The 2025 Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot
Superior Achievement in an Anthology
Allingham, LCW and Eno, River — Vampire Hunters: An Incomplete Record of Personal Accounts (Speculation Publications)
Armiento, Isabel, ed. — One Bad Night & Other Stories (Aardvark Book Club)
Bissett, Carina, ed — Fractured Reveries: A Storied Imaginarium Salon (Storied Imaginarium)
Day, Julie C.; Bissett, Carina; and Gidney, Craig Laurance, eds. — Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology (Essential Dreams Press)
Golden, Christopher and Keene, Brian — The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand (Gallery Books)
Ihezue, Somto and Kidula, Olivia — Will This Be A Problem? The Anthology (Shilitza Publishing)
Kulski, Kristy Park — Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora (Bad Hand Books)
Murray, Lee and Jeffery, Dave — This Way Lies Madness: Stories from the Edge of Darkness (Flame Tree Publishing)
Pascale, Elaine — Darkness Most Fowl (The Godmother of Horror Press)
Ryan, Lindy and Wytovich, Stephanie M., ed. — HOWL: An Anthology of Werewolves from Women-in-Horror (Black Spot Books)
Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection
Castro, V. — The Pink Agave Motel & Other Stories (CLASH Books)
Chapman, Clay McLeod — Acquired Taste (Titan Books)
Files, Gemma — Little Horn: Stories (Shortwave)
Guignard, Eric J. — A Graveside Gallery: Tales of Ghosts and Dark Matters (Cemetery Dance)
Langan, John — Lost in The Dark and Other Excursions (Word Horde)
Ntumy, Cheryl S. — Black Friday: Stories from Africa (Flame Tree Press)
Piper, Hailey — Teenage Girls Can Be Demons (Titan Books)
Regan, M. — stories in the minor key (Sobelo)
Robertson, Andrew — InHUMANities(The Great Lakes Horror Company)
Tantlinger, Sara — Cyanide Constellations (Dark Matter INK)
Superior Achievement in a First Novel
Daly, Grace — The Scald-Crow (Creature Publishing)
Justine, H. Lee — You Watched in Silence (Blackstone Publishing)
Karella, Bitter — Moonflow (Run For It)
Madrid, L.L. — My Lips, Her Voice (Creature Publishing)
Pell, Tanya — Her Wicked Roots (Gallery Books)
Penney, Vanessa F. — The Witch of Willow Sound (ECW Press)
Steel, Hester — The Faceless Thing We Adore (Page Street Horror)
Tennison, Kathryn — Molting (Uncomfortably Dark Horror)
Viel, Neena — Listen to Your Sister (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Wehunt, Michael — The October Film Haunt (St. Martin’s Press)
Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel
Bunn, Cullen (writer) and Luckert, Danny (artist) – Jumpscare (Dark Horse Comics)
Bunn, Cullen (writer) and Mitten, Christopher (artist) – The Autumn Kingdom: Through the Blight (Oni Press)
Carey, Mike (writer) and Raimondi, Pablo (artist) – Ghostbox (Mad Cave Studios)
Cleveland, Anthony (writer) and Cormack, Alex (artist) – Buried Long, Long Ago (Mad Cave Studios)
King, Sandy (editor) – John Carpenter’s Tales for a HalloweeNight, Volume 11 (Storm King Comics)
Kraus, Daniel (writer) and Dani (artist) – Athanasia (VAULT Comics)
Mignola, Mike – Bowling With Corpses and Other Tales from Lands Unknown (Dark Horse Comics)
Oeming, Michael Avon – William of Newbury (Dark Horse Comics)
Tynion IV, James (writer), Foxe, Steve (writer), and Kowalski, Piotr (artist) – Let This One Be a Devil – (Dark Horse Comics & Tiny Onion Studios)
Tynion IV, James (writer) and Walsh, Michael (artist) – Exquisite Corpses (Image Comics & Tiny Onion Studios)
Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
Bacon, Eugen — The Nga’phandileh Whisperer: A Sauútiverse Novella (Stars and Sabers)
Ballingrud, Nathan — Cathedral of the Drowned (Tor Nightfire)
Cooper, S.H. — Reap, Sow (Independently Published)
Ha, Thomas — “Uncertain Sons” (Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, Undertow Publications)
Langan, Sarah — “Squid Teeth”(Reactor)
Langan, Sarah — Pam Kowolski is a Monster! (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Marano, Luciano — Humbug (Crystal Lake Publishing)
McRobert, Neil — Good Boy (Wild Hunt Books)
Wise, A.C. — “Wolf Moon, Antler Moon” (Reactor)
Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction
Borwein, Naomi Simone, ed. — Global Indigenous Horror (University Press of Mississippi)
Cavallaro, Jason — Cracking Spines: Three Decades of Horror (Independently Published)
Grafius, Brandon R. and Morehead, John W., eds. — The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Monsters (Oxford University Press)
Hieber, Leanna Renee and Janes, Andrea — America’s Most Gothic (Kensington Publishing)
Isaacson, Johanna — What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (DieDieBooks)
Lisowksi, Zefyr — Uncanny Valley Girls — (Harper Perennial)
Rogerson, Matt, ed. — Darkest Margins: 24 Essays on Liminality and Liminal Spaces in the Horror Genre (1428 Publishing)
Scrivner, Coltan — Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can’t Look Away (Penguin Random House)
Sederholm, Carl H. and Woofter, Kristopher, eds. — The Weird: A Companion (Peter Lang, Oxford)
Spratford, Becky Siegel, ed. — Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction (Saga Press)
Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel
Averling, Mary — The Ghosts of Bitterfly Bay (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)
Blankenship-Kramer, Carey — Ghost Scout’s Honor (Scholastic Press)
Collings, Michaelbrent — Grimmworld: The Big Bad Wolf (Shadow Mountain Publishing)
Dawson, Delilah S. — Ride or Die (Delacorte Press)
Field, Colm — Uncle Zeedie (Fox and Ink Books)
Kuyatt, Meg Eden — The Girl in the Walls (Scholastic Press)
Malinenko, Ally — Broken Dolls (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
Ocker, J.W. — Welcome to the Ghost Show (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
Oh, Ellen — The House Next Door (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
Russell, Ally — Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave (Delacorte Press)
Superior Achievement in a Novel
Baker, Kylie Lee — Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng (MIRA / Hodder & Stoughton)
Chapman, Clay McLeod — Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (Quirk Books)
Hendrix, Grady — Witchcraft for Wayward Girls (Berkley)
Hill, Joe — King Sorrow (William Morrow)
Jones, Stephen Graham — The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (Saga Press)
Kraus, Daniel — Angel Down (Atria Books)
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia — The Bewitching (Del Rey)
Piper, Hailey — A Game in Yellow (Saga Press)
Tingle, Chuck — Lucky Day (Tor Nightfire)
Wagner, Wendy N. — Girl in the Creek (Tor Nightfire)
Superior Achievement in Poetry (Collection and Long Form)
Addison, Linda D. and Hodge, Jamal — Everything Endless (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Byrdlong, Brian — Strange Flowers (YesYes Books)
Couturier, Scott J. — Nightmuse: Poems of Speculative Darkness (Jackanapes)
Gold, Maxwell I. — Songs of Enough: An Inferno All My Own (Hippocampus Press)
Kearns, Shannon — The Uterus is an Impossible Forest (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Niles, Frederick — Slender Bones in Sacred Soil (Blood Moon Publishing)
Peebles, Cate — The Haunting (Tupelo Press)
Raguso, MarieAnn C, Ph.D — Allegories of Beauty & Violence: a collection of Gothic Romance Poems (Analyze This)
Rockwell, Griffin — listen—a poetic creature (Interstellar Flight Press)
Schultz, K. A. — PÔËTÍQUE Dark Poems & Lyric Poetry (Dakeha Taunus LLC)
Superior Achievement in a Screenplay
Busick, Guy and Taylor, Lori Evans — Final Destination: Bloodlines (New Line Cinema / Domain Entertainment / Practical Pictures)
Coogler, Ryan — Sinners (Warner Bros. / Domain / Proximity)
Cregger, Zach — Weapons (New Line Cinema / Domain / Subconscious)
Ezban, Isaac and Fentanes, Ricardo Aguado — Parvulos: Children of the Apocalypse (Corazon Films / MalignoGorehouse / Red Elephant)
Garland, Alex — 28 Years Later (Sony / Columbia Pictures / TSG Entertainment)
Hancock, Drew — Companion (New Line Cinema / BoulderLight Pictures / Vertigo Entertainmen)
Hassel, Lukas — House of Abraham (Jump Rock Pictures)
Mollner, JT — The Long Walk (Lionsgate / Media Capital Technologies / Vertigo Entertainment)
Philippou, Danny and Hinzman, Bill — Bring Her Back (Causeway Films / Salmira Productions / The South Australian Film Corporation)
Shanks, Michael — Together (1.21 / 30West / Picturestart / Princess Pictures)
Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
Daniels, L.E. — “Stomata” (Darkness Most Fowl, The Godmother of Horror Press)
Joseph, RJ – “Inheritance” (Full Throttle: A Dark Dozen Anthology, Uncomfortably Dark Publishing)
Keeling, Phil – “The Elevated Table” (Red Cedar Review, Vol. 60)
Lee, Felicia – “Chichilo” (Short(b)Reads) (Hollow Oak Press)
McKenzie, Amy Lynne – “Because I Am Writing Another Horror Screenplay” (Out There, Sans. PRESS)
Nelson, David Erik – “The Nölmyna” (Reactor)
Szczepaniak-Gillece, Jocelyn — “Saint Dymphna’s School for Borderland Girls” — (Weird Horror #10, Undertow Publications)
Taborska, Anna — “[Ir]reversible” (Witches and Witchcraft: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Essays, Hippocampus Press)
Tierney, Charlotte – “Who Kills a Spider” (Extra Teeth Magazine, Extra Bite)
Wongsatayanont, Champ – “Autogas Ferryman” (Nightmare Magazine #156, Adamant Press)
Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction
Barb, Patrick —“Deathwish Wolf Man: The Tragic Hero at the Heart of the Universal Monster” (Interstellar Flight Magazine) (Interstellar Flight Press)
Cassels, Pat — “Coney Island’s Last Surviving Classic Haunted Ride” (Atlas Obscura)
Chapman, Clay McLeod —“Why I Am Horror” (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press)
Due, Tananarive —“My Long Road to Horror” (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press)
Jones, Stephen Graham — “Why Horror” (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press)
Kerestman, Katherine — “Frank Belknap Long Letters, Written to Michael E. Ambrose, 1976-1979” (Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts Oct 2025, International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts)
Moshaty, Mo —“Haunted Thresholds: Liminal Horror and the Psychological Disintegration of Women from Post-Partum, Grief, Trauma and Religious Fanaticism” (Darkest Margins: 24 Essays on Liminality and Liminal Spaces in the Horror Genre) (1428 Publishing Ltd)
Pelayo, Cynthia — “My Mother Was Margaret White” (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press)
Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew — “Author Functions: Stephen King’s Writers” (Theorizing Stephen King, Amsterdam University Press)
Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew — “The Victorian American Ghost Story” (The Victorian Ghost Story: An Edinburgh Companion) (Edinburgh University Press)
Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel
Chapman, Clay McLeod – Shiny Happy People (Delacorte Press)
Cheng, Linda — Beautiful Brutal Bodies (Roaring Brook Press)
Chupeco, Rin — We’re Not Safe Here (Sourcebooks)
Goldsmith, Amy — Predatory Natures (Delacorte Press)
Harris, Pamela N. — Through Our Teeth (Quill Tree Books)
Moreau, Khalia — He Burns By The River (Augustine Books)
Rodriguez Wallach, Diana — The Silenced (Delacorte Press)
Roux, Madeleine — A Girl Walks Into The Forest (Quill Tree Books)
Sain, Ginny Myers — When The Bones Sing (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Tobias, Trisha — Honeysuckle and Bone (Sweet July Books)
Bloody Disgusting has a complete list of their favorite horror book choices of 2025 HERE
Filmmakers: Here's one for you. A brand new film festival is coming to the State of Washington in October 2026. Get ready for it now!
Dark and Stormy Nights Film Festival, a new international short horror film festival founded by filmmakers, is proud to announce its inaugural event taking place October 17–18, 2026, in the misty coastal town of Ocean Shores, Washington.
Set against the atmospheric backdrop of the Washington coast, Dark and Stormy Nights Film Festival invites audiences and filmmakers alike to spend a few dark and stormy nights celebrating horror storytelling from around the world. The festival will showcase international short horror films, alongside a special “Home Grown” Pacific Northwest block, highlighting regional talent.
Submissions are now open, with a special discounted entry fee of $10 using code DSNMM.
What sets Dark and Stormy Nights Film Festival apart is its filmmaker-first approach. As filmmakers themselves, the festival’s organizers have built an experience that prioritizes artist support, community, and immersive atmosphere.
Find out more HERE
Golden Globes 2026: Where Horror Landed and Why It Still Mattered
The genre did not dominate the night, but key wins and nominations kept horror firmly in the awards conversation
The 83rd Golden Globe Awards were not a breakout moment for horror, but they did reinforce how far horror filmmaking has pushed into the mainstream awards space. While major wins were limited, several high-profile recognitions underscored the genre's growing cultural and commercial relevance.
According to the Golden Globes, Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, emerged as the most prominent genre title of the night. The film entered the ceremony with seven nominations across major categories, including Best Picture Drama, directing and screenplay recognition, acting honors for Michael B. Jordan, and multiple music-related categories.
Sinners ultimately secured two wins. It received the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement award, highlighting its rare success as a large-scale original release, and composer Ludwig Göransson won Best Original Score. While the film did not convert its full slate of nominations, those victories positioned it as one of the most impactful horror-adjacent releases of the year.
Elsewhere among the nominees, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein earned recognition in the Best Picture Drama field, signaling continued openness from the Globes toward prestige-driven genre storytelling. Zach Cregger's Weapons also appeared in the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement category, reinforcing horror's presence in commercially focused awards spaces.
Animation delivered one of the night's clearest genre victories. Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters won Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song for "Golden," marking a notable win for horror-leaning storytelling rooted in supernatural action and genre mythology.
On the television side, genre series maintained visibility through nominations rather than wins. Titles such as Wednesday, Monster: The Ed Gein Story, The Last of Us, and Black Mirror remained part of the conversation, even as top honors went elsewhere.
Taken together, the 2026 Golden Globes reflected a familiar pattern for horror. The genre continues to earn recognition when creative ambition intersects with broad audience reach, but it remains underrepresented in the ceremony's most prestigious categories. Still, each nomination and selective win reinforces horror's growing legitimacy within the industry.
With Academy Award nominations set to be announced on January 22, the Golden Globes offer a clear snapshot of where horror currently stands: visible, competitive, and increasingly difficult to overlook, even on nights when it does not take center stage.
PRIMATE Is The First Box Office Horror Hit Of 2026
Paramount's killer monkey movie prevailed over GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION
by RYAN SCOTT
January tends to be a pretty quiet month, so far as the box office is concerned, but it’s also a month where the right kind of movie can find its audience. Such was the case for Primate, the new killer chimpanzee movie from Paramount Pictures and Johannes Roberts. Though not a blockbuster by any means, the modestly-budgeted horror movie found its audience this past weekend, becoming the year’s first horror hit in theaters.
Primate opened to an estimated $11.3 million domestically over the weekend, good enough for second place on the charts. It couldn’t unseat Avatar: Fire and Ash ($21.3 million) in the top spot, that movie’s fourth frame atop the charts. But that shouldn’t be considered the bar for success for a movie like this either. It carries a reported $21 million budget. When taking into account the $2.1 million Roberts’ latest added overseas, a $13.4 million global start is a win here. It will need to hold in the coming weeks but either way, this is a solid start.
Audiences bought what Paramount was selling with Primate, an old-school, when animals attack picture. It’s a simple premise but one that was executed quite well. The studio was rather confident in the movie as they showed it at Fantastic Fest last September in Austin, Texas, confident that the buzz would be positive. It largely has been.
In the film, a group of friends’ tropical vacation away from college in Hawaii turns into a terrifying night of horror and survival when a friendly chimp named Ben becomes not-so-friendly anymore. The cast includes Johnny Sequoyah (Dexter: New Blood), Jessica Alexander (Fallen) and Troy Kotsur (CODA). Critics have generally been kind to the movie, which helped get butts in seats on opening weekend.
The weekend’s other big newcomer, Greenland 2: Migration, didn’t fare so well. The Gerard Butler disaster flick opened with just $8.5 million domestically, behind holdovers such as Zootopia 2 ($10.1 million) and The Housemaid ($11.2 million), which is now a certifiably huge hit coming up on $200 million worldwide against a $35 million budget. Paul Feig and Lionsgate are already moving forward with The Housemaid 2 as a result. Meanwhile, Sony’s Anaconda reboot added another $5.1 million, passing $110 million worldwide.
Looking ahead, it’s a rather crowded month for horror fans. We have 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple arriving this Friday, with Return to Silent Hill and Sam Raimi’s Send Help also on deck. Whether or not there’s room for all of them to thrive remains to be seen.
FIVE INTERESTING THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE MOVIE SINNERS
1. Michael B. Jordan enlisted real-life twins as consultants for the film.
Michael B. Jordan portrays twin brothers, Elijah ("Smoke") and Elias ("Stack"), in Sinners. To authentically capture the nuances of twin dynamics, Coogler enlisted real-life twin filmmakers Logan and Noah Miller as consultants. They guided Jordan in understanding the unique bond and subtle distinctions between twins, ensuring a portrayal that was both genuine and distinct.
"We had twin consultants on this movie," Michael said during a press stop, per Mama's Geeky. "Two friends of mine that are actually filmmakers as well, Logan and Noah Miller, who I know from Northern California. They were able to consult and work with Mike on the mindset of sharing a womb with somebody and growing up with them and how unique of a dynamic that is. But at the same time, not making it a caricature. The differences between these two guys are slight, but they are there.
The film is so much fun. What we are dealing with in the film is a lot of archetypal characters. These are identical twins, but they are also that concept of twins. Every neighborhood where I was from coming up, if you said, 'Hey, man, where are the twins at?' They would have these guys, and they’re kind of notorious local celebrities. So it was an exploration of that. It’s unique in that they are identical twins, but they are two different people. It’s not as simple as two sides of the same coin in that there’s a dynamic that exists with identical twins that’s known."
2. To ensure a respectful and accurate portrayal of Hoodoo — a spiritual tradition rooted in African-American culture — Ryan and his wife/producing partner, Zinzi Coogler, enlisted Dr. Yvonne Chireau as a consultant.
Dr. Chireau, a professor of religion at Swarthmore College and author of Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition, guided the film set in depicting Hoodoo, not as superstition but as a vital cultural legacy intertwined with the film's themes of ancestral reverence and healing.
“I give all the credit to [Ryan] Coogler and Zinzi. They were very clear that they wanted a true and authentic presentation of this religion because of the kinds of things that we see in Hollywood,” Dr. Yvonne told Teen Vogue, referring to the demonization of the spiritual practice in pop culture, as well as the sensationalization of Voodoo.
“The strongest aspect of Hoodoo, I would argue, is that it is a tradition of healing. Hoodoo isn't just practice, but thought. Hoodoo for enslaved people, [which] carried after slavery, was the means of healing relationships. Between lovers and families, like we see with Annie and Smoke, but also relationships between the living and the dead. This is paramount to Black American people, because the chain between the living and the dead from Africa to America was severed during the Middle Passage.”
3. This was Miles Caton's feature film debut.
"What's incredible about this young man, from our first days on set, I had so much confidence in him, that was kind of inexplicable," Ryan said. " I'd be arranging my shots and I would say, 'I think Miles could probably get this in two takes. And looking back in hindsight, it was like, 'Man, this dude's never been in a movie before, but I had all this faith.'"
"[Miles] mentioned Beth McGuire, who’s an acting teacher at Yale University and a dialect coach. She's taught Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, and has worked with Danai Gurira, Yahya Abdul-Mateen — all these actors who have come out of Yale, Beth has taught. So, he had one of the best acting teachers and dialect coaches at his disposal. From the first day that she worked with him, she came to me and said, 'Hey, this man has got it! This kid has IT!' She's not talking about singing, she's talking about acting. He just blew us all away every day."
4. There was a hidden meaning behind Smoke and Stack's attire, particularly the decision for one twin to wear blue while the other wore red.
Stack: "Stack’s suit had three little buttons down the front," Ruth told Harper's Bazaar. "It had a 1920s cut, and knowing they were coming from Chicago, we figured they likely had custom suits done. His character is very self-conscious and [plans] every little detail; on his pants, the pockets are slanted, he’s got the collar bar, the tie bar, the cuff links—he’s got everything. I remember flying back to L.A. to look for things because in New Orleans, some things you can find, some you can’t. I wanted to find Stack’s hat, and I walked into this hat shop on Melrose, and there was this red hat that ended up being perfect. I’ve worked with a lot of hat aficionados, and I know you can’t just throw your hat around or leave it anywhere, so we had these leather cases made just to hold his hat because it had to stay perfect the whole time."
Smoke: "Smoke is less conscious. He doesn’t have a tie, he represents the everyman, and his suit was a little more boxy, a little bigger, and a little less tailored because he’s hiding all kinds of stuff; he’s got two guns, he’s got a knife. His look reminds me of Don Cheadle in Devil in a Blue Dress. He’ll take you down in a second. I loved his blue hat, too, because it was made of denim and was meant to represent workwear. We really did this movie so fast; there are little things that if I could just take a magic paintbrush and be at the theater and tell the projectionist [to change, I’d be like], 'Hold on! Can you pause right here? I have to add a little bit of age to the hat!' But I love the juxtaposition of the red and blue [tones] with Smoke and Stack. That was Ryan’s idea."
5. Using an Irish vampire was not random.
"I'm obsessed with Irish folk music," Ryan told IndieWire. "My kids are obsessed with it. My first name is Irish. I think it's not known how much crossover there is between African-American culture and Irish culture, and how much that stuff is loved in our community. It was important that our vampire — our master vampire — in this movie was unique and as specific as the situation was. It was important to me that he was old, but, also, that he came from a time that pre-existed these racial definitions, so that he would be extremely odd, and that it would all seem odd to him. He would see it for what it was, and he would offer a sweet deal...if that makes sense. And that the music was just as beautiful."
See more HERE
Jeani Rector queried folks on facebook (probably you!) to ask what their favorite horror movies of all time were. Below are the top 20 picks, in order according to the amount of votes they each received.
Also listed is trivia about each film.
The number ONE movie chosen by the most votes
THE THING (1982)
John Carpenter's The Thing didn’t go over well when it was released in 1982. Ignored by movie-goers, it was a box office failure. Reviled by critics, it even saw Carpenter being labeled a pornographer of violence by some reviewers. It was such a disappointment for the studio, they took another project away from Carpenter as punishment. But it gradually found its audience, building up a cult following. And soon, a legion of fans and critics alike began calling it one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It didn’t take long for The Thing to go from being known as reprehensible trash to being considered an all-time classic.
Actor Kurt Russell would take drags off of cigarettes to make his breath visible as though he were in cold temperatures. It has become a tradition in British Antarctic research stations to watch The Thing as part of their Midwinter feast and celebration held every June 21.
TWO
HALLOWEEN (1978)
The 1978 horror film Halloween was not an immediate success, but it eventually became one of the most successful independent films of all time. The movie, directed by John Carpenter and shot in Southern California on a budget of $325,000, had disappointing sales numbers during its first weekend. However, word of mouth helped the film gain popularity, with audiences telling their friends to see it. By the following weekend, sales had doubled, then tripled, and eventually increased tenfold.
Because of the film's tight budget, the production designer Tommy Lee Wallace had to use whatever he had at his disposal, or had to buy materials cheaply. When he created the Michael Myers mask, he made two versions. The first was an Emmett Kelly smiling clown mask that they put frizzy red hair on. They tested it out but it didn't achieve the desired effect. The other mask was a 1975 Captain James T. Kirk mask that was purchased in a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard for $1.98. It had the eyebrows and sideburns ripped off, the face was painted bluish white, the hair was spray painted brown, and the eyes were opened up more. After testing out the mask, the crew decided that it was much more creepy because it was emotionless.
THREE
JAWS (1975)
Jaws, the American suspense and horror film of 1975, was directed by Steven Spielberg and is considered the first summer blockbuster ever due to the fact that over 67 million people in the USA went to see this film when it was first released. Based on the 1974 novel of the same name by author Peter Benchley, the film not only broke box office records at the time of its release, but also changed the way Hollywood marketed and distributed films, especially those released during the summer.
Peter Benchley himself can be seen in a cameo in the film as the news reporter who addresses the camera on the beach. Benchley had previously worked as a news reporter for The Washington Post before penning Jaws. Steven Spielberg also makes a cameo in the movie: His voice is the Amity Island dispatcher who calls Quint’s boat, the Orca, with Sheriff Brody’s wife on the line.
FOUR
THE LOST BOYS (1987)
As filming began, the comedic points in the movie were made up on the spot. The comedy confused Warner Brothers, and they would ask Joel Schumacher (the director) if he were making a horror film or a comedy. He responded with “yes” every time. The executives seemed confused about the combination of those two genres, and weren’t sure that a horror-comedy would work. The city of Santa Cruz, California, did not want to be connected to the crime that happens in the movie, so they asked the production to change the name of the town in the film. So the movie takes place in the fictional city of Santa Carla.
See movie trivia about The Lost Boys HERE
FIVE
ALIEN (1979)
Certainly the character of Ripley, played by Sigouney Weaver, would have appealed to readers in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. She has little interest in her employer's orders that it be brought back home as a potential weapon. After she sees what it can do, her response to Special Order 24 (Return alien lifeform, all other priorities rescinded) is: "How do we kill it?"
The blue laser lights that were used in the alien ship's egg chamber were borrowed from the rock band The Who. The band was testing out the lasers for their stage show in the soundstage next door.
SIX
HELLRAISER (1987)
Based on the Clive Barker book titled The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser was an orignal film in an era of cliches. Famous critic Roger Ebert panned it HERE, but moviegoers loved it. The movie was originally going to be called Sadomasochists from Beyond the Grave or Hellbound, but producer Christopher Figg suggested Hellraiser instead.
Since the movie was filmed in England, there was a law that stated that cockroaches of both sexes were not to be allowed on movie sets because they could cause an infestation. So, Barker decided to hire someone who could manage the cockroaches. He explained, “They were all male. And we had a fridge…we chilled the maggots and the roaches.”
SEVEN
THE FLY (1986)
Directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jeff Goldblum early in his career, the movie is about a scientist who accidentally merges with a fly during a teleportation experiment. Although most people prefer the 1986 version because of the lead character's charm and also because the film has great heart and soul, there can't help be some comparisons to the original 1958 version.
The first The Fly (1958) was a film that surprised even its producers. They knew the original story was a little silly and expected only a modest return on the film from a mostly young audience. Even the film’s name stars, Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall, could not take The Fly seriously. The audience, on the other hand, found that there was much to respond to in the film. The Fly cost $350,000 in 1958 dollars and only took 18 days to make, yet it grossed $3,000,000 (also in 1958 dollars), considerably outstripping any expectation at the time.
EIGHT
THE HAUNTING (1963)
The 1963 horror film The Haunting had a budget of $1.05 million in 1958 dollars but only made $1.02 million at the box office. The film was shot at MGM-British Studios near London, with exteriors filmed at Ettington Park in Warwickshire. It was based upon Shirley Jackson's famous book The Haunting of Hill House.
At the time it was released, The Haunting was considered to be a flop because it originally lost money. But over the years, it became a classic because of word of mouth and because of TV showings. There were some clever uses of lensing effects to heighten the strangeness of Hill House. By adjusting the props in the sets so that they are off by a few degrees, it helped to unsettle the viewer.
NINE
FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
Frankenstein is a Pre-Code film. Pre-Code movies are American films produced between the late 1920s and mid-1934, before the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) censorship guidelines were strictly enforced. The term "pre-Code" is a misnomer because the Hays Code was adopted in 1930, but Hollywood filmmakers often ignored it, and oversight was poor until July 1, 1934. Before then, local laws, negotiations between studios, and popular opinion had more influence on movie content.
Universal Pictures exists today because of the monster movies. In 1930, Universal lost $2.2 million in revenues (over $36 million adjusted for inflation). Then, in February 1931, Dracula was released and made $700,000 (1931 dollars) in sales. It was clear to Universal producer Carl Laemmle Jr. that horror movies were what the public wanted. By November of that same year, Frankenstein was released. Bela Lugosi, who had shot to stardom at the studio following Dracula, assumed he would be playing the Monster. However, makeup tests showed the actor didn’t have the right look. Instead, the studio went with English actor Boris Karloff, and the rest is history.
TEN
28 DAYS LATER (2002 UK, 2003 USA)
28 Days Later took the traditional zombie movie horror formula and gave it a fresh coat of paint by changing the location, the tone, and of course, the monster in question. To properly give the feeling of a dead Britain shrouded in chaos, the filmmakers had to be careful with how and when they shot. Shots on the M1 motorway were done early in the morning between 7 and 9 AM under police guidance.
A real hospital was used for the filming to create a sense of authenticity. The hospital in question was open during the week but shut on weekends which allowed Danny Boyle and his crew to rent the space for shooting when nobody was around.
An extra benefit of this arrangement was that rental fees went directly towards the hospital's trust fund, representing one of the best kinds of business transactions one could wish for. Nothing like shooting a bloody horror movie and having a portion of the budget go towards a good cause.
See more HERE
ELEVEN
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
Written by George Romero and John Russo, Night of the Living Dead only had a $114,000 budget. It changed the movie world of how zombies were portrayed by using dissociation. Since the film was shot in black and white and had a really low budget, the crew never had to worry what color the blood was, so chocolate syrup was used. For the scene in which Karen Cooper (Kyra Schon) begins eating her father’s corpse, the crew’s leftover lunch was employed.
Both Romero and Russo played cameos in the film. Russo played one of the ghouls who managed to reach into the farmhouse only to be struck with a tire iron, while Romero can be seen in the Washington D.C. sequences as a reporter.
TWELVE
THE SHINING (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, it is widely known that this movie is not loved by its creator, Stephen King. But not many know why. According to David Hughes, one of Kubrick’s biographers, Stephen King wrote an entire draft of a screenplay for The Shining. However, Kubrick didn’t even deem it worth a glance, which sort of makes sense when you consider that the director once described King’s writing as “weak.” Instead, Kubrick worked with Diane Johnson on the screenplay because he was a fan of her book, The Shadow Knows. The two ended up spending eleven weeks working on the script and ignoring King's version.
THIRTEEN
PHANTASM (1979)
Phantasm (released as Never Dead in Australia) is a low-budget cult classic horror film produced in 1977 and released in 1979. The film was originally rated X by the MPAA because of the silver sphere sequence, and due to a scene involving a man urinating on the floor after going down dead. After Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin made a telephone call in a favor to a friend on the board, the rating was changed from the (commercially non-viable) X-rating to R.
This movie was number 25 on the cable and streaming channel Bravo's list of the "100 Scariest Movie Moments."
FOURTEEN
THE EXORCIST (1973)
William Peter Blatty’s novel is supposedly based on the real-life 1949 exorcism of a young boy, known by the pseudonym Roland Doe. The story became national news, and caught the interest of Blatty, who was a student at Georgetown University at the time (hence the change in location). For the 1973 movie The Exorcist, the possessed child was changed to that of a girl.
Though it’s never stated in the film, the demon that takes possession of Regan MacNeil has a name: Pazuzu, which is taken from the name of the king of the demons in Assyrian and Babylonian mythology. Much of Regan’s moaning and grunting were created by remixing pig squeals. When the demon is finally exorcised from her body, the sound you hear is a group of pigs being led to slaughter.
FIFTEEN
CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1963)
Amateurish in many ways (the film does include some stilted performances, bad lip-synching, clunky editing and a few continuity errors), Carnival of Souls nevertheless continues to exert a strange fascination for many viewers. Not a conventional horror or ghost story, this film explores the psychological state of Mary Henry after a car accident as she emerges from the murky depths of a river.
Carnival of Souls was the only feature film to be directed by industrial and educational filmmaker Harold (Herk) Harvey. After completing Carnival of Souls, Harvey was to return to making industrial and educational films before retiring in the late 1980s (he died in 1996). Assembling a crew of just five – himself, cinematographer Maurice Prather, editor Dan Palmquist, assistant director Reza Badiyi, and production manager Larry Sneegas (all of them his buddies at Centron), Harvey managed to generate a budget of $33,000 after approaching local Kansas businessmen, who invested in packs of the production’s stock. He found his lead in the form of up-and-coming actress Candace Hilligoss, who turned down a role in Psychomania (1963) to star in Carnival Of Souls. “I was paid $2,000 for doing the film,” she later recalled. “At the time, it seemed like a fortune.”
SIXTEEN
TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016)
Roger Ebert called Train to Busan "a wildly fun action movie, beautifully paced and constructed, with just the right amount of character and horror. In many ways, it’s what World War Z should have been—a nightmarish vision of the end of the world, and a provocation to ask ourselves what it is that really makes us human in the first place."
Filming began in April 2015 and finished in August 2015, for a total of only four months. The movie is based on an original story created by Park Joo-suk. The film team tried to reference the movements of the zombies from the game 7 Days to Die, and also from the movies Ghost in the Shell and Silent Hill.
Train to Busan received a 94% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and British filmmaker Edgar Wright, director of the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, highly applauded the film. He personally recommended it on Twitter and called it the "best zombie movie I've seen in forever."
SEVENTEEN
ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)
This wildly entertaining nightmare, faithfully adapted from Ira Levin's best seller, stars Mia Farrow as a young mother-to-be who grows increasingly suspicious that her overfriendly elderly neighbors are in a pact with Satan. With a comparatively small budget of just $3.2 million (1968 dollars), Rosemary’s Baby grossed over $33 million worldwide upon its release, making it by far the most commercially successful of Polanski’s ‘Apartment Trilogy’ films.
According to Mia Farrow, the scenes where Rosemary walks in front of traffic were spontaneous and genuine. Director Roman Polanski is reported to have told her that "nobody will hit a pregnant woman." The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it.
EIGHTEEN
RE-ANIMATOR (1985)
Re-Animator (also known as H. P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator) is a 1985 American comedy horror film that is loosely based upon the 1922 H.P Lovecraft serial novelette titled Herbert West: Reanimator. Originally devised by director Stuart Gordon as a theatrical stage production and later a half-hour television pilot, the television script was revised to become a feature film. Filmed in Hollywood, the film received an R Rating at the box office, but it garnered its largest audience through the unrated cut's release on home video.
The special effects department went through twenty-four gallons of fake blood during the shoot, and makeup effects artist John Naulin said that Re-Animator was the bloodiest film he had ever worked on. In the past, he had never used more than two gallons of blood on a film. The building used for the Miskatonic Medical School is the same one as the Cyberdine Headquarters in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
NINETEEN
PSYCHO (1960)
Psycho was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film North by Northwest since it was filmed on a small budget in black-and-white by the crew of his then-television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Initially, the film divided critics due to its controversial subject matter, but audience interest and outstanding box-office returns prompted a major critical re-evaluation. Psycho was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock and Best Supporting Actress for Janet Leigh.
When the cast and crew began work on the first day, they had to raise their right hands and swear an oath not to divulge one word of the story. Hitchcock also withheld the ending part of the script from his cast until he needed to shoot it.
TWENTY
NOSFERATU (1922 Germany, 1929 USA)
Nosferatu, also known as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (German: Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens) is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Even with several details altered, Bram Stoker's heirs sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. However, several prints of Nosferatu survived, and would resurface through second-generation reels. The movie was banned in Sweden due to excessive horror. The ban was finally lifted in 1972.
The vampire's unblinking stare was central to the unnerving effect the creature cause for audiences. Count Orlok is only seen blinking once on screen, near the end of Act One.
Today, the film is regarded as an influential masterpiece of early cinema and the horror genre, as reported by Deadline. That’s Friday the 13th.
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