Half Price Horror

Why 'Terror of Mechagodzilla'? Why not 'Terror of Mechagodzilla'? It's the last film in the Showa era, the last film made by Ishiro Honda, it's got one of Godzilla's most iconic foes, and all Godzilla is good Godzilla. So let's dig in and see how kaiju were living in the Me Decade!

Sadly, there's no warm and comforting narration to explain how this toy is made - but there are orphans in danger, killer scarecrows, and yet another movie about the origins of Annabelle the haunted doll! Let's dig into it together and see how the next installment in the Conjuring Universe fares.

Long before 'The Crying Game' and 'Interview With the Vampire', Neil Jordan made a splash with a dark, sumptuous retelling of Little Red Riding Hood based on Angela Carter's feminist interpretation of the text. It's been a cult classic ever since... but what is it saying about werewolves, and what is it saying about people for that matter? Time to dig in and find out!

Almost buried in the footnotes to the Conjuring Universe is this little non-supernatural spin-off of a spin-off that retells the Manson killings, albeit with a lot of historical liberties and a cameo appearance from one of the characters in 2014's 'Annabelle'. Is it worth digging this deep into the strata of intellectual property exploitation to find that last little nugget of Conjuring content? L...

Radioactive kids hug their parents to death with lethal microwaves that blast from their gothy black fingernails. That's all you need to know, really. Or possibly there's just no point in knowing anything at all.

Hoo boy. If you thought I was rough on James Wan's 2013 hit 'The Conjuring', you're probably not going to love this episode as I look at the even less true "true story" of the Warrens and their involvement with the Enfield poltergeist. But if you're someone who's thoroughly sick of Ed and Lorraine, this might be just the tonic you need.

It's deja vu all over again, as Half Price Horror returns to Amityville for another look at the "true story" of the Lutz family and their haunted house. But this time we've got Ryan Reynolds, shirtless and jacked, delivering campy one-liners to an audience of CGI specters. Is it an improvement on the original? Let's find out!

Horror fans all know that Annabelle the doll is really just a Raggedy Anne that Hollywood zhushed up a little with some creepy Victorian aesthetic. But does that mean that a movie about her can't be good? Does that mean a film spun off from 'The Conjuring' is just going to be a collection of generic supernatural tropes mushed up and spoon-fed to an audience it assumes to be undiscerning and devoid...

Time to spend another Halloween with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, as she brings us a quirky conspiracy thriller classic from the 1970s! People are turning into homicidal maniacs as their hair falls out, ticking time bombs ready to explode into violent rage. It's all connected to something called "Blue Sunshine"... and if Jerry Zipkin can't uncover its secret, he'll go to prison for a murder he di...

Not going to lie here--what you think of 'The Conjuring' depends greatly on what you think of the real-life Ed and Lorraine Warren, and I'm afraid I came to the party way too late to have a positive opinion of them. So let's talk about why it's important to do your research, not take the word of a pair of sketchy grifters, and why that might make 2013's 'The Conjuring' a less than ideal film.

There's never been a more appropriate time to describe an episode as a "deep dive", as HPH takes a look at Neil Marshall's masterpiece of unbearable rising tension, 2005's claustrophobic horror film 'The Descent'!

It's another Spooky Season, and you know what that means - we're playing all the hits of horror here at HPH! And when it comes to classic and influential horror movies, they don't come much bigger than the tale of Marion Crane, on the run from the law with $40,000 in stolen money and stopping in for a night at the Bates Motel. Enjoy!

It's not quite Spooky Season yet, but we're starting with the big classics early as we dive into one of the foundational texts of science fiction horror. So let's suit up with the United Federation of Planets--excuse me, just the United Planets--and follow our intrepid starship captain as he checks in on a lost colony and finds lost technology from an advanced alien race... and monsters. Monsters...

The original '28 Days Later' was shot during 9/11, but its concepts and themes had been finalized before that moment of historic upheaval. So what does it look like when the demise of Britain at the hands of rage monsters becomes a conscious, intentionally political film? What do we see when we look at zombies through the eyes of a post-Iraq filmmaker? '28 Weeks Later' has the answ...

Start spreading the news, folks, because just like Jason in 1989, the Gremlins are headed to the Big Apple and they want everyone—simply everyone, from Christopher Lee to Leonard Maltin to Hulk Hogan—to join them! So come along, and we’ll talk about the movie so gloriously anarchic it inspired its very own Key and Peele sketch!

London is deserted, a plague has stricken Great Britain, and the streets are filled with chaos and danger. Is it 1963's classic Doctor Who story 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth'? Probably not, but it is time to take a look at a movie that might have been improved with a Dalek or two with 2002's '28 Days Later'!

It's been a while since we've talked about 'Shaun of the Dead', Edgar Wright's ferociously inventive debut feature, and even longer since we've discussed 1973's folk horror classic 'The Wicker Man'. But they're both relevant here, as Wright and his collaborator Simon Pegg come together for a loving mashup of folk horror and action comedy in the 2007 masterpi...

Time for deja vu all over again, as we jump ahead a year from 'The Night Stalker' to its very similar sequel, 'The Night Strangler'. Will Kolchak clash with the police? Will he argue with his editor some more? Is there a supernatural angle to the murders? Listen and find out!

French filmmaker Jean Rollin is a controversial figure in cult cinema, known for his surreal and vivid imagery as well as his strange, almost dreamlike stories. Let's dive into his body of work with one of his early forays into erotic horror and vampire movies, the 1971 'Shiver of the Vampires' (also known as 'Strange Things Happen at Night') and see what makes him so loved and...

Time to tackle an undeservedly forgotten classic, a 1972 made-for-television movie about a cynical reporter in Sin City who stumbles on the evidence of crimes no rationalist can explain away. There's a real, live vampire in Las Vegas... and maybe Carl Kolchak is the only one who can stop it.

It's time for your horror host to celebrate another birthday with another birthday-themed horror movie, and why not go straight to the sequel of the one he did last year? It's a bit repetitive, sure, but that's kind of appropriate in this case because Tree's also stuck in a bit of a rut. In fact, she's right back to repeating her birthday all over again... but this time, someth...

"Christmas in July" concludes, but not before a little stop in Halloween Town to pick up some goodies for Spooky Season. But is Jack Skellington really the good guy of this story, or is he the Elon Musk of Christmas? Let's take a deep dive and find out!

Christmas in July continues, as we jump into the most authentically holiday-themed horror movie of the genre! But given that director Michael Dougherty's last movie 'Trick 'r' Treat' made a fetish out of honoring traditions without question, is 'Krampus' going to be any different? Listen and find out!

Gremlins had a cultural footprint far beyond its box office success--indeed, it's one of the films that indelibly defines the 1980s. But what does this movie have to say about Reagan's America and the cultural conception of small-town life? How do the grEMliNs inVAde the veRy naRRAtiVe stRUCTure of the fiLM itsELf to coNVeY a sENse of anARKie &&&&& Sorry about that. The...

Time to begin 'Christmas in July', as we take a look at one of the earliest examples of holiday horror and a major influence on the slasher genre. There's a killer stalking campus over Winter Break, and nobody knows their identity... but they're getting troubling phone calls from someone referencing "Billy". And people are disappearing.