How many grails are left now, in American horror? I mean, untouched, un-remade. Exorcist, Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, American Werewolf in London. Surely there’s another iconic one or two I’m missing, but, I mean, Jason and Freddy and Michael and Leatherface have all been updated, a new Carrie’s on the way soon, and I guess the only reason Ghostface has missed that treatment lo these seventeen years later is that the franchise is still alive.

The Evil Dead, though, man. There’s ra…

I haven’t been this impressed with a slasher in a good long time. I want to say since Cabin in the Woods. And before that . . . Tucker & Dale vs. Evil? Behind the Mask: Leslie Vernon? Except none of them quite play it Golden Age, either. And that’s good, don’t get me wrong. As you can tell from Demon Theory and The Last Final Girl, self-aware’s more than fine with me. Almost all the slashers to come all along after 1996 have been the children of Scream, after all, if not clones. And you …

1. Horror can still be very disturbing and very complete without gore and nudity

Is there even any profanity in The Mooring? I can’t think of it, if there is. Which isn’t to say over-the-top gore isn’t a complete riot, just all kinds of fun. I like it when I have to hide my eyes. Last time that happened, I guess, would have been Excision. First time? Probably The Exorcist. Well, okay, The Eyes of Laura Mars, but that wasn’t from gore, but absolute, undiluted terror; I was eight, I thin…

Man, sat down to make this list on the last day of 2012, but stumbled into the opening line of a novel instead, and have been there ever since. 160, 170 pages in right now, and staring down that last chapter. Which, as always, is terrifying. So, to stall, here’s my list, taking into account the specific kind of loser I am—that is, one who somehow missed Final Destination 5, just because I got burned by Final Destination 4. But I should have just remembered how much I loved the fi…

This deep into a franchise—really, I’ve lost count of the Texas Chainsaw Massacres—most horror series are  limping along, putting a movie out just to keep the brand in-house, that kind of stuff. Not here. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D is every single thing I want from a horror movie. And the story actually surprises me.

Worse, I almost missed the whole thing. Because I accidentally read a review or two, and it’s so easy to pan the sequel to a remake, or however this one’s stacked. Re…

ten in the morning, just after comic book class:

and. the close-up:

and, will be something different tonight, I suspect. Jason Voorhees, Ghostface, a horse-head dude, I don’t know. I do know this night’s never long enough.…

This was the easiest list to make. These are the images and jump-scares I think of first thing each night at two or three in the morning when I wake up. Take last night for example: I’m gonesville when I hear something crash downstairs. Or, I hear the end of it. So of course I have to investigate. By degrees. And, instead of anything understandable, what it is that fell is this skeleton hand we keep perched on an antique typewriter. Why it would fall at three in the morning, I hav…

When Katie from Paranormal Activity moves in across the street, it’s a pretty sure bet things are going to get demon-y, and fast. And, we’ve seen the other three, so we know all the rules:

• demons love to move furniture
• adults never notice anything
• there’s always some reason to have a camera rolling 24/7
• something in the background will move, if you watch long enough
• witches aren’t scary.

What this fourth installment adds is:

• nobody closes laptops
• a c

We all live in Stephen King’s house. I mean, all of us who hope to write the scary stuff. Case in point: Sinister. Is there any way to move a writer into a new house and not conjure Jack Torrance? And, going back a touch farther—as King, I assume (going by Danse Macabre) would do himself—what’s Jack Torrance if not a more dangerous Eleanor, from The Haunting of Hill House? I mean, what you’ve got is somebody made vulnerable by their character flaws and/or past, and you’re plugging th…

Life in a slasher film is easy. You just have to know when to die.

Aerial View: A suburban town in Texas. Everyone’s got an automatic garage door opener. All the kids jump off a perilous cliff into a shallow river as a rite of passage. The sheriff is a local celebrity. You know this town. You’re from this town.

Zoom In: Homecoming princess, Lindsay. She’s just barely escaped death at the hands of a brutal, sadistic murderer in a Michael Jackson mask. Up on the cliff, she …