Horror movie previews have a tough job to do. They need to capture the essence of a film in 3 minutes or less and give away enough of the film to make you want to see it, but not so much that they spoil the surprises of the film. Audiences don’t want to feel disappointed because all of the scariest stuff was shown in the preview, and since most horror movies will lose a chunk of their potential audience when they get slapped with an R-rating, the pressure is really on for studios to crank out great previews that make even a mediocre movie look like a must-see cinema event. They want to disturb the audience enough to leave them saying, “I have got to see that movie!”

Here are several horror movie previews for some upcoming 2013 films, as well … Read More »

If you spend any amount of time watching scary movies, you know they are packed from beginning to end with stupid people who do stupid things that get themselves killed. You usually can identify these horror movie morons quite easily because they are the ones who make you stand up and start yelling at the screen. Of course, what you should and should not do in a scary, crisis situation always seems so obvious when you’re sitting in the theater and the creepy music starts to play and you suspect something is about to happen. But, without that creepy music to warn you of impending danger, are you still vigilant enough to avoid doing the things that would get you killed if you were in a horror movie?

Here’s a list of 10 stupid things that horror movies teach us we … Read More »

Richard Cimino Jr., of Doylestown, PA, was arrested for stripping naked in the street, breaking into a house, jumping through a second story window, attacking a woman in the street, and then biting her on the head in what is being described as “another naked cannibalistic zombie-style attack” presumed to be linked to the drug known as “bath salts”.

The incident took place on the morning of September 7, when the 20-year-old allegedly drove his car off the road, got out, stripped down to his underwear, and then tried to break into a local house on Hudson Street in Hawley, a small town located in Wayne County in Pennsylvania.

The Doylestown Patch reported that he woke an occupant in the house, but was not able to make it inside. Police said the homeowner yelled at the man who refused to leave at … Read More »

One of the main reasons December 2012 is linked with a number of doomsday predictions is that many people believe the “Mayan calendar” ends in December of 2012 and they think that was the Maya’s way of predicting the end of the world.

By now, most people have probably heard that the Maya didn’t believe the world was going to end in 2012. But, if the Maya didn’t believe doomsday was coming with the end of their calendar, then why do so many people think they did? What is the origin of this doomsday belief?

The origins of this myth read like an academic soap opera and a conspiracy to manipulate the public for profit that has been building up for over 1,000s of years. Several factors throughout history have perpetuated the myth. To understand them, we need to go back to the … Read More »

Neighbors in Camden, NJ are once again devastated by a brutal stabbing that left one 6-year-old boy dead and his 12-year-old sister in critical condition.

The stabbing comes less than two weeks after Camden mother Chevonne Thomas decapitated her 2-year-old son Zahree before stabbing herself in a murder/suicide that rocked the small town.

This time, ABC News reports that the two children were asleep in their home when, before 2:20 Sunday morning, the attacker entered the home and cut their throats, leaving their 14-year-old sister unharmed.

NJ.com reports that another 9-year-old girl was also in the home at the time, but was also uninjured.

After the attack, reports say that the 12-year-old, identified as Amber, was able to leave the home and go banging on neighbors’ doors asking for help. Police arrived at the scene and found her at a neighbor’s house with her … Read More »

Residents of Camden, NJ, are mourning another tragic murder/suicide in a town that has consistently been ranked one of the top 5 most dangerous cities in the U.S. This time, prosecutors say the victim was 2-year-old Zahree Thomas and the gruesome murder was committed by his own mother Chevonne Thomas in what investigators are describing as “one of the most horrific crime scenes they’ve seen.”

The 33-year-old mother of two reportedly called 9-1-1 around midnight and NBC10 News in Philadelphia reported that she hysterically told the operator that she had done something to her child.

Police arrived at the scene on the 1400 Block of Kaighns Avenue around 12:30.

Upon entering the residence, the police immediately found the decapitated body of a child on the first floor, according to Jason Laughlin from the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.

“They were aware that there was somebody … Read More »

The terms “Armageddon” and “apocalypse” have become synonymous with the end of the world. They have been used to describe various earth-destroying events brought on by some form of natural disaster, or an interstellar object colliding with the earth, or even a horde of rampaging zombies. The term apocalypse, however, is derived from the Greek word “apokalupsis,” which doesn’t mean global annihilation, but instead means a prophetic disclosure or a “revelation.” The source of the term Armageddon reveals that its intended meaning is tied to a specific set of circumstances that lead not to end of the earth itself, but to the large-scale destruction of mankind.

What is Armageddon?

The concept of Armageddon originated from Christian theology, so the details of its meaning are inseparable from the Christian prophesy that inspired it and must be considered within that context. The term comes … Read More »

Dolph Lundgren began filming in Singapore for Battle of the Damned, which will feature the action movie star facing off against zombies and robots.

Lundgren posted the following image from the set in Singapore on his Facebook wall.

In Battle of the Damned, Lundgren plays Max Gatling, a private military soldier who is sent into an abandoned city to find the daughter of a rich industrialist.

On his official website, Lundgren says, “he gets more than he bargained for.”

Lundgren adds, “This time I’m up against virus-infected human zombies, ‘Eaters’ as we call them. … Fortunately, I enlist some kick-ass run-away robots to help me in the battle.”

The following has appeared on several websites as the official plot synopsis for the film:

“On the outskirts of civilization, a remote test facility lays in ruin following a catastrophic security breach. All that remains is a handful … Read More »

Resident Evil: Retribution stars a model-turned-actress and is the 5th installment in a zombie film franchise based on a popular video game that I never played. So what could possibly explain why I was so excited to come across the trailers for the upcoming September 2012 release of this film?

I don’t have anything against video games, I just don’t have the time to play them. But, I have found that most movies based on video games are a detestable waste of time. That’s why I had no interest in seeing any of the previous Resident Evil films. That is until September 2010, when I saw the previews for the fourth and most commercially successful film in the series, Resident Evil: Afterlife. It looked like it actually might be worth seeing.

Since I hadn’t seen any of the previous films, I decided … Read More »

In a week full of gruesome national news stories about face-eating madmen in Florida and disemboweling cage fighters in California, a 43-year-old, Hackensack, NJ man proved that people in the Northeast may have gone just as insane as the rest of the country when he allegedly attempted to fend off police officers by throwing bits and pieces of his skin and intestines at them.

According to the Associated Press, Wayne Carter was barricaded inside his home and was threatening to harm himself with a 12-inch knife when police arrived.

Despite the authorities efforts to talk him down, Carter reportedly began stabbing himself in the legs, neck, and abdomen and then proceeded to fling pieces of his skin and intestines at the officers.

His attempt to fend off the officers with his bloody projectiles was apparently successful, at least temporarily, because that’s when the … Read More »

Sci-fi/horror buffs may have noticed something strangely familiar in the previews of Ridley Scott’s upcoming sci-fi/horror film, Prometheus. While many of Scott’s films share that same dark, misty scenery, the Prometheus previews go a step further, featuring well-known elements from his classic 1979 film, Alien, including large cylinders that looked like the eggs that spawned the infamous “face-hugger” aliens, as well as a large, mysterious alien creature that looked very similar to the alien corpse the crew of the Nostromo found in the original Alien that later became known as the “space jockey.”

Those similarities are no accident. But is Prometheus a tried and true prequel to the Alien movies? Or is it a film that just happens to be set in the same universe with occasional nods to the film series that inspired it?

Originally, it’s been said the film was … Read More »

Why are people so afraid of zombies and what would happen if there were really a zombie apocalypse? These questions and more are discussed in a 90-minute documentary special titled “Zombies: A Living History” by the A&E Television Networks’ History.com.

Zombies traces the history of zombie-like creatures in folklore, literature and entertainment to as far back as the Epic of Gilgamesh, and explores their relation to other undead creatures from various legends and mythologies, including the Scandinavian “Drauger,” which was said to be a person who comes back from the dead as an unstoppable, savage zombie with a craving for human flesh.

Also covered is the difference between the traditional Haitian zombie, a person whose mind is controlled by voodoo, and the modern, post-apocalyptic zombie, made famous by George Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, that is typically created by … Read More »

The creativity and inventiveness of the human mind is not only evident in the centuries of fine art and music collected throughout history. It’s also evident in the devices and vast number of methods that mankind has created to destroy one another throughout the ages. Whether it’s killing one person accused of committing a crime or of being a witch, or slaughtering people en mass as an act of war or terrorism, humanity has turned killing into a sinister and macabre form of art. In this series, we will look at the kinds of devices created when mankind’s creativity and inventiveness are unleashed in combination with their tendency for insatiable bloodlust.

The Brazen Bull was a particularly unique combination of artistry and bloodlust that dates back to Sicily in the 6th century A.D. The bull sculptures were forged out of … Read More »

If the fans of Dark Shadow were vampires themselves, the recently released trailer for Tim Burton’s upcoming remake of the classic soap opera would have been enough to drive a stake through their hearts.

Prior to the release of the trailer, fans were only treated to still images of a ghostly Johnny Deep in character as Barnabas Collins, the tragic and tortured character credited for making the original soap opera series a cult classic. But with the release of the trailer for Burton’s film, fans realized that Burton had done the unthinkable. He had taken their beloved Gothic tale of love and loss and turned it into a comedy.

While the original series, which ran from 1966-1971 on ABC, is now considered to be campy and melodramatic, creator Dan Curtis’s original take was intended to be dark, mysterious, and rarely ever intentionally … Read More »

When you watch a movie like Halloween or Aliens, it becomes perfectly clear how an effective musical score can heighten the emotion of a film. John Carpenter’s simple yet erie piano arrangement in Halloween is probably as synonymous with the film series as Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers themselves. And James Horner’s score for Aliens was so successful at creating a feeling of fear and frenzied military-versus-alien chaos that several other movies used Aliens’ music in their trailers to make their less exciting films seem more interesting.

This underscores how music is a key element that needs to be considered when making a horror film. A well-edited soundtrack can give even a low-budget film some extra production value. It could be the difference between a finished product that looks like a carefully planned and produced labor of love, or a … Read More »

If you’ve ever watched a horror or adventure movie set in the South American Amazon, it’s likely you’ve seen a moment in the film where the unsuspecting adventurer comes upon an ancient burial site or an abandoned city decorated with shrunken human heads to scare off any who would dare encroach upon the sacred or forbidden areas. It’s become a cinematic cliché representing impending danger from uncivilized, native, Amazon people.

But is there a real-life basis for the cliché? Is it actually possible to shrink a human head, and was the Amazon region populated with cultures that did so on a regular basis?

There was actually only one culture in human history that engaged in the practice of shrinking heads. They were called the Jivaro Indians and they lived in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian regions of the Amazon. The Jivaro Indians were … Read More »

April 15, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. It’s a tragic story that has been retold countless times. A well-known tale about the largest passenger steam ship of its time and its many famous and wealthy passengers. One of the most often repeated details of the tragedy is how it inspired changes in maritime laws because the ship didn’t have enough lifeboats for all of its passengers. It’s also common knowledge that the voyage ended in disaster when the Titanic stuck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic, killing an estimated 1,500 people.

But one grim detail that is often overlooked in the recounting of the Titanic story is the fate of all those who never made it into a lifeboat. We know that they died. But how? And what happened to their bodies? Of … Read More »

It used to be that vampire fans could only emulate their favorite horror movie blood suckers by dressing black leather catsuits, buying cheesy plastic fangs at the nearest dollar store, and sporting goth hair styles that make them look like they got attacked by Edward Scissorhands at the beauty salon.

But now, with vampire mania spawning a coven of hit movies and TV shows, die-hard fans no longer have to hang out in dark alleys waiting to get bitten by someone to get an authentic vampire look. Manufacturers are eager to capitalize on the newfound vampire popularity by providing die-hard fans with a whole new level of options for turning themselves into a vampire … without the painful blood letting.

Several contact lens providers are now carrying creepy, multi-colored lenses, designed specifically to match the eerie eyes of the vampires in films … Read More »