Discover the Horror

The Toolbox Murders (1978) and Toolbox Murders (2004) In this Twice Told Tales episode, we examine a film and its "remake," though few pairs could be more different. Some would argue that the 2004 film is a remake in name only. Even so, in addition to the name, the two share enough connections, both on screen and behind the scenes, to make for an interesting comparison. On one side is an unflinchi...

Rigor Mortis (2013), When Evil Lurks (2023), and Vicious (2025) Pretty much from the very beginning of horror cinema—or cinema in general—supernatural horror has been part of the storytelling tradition. Granted, many of those early films were adaptations of famous works of literature dealing with ghosts, vampires, and other unworldly creatures, but more than a century later, the supernatural remai...

The Fly (1958), Return of the Fly (1959), and Curse of the Fly (1965) Among the many films in which deviant mad scientists pay the price for meddling with forces beyond human understanding, The Fly stands apart. Released in 1958, it presents a scientist whose intentions are genuinely noble: someone striving to create something that could benefit humanity. Unfortunately, an unforeseen accident turn...

The Shiver of the Vampire (1972), Lips of Blood (1975), and The Living Dead Girl (1982) The films created by director Jean Rollin are unlike anything else in the history of cinema.  If you make your way into his incredible filmic world, you will be entranced by its beauty, cinematic landscapes, and unique horrors. And the more you venture down this path, the more you'll start to pick up on repeati...

Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980), and Mother of Tears (2007) There are very few horror fans out there who don't know the work of Dario Argento, especially the giallo films he's most famous for. While he only occasionally ventured into supernatural horror, whenever he did, he approached it with the same unmistakable style that defines all of his work. After helping define the giallo genre with Deep...

The Night Stalker (1972) , Dracula  (1973), and Trilogy of Terror (1975) Horror fans from the 1970s may not have known the name Dan Curtis, but they certainly knew his work. From his early gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, where one of the main characters just happened to be a vampire, to the countless adaptations of classic novels, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and Jekyll and Hyde, to even more th...

StageFright (1987), The Church (1989), and Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) Most horror fans are at least familiar with the Italian horror tradition, even if they aren't deeply immersed in it. Directors like Mario Bava , Lucio Fulci , Dario Argento , and Joe D'Amato helped define one of the most prolific and influential horror movements in cinema history, producing a remarkable run of classic films ove...

Even the Wind is Afraid (1968), Darker Than Night (1975), and Poison for the Fairies (1986) Mexican Director Carlos Enrique Taboada may not be the best known name to American horror fans, but he has made some films which are considered classics of the Mexican horror world. Which is why we decided to tackle 3 of this films in this episode. These films are fascinating as they are modern stories but...

Horror films are a unique genre because they can have a profound effect on the viewer. They can literally change lives, leaving such a strong impression that something shifts in the psyche. Whether it makes someone afraid to go in the water, uneasy around bugs, frightened by Frankenstein's creature, or just generally on edge, these films can have a lasting impact. They are meant to scare us, but f...

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), The Monster that Challenged the World (1957), and The Giant Gila Monster (1959) There is something special about this decade, one that gave us so many sci-fi / horror films, with plenty of incredible monsters, whether they came from outer space, or right here from our backyard. And thanks to atomic energy, those monsters tended to be big ones! In fact... GIANT...

House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964) In the beginning of his career as a producer / director Roger Corman was known for cranking out cheap and fast black and white pictures that always made money. He worked in all genres, but it was mainly the horror and sci-fi pictures in the mid to late '60s he was known for. All that changed in 1960, whe...

In My Skin (2002), Inside (2007), and Martyrs (2008) While the French aren't widely known for their horror films, when they do enter the genre, it's often something special. A perfect example is Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (1960). With its stark realism and dark themes, it established a tone of discomfort and unease that still feels powerful today. In the early 2000s, a new wave of younge...

The Deadly Spawn (1983) & Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990) A cult fan favorite of the 1980s low-budget monster boom, The Deadly Spawn is best remembered for one of the era's most distinctive creature designs. Its semi-sequel, Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor , is a scrappy and underrated follow-up that's still a lot of fun, and long overdue for a proper Blu-ray upgrade. Behind both films is T...

Another year in the books, which means it is time for our annual Wrap Up, where we not only go through our personal favorites of the year, but also some other standout films, as well as some others that came out in the last 12 months. For the second year in a row, it is astounding at some of the high quality pictures that have been getting released. From ones going straight to streaming services,...

Every now and again, the horror genre produces a film that becomes a bona fide classic. In 1980, director William Lustig and co-writer and star Joe Spinell teamed up to make what may be the defining film of the 42nd Street grindhouse era: Maniac . The film has it all, a serial-killing protagonist who scalps women while sobbing about his mother, buckets of gore from an early-career Tom Savini, and...

Count Dracula's Great Love (1973), Horror Rises from the Tomb (1973), Panic Beats (1983) We're finally back to discuss the wonderful cinematic world of Paul Naschy! Back in episode 21, we covered three different entries in Naschy's werewolf films. So this time out, we are covering three of his NON-werewolf titles. It's important to remind fans that while he was known for his Waldemar Daninsky were...

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), Terrorvision (1986), and Uninvited (1988). That's right, folks! It's Turkey Time again, and we are celebrating our 5th episode dedicated to those wonderous missteps in cinematic history. They aimed for the stars, but dropped like frozen turkey chucked off a building! But as we always say, the only bad movie is a boring one . And these films are definitely not bo...

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974) Continuing our quest to get through the rest of Hammer's Frankenstein films which starred Peter Cushing, we cover the last three titles that Hammer made. Cushing loved to play this character, and he's done it like no one ever had, or ever has. Along with the screenwriters, Cushin...

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), and The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) What can you say about the Hammer Frankenstein films that hasn't been said before? Well, a lot, actually! In 1957, a relatively small, mostly unknown studio made a film that would forever change horror and kick off a cycle of sensual, bloody, and atmospheric fright flicks that would dominate t...

No matter what kind of horror fan you are, there's a good chance that you love the monsters. Whether it's from the Universal Classics, Hammer's colorful reinterpretations, the amazing creatures from Ray Harryhausen, to the no-classic aliens in Star Wars, monsters are a backbone of cinema, and arguably, are the backbone of horror. It's one of the things that we horror fans rally around, and love to...

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), Quatermass 2 (1957), Quatermass and the Pit (1967) Everyone knows the name Hammer Films (at least, we hope they do!) but most people associate it with gothic horror, particularly their reimagining of the Universal classic Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). Yet Hammer had been around long before Peter Cushing breathed life into that first stitched-tog...

The Ghastly Ones  (1968),  The Man with Two Heads  (1972), and  Carnage  (1984) There are not many filmmakers like Andy Milligan. Sure, there were a lot of no-budget independents during Milligan's era that somehow got their finished pictures to play theaters and released on home video. But there weren't many whose real life was almost as terrifying as the films they made. But Andy Milligan would f...

A Company of Wolves (1984), Nightbreed (1990), Errementari (2017) As horror fans, we might not really think about the amount of horror elements that are in other sub-genres, such as fantasy. Sure, we all know titles like Conan the Barbarian (1982) that has a guy who turns into a giant snake, or Legend (1985) where one of the main characters is some sort of demon or devil, do those elements make it...

If you've been to a few horror conventions over the years, you've probably noticed all the artists showcasing their work. Do you ever stop to browse, flipping through their illustrations and taking in the different visions of horror they bring to life? These artists set up hoping to catch the eye of fans wandering past, sharing their unique takes on monsters, movies, and macabre ideas. One of thos...

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972), Deathdream (1974), Black Christmas (1974) Director Bob Clark will probably always be remembered for his now classic holiday film, A Christmas Story (1983), released the same year as his previous film, Porky's , which is one of the raunchiest sex comedies of that era! But he started off making horror films, 3 of them in particular, before he moved on...