Haunted Newsreel

Using the camera and some tricks of light and perspective, Mario Bava created artistic masterpieces that were beautiful in motion and often more beautiful seen at a halting standstill. It's one thing to create a phenomenal photograph and quite another to present 24 a second for 80-100 minutes. Herein we present some visually striking moments from several of Bava's films from within the horror genre and from without. Each still is taken from a DVD screen capture and most are presented without additional comment. (read more...)

Each week in October this year, as part of our Shocktober Classics event, we'll be featuring a different director who has significantly contributed to the horror genre, with new reviews for that director's films from Monday to Friday of that week. For the third week of October, we turn our gaze to Lucio Fulci, popularly referred to as "The Godfather of Gore."

Fulci began his film career working as a screenwriter before graduating to director with the Toto comedy I Ladri (The Thieves) in 1959. Although he filmed movies of many different genres throughout his 32-year career, he is best known for his horror films. His early efforts in the genre (including 1969's Perversion Story, 1971's A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, and 1972's Don't Torture a Duckling) were frequently mystery-thrillers in the giallo tradition, with only the occasional use of gore effects.(read more...)

Warning: Spoilers for "Doctor Who" season three and "Torchwood" season one below.  Mild spoilers for "Torchwood" season two.

If you're hooked on BBC America's airings of "Torchwood," you'll be glad to hear that work on season two has already begun.  It won't air until January of 2008 in the UK and no word yet on a US air date, so the creators were understandably tight-lipped about what was coming.  "If I say too much now, it'll be old news by the time it comes out," says head writer Chris Chibnall.  Still, they did share a few tidbits from the upcoming season.

Chibnall says, "In season one, It's almost like a dysfunctional family  It's about these kind of disparate people trying to work together, trying to work each other out.  In season two, that family is much more tight-knit.  And it's about them going out in the world as a very close-knit team."(read more...)

Each week in October this year, as part of our Shocktober Classics event, we'll be featuring a different director who has significantly contributed to the horror genre, with new reviews for that director's films from Monday to Friday of that week.

The schedule for the month is as follows:

Week of October 1st: Roger Corman
Week of October 8th: Wes Craven
Week of October 15th: Lucio Fulci
Week of October 22nd: Mario Bava
Week of October 29th: Mario Bava continued (through the 31st)