The Virgin of Nuremberg ...

*This article contains spoilers* There is something downright uncanny about Mario Bava’s masterpiece of 1963, The Whip and The Body. It is deeply ingrained in the gothic storytelling tradition, while feeling completely refreshing at the same time. Bava’s filmography is ...