Category Archives: retrospective

Still Waters Run Deep: 50 Years of Jaws”

19 Thursday Jun 2025

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A Multi-Angled Retrospective on the Film That Changed Everything

There’s blood in the water, and it never really cleared.

In the summer of 1975, a mechanical shark that barely worked chewed its way through film history, tore apart a sleepy seaside town, and accidentally invented the modern blockbuster. Jaws didn’t just change movies—it devoured them, spat out the bones, and called it summer. Fifty years later, we’re still paddling in its wake, trying to piece together how something this primal, this malfunctioning, this brilliant, took hold of the cultural imagination and refused to let go.

Yes, the stories are legend: Spielberg nearly broke, the shark that wouldn’t cooperate, the endless rewrites, the saltwater editing suite. But we’re not here to just rehash anecdotes. No, this is about mythmaking and myth-breaking. It’s about the movie that killed the decade it was born in. The movie that redefined what fear looked like, sounded like, and sold like. The movie that taught us not just to be afraid of the water—but to buy the T-shirt, the action figure, and the VHS re-release.

This anthology is a series of dispatches from the belly of the beast—cultural, cinematic, economic. Each essay peers down the gullet of Jaws from a different angle, chewing on its legacy with teeth bared. Because 50 years on, the fin may be distant, but the ripple it left on the surface? Still there. Still circling.

Now, let’s talk about how it all went south.

  • Saul Muerte
1. “The Shark That Ate the ‘70s: Jaws and the Death of the Director’s Decade”
2. “Out of Sight, Into Terror: Jaws as the Accidental Masterclass in Minimalist Horror”
3. “When the Shark Never Died: Jaws and the Birth of the Franchise Machine”
4. “Hooper, Brody, Quint: A Class War at Sea”
5. “You Never Saw It Coming: Jaws and the Cinema of the Unseen”
6. “Amity Is America: The Small-Town Politics of Jaws”
7. “Between the Teeth: Sound, Editing, and the Sonic Terror of Jaws”
8. “Real Fear, Real Fish: How Jaws Birthed Shark Panic and Changed the Ocean Forever”

The Devil’s Rain (1975): Satanic Meltdowns and Star Power in a Slippery Cult Classic

19 Thursday Jun 2025

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When It Rains, It Melts: Revisiting The Devil’s Rain at 50

Half a century on, The Devil’s Rain remains one of the strangest artifacts of the 1970s occult horror boom—an overheated stew of devil worship, grotesque visuals, and unexpected A-list casting that somehow managed to attract both Hollywood veterans and rising stars into its dripping, gooey vortex.

Directed by Robert Fuest—best known for the eccentric Dr. Phibes films—The Devil’s Rain is deeply entrenched in the cultural anxieties and supernatural fascinations of its time. The film plays like a fever dream born of late-night TV evangelist warnings and paperback Satanic panic, spinning a tale of black masses, soul-selling contracts, and a cursed family line haunted by a vengeful cult leader.

That cult leader, Jonathan Corbis, is played with devilish relish by Ernest Borgnine, who flips his usual affable persona on its head. Decked out in robes and goat-like makeup by the climax, Borgnine is clearly having the time of his life. He’s surrounded by a wildly eclectic cast: William Shatner as the tormented hero, Ida Lupino as his doomed mother, Tom Skerritt as his psychic brother, and Keenan Wynn as a blustery local sheriff. Oh—and there’s a young, largely silent John Travolta in his first film role, just months before Welcome Back, Kotter launched him into stardom.

But for all its firepower in front of the camera, the film never quite coalesces into a satisfying whole. The plot is thin, stretched across loosely connected sequences of ritualistic mumbo jumbo and endless scenes of people melting into waxy goo beneath acid rain—an effect that, while memorable, wears thin. The much-hyped “incredible ending” involves an extended final act of meltdowns, betrayals, and demonic possession that’s more exhausting than exhilarating.

Still, there’s a goofy charm to the way The Devil’s Rain leans hard into its Satanic aesthetic. This was the era of The Exorcist, Race with the Devil, and The Omen—and The Devil’s Rain rides that same wave of occult obsession, just with less discipline and a lot more slime. The involvement of real-life Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey (credited as technical advisor and appearing onscreen) only adds to the gonzo credentials, even if the end result feels more theatrical than terrifying.

The Prognosis:

As a piece of horror history, The Devil’s Rain deserves a glance—not for its scares, but for its sheer audacity. It’s a wild blend of old Hollywood gravitas, ‘70s devil craze, and low-budget exploitation, all filtered through Fuest’s offbeat lens. Fifty years later, it’s more fun as a conversation piece than a horror classic, but there’s no denying: few films have ever gone down in flames quite like this.

  • Retrospective Review by Saul Muerte

Bug (1975): A B-Movie That Burns Bright—Then Fizzles

16 Monday Jun 2025

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In 1975, Bug crawled out of the cracks in the earth and onto cinema screens, riding a wave of post-Exorcist horror hype and late-’70s disaster film mania. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc—who would go on to helm Jaws 2 and various genre television—this curious creature feature was billed as “Out of the worst nightmare!” but lands more as a fascinating oddity than an outright terror.

The story begins with an earthquake that unleashes a strain of prehistoric, fire-starting cockroaches from deep underground. These bugs are no ordinary pests; they ignite mayhem—literally—by setting fires across a small Southern California town. Into this chaos steps scientist James Parmiter (Bradford Dillman), whose obsession with the insects transforms the film from a town-in-peril B-movie into something stranger and more cerebral.

Despite its sensationalist setup, Bug is oddly divided. The first half plays like a classic man-vs-nature thriller in the mold of Them! or The Swarm, but the second half goes full mad science as Parmiter begins experimenting with the creatures, leading to unsettling results that are more philosophical than frightful. This tonal shift, while bold, doesn’t fully stick to the landing, and the pacing suffers as a result.

Still, Bug earns points for its ambition and its legacy. The film marks the final screenwriting credit for horror icon William Castle, best known for gimmick-laden hits like House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler. While Castle didn’t direct, his signature showmanship lingers in the premise: intelligent, pyrokinetic cockroaches are the sort of high-concept horror few studios would touch today.

The special effects, practical and charmingly clunky, embody the B-movie charm. Flames burst from cracks in walls, cockroaches crawl in erratic stop-motion patterns, and the film’s pseudo-scientific jargon is delivered with deadpan sincerity. Dillman’s lead performance is suitably obsessive, grounding the escalating absurdity in a brittle sense of purpose.

Fifty years on, Bug is best appreciated as a relic of a transitional period in horror—a bridge between the giant monster flicks of the ’50s and the grittier body horror of the ’80s. It’s not particularly scary, and it never reaches the heights it clearly aspires to, but there’s something compelling in its weird confidence.

The Prognosis:

Bug never fully delivers on the paranoia or pyrotechnics promised in its lurid marketing, but for fans of eco-horror and insect cinema, it remains a crispy curiosity worth digging up—just don’t expect it to set your world on fire.

  • 50th Anniversary Retrospective by Saul Muerte

Swinging Sixties Slasher in The Haunted House of Horror’s Lifeless Mystery

15 Sunday Jun 2025

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Frankie Avalon can’t save this creaky, confused slasher from itself.

Michael Armstrong’s The Haunted House of Horror promises much with its lurid title and mod-era setup, but the final product is a disappointingly tepid affair that never quite knows what it wants to be. Part swinging ’60s youth flick, part slasher prototype, and part drawing-room whodunit, the film struggles under the weight of its own confused identity—and the results are more boring than chilling.

The plot is familiar: a group of hip London teenagers (or at least actors playing them) decide to explore an abandoned mansion on a lark, only to be picked off one by one by an unseen killer. There’s potential here for either taut horror or campy fun, but The Haunted House of Horror commits to neither. The pacing is glacial, the tension limp, and the atmosphere undercut by odd tonal shifts and clunky dialogue.

The film seems content to coast on the marquee name of American teen idol Frankie Avalon, whose presence feels oddly out of place amidst the otherwise British cast. While he’s given the most screen time, his performance is stiff, and the script never gives him much to work with beyond furrowed brows and blank stares. Whatever youthful edge the film tries to evoke is lost in a fog of awkward character dynamics and wooden delivery.

What might have redeemed this clunky murder mystery is a satisfying twist or a killer finale—but The Haunted House of Horror fumbles that too. Its ambiguous ending, instead of offering intrigue or open-ended interpretation, feels more like a shrug. Who did it? Why? What does it mean? The film doesn’t seem all that interested in answering.

The Prognosis:

Despite a few stylish flourishes and some decent cinematography in its haunted corridors, The Haunted House of Horror lacks the bite or blood to stand out among its late-’60s horror contemporaries. It’s a curiosity piece at best—a relic trying to cash in on both the horror boom and the youth market and succeeding at neither.

  • 1960s Retrospective review by Saul Muerte

Fear, Fur, and Fortune: Eye of the Cat Delivers Giallo-Lite Thrills

08 Sunday Jun 2025

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Directed by David Lowell Rich, Eye of the Cat claws its way into the tail end of the 1960s with a premise that’s part Hitchcockian suspense, part Gothic melodrama, and part giallo-lite. While it never fully embraces the stylistic excess of its European cousins, there’s just enough tension, sleaze, and visual flair to keep genre fans engaged.

The setup is deliciously pulpy: a man conspires with his lover to rob his wealthy, cat-loving aunt of her fortune. The twist? He suffers from crippling ailurophobia—a fear of cats so intense it borders on the irrational. As the couple manipulates their way into the aunt’s inner circle, it becomes clear that the real threat may not be the clowder of watchful cats, but the secrets and shifting loyalties within the human cast.

While it lacks the razor-sharp elegance of Italian gialli, the film borrows enough of the genre’s staples—suspicious motives, inheritance plots, sudden reversals—to flirt with its spirit. The San Francisco setting provides a breezy, modern contrast to the otherwise old-world paranoia. Stylish cinematography and a few well-executed suspense sequences help elevate what could have been a TV-grade thriller.

Performances are serviceable, if occasionally campy, with Michael Sarrazin giving the lead just the right balance of charm and cowardice. The cats—dozens of them—are effectively used not just as a visual motif but as avatars of retribution. Their calm menace lingers in the corners of every scene, especially as things take a turn for the sinister in the final act.

The Prognosis:

Eye of the Cat may not leave deep scratches, but it’s a fun, semi-decent slice of late-’60s paranoia with just enough bite to justify the watch. For fans of crime thrillers with a twisted core—and anyone who likes their feline horror served with a side of psychological torment—it’s worth a revisit.

  • 1960s Retrospective Review by Saul Muerte

From Chains to Clichés: Revisiting Hellraiser: Deader and Hellworld 20 Years Later

08 Sunday Jun 2025

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The box is still open—but by 2005, the horrors inside had lost their teeth.

As the Hellraiser franchise entered its straight-to-video era in the early 2000s, fans had already weathered a series of diminishing returns. But 2005’s double blow of Hellraiser: Deader and Hellraiser: Hellworld, both directed by Rick Bota and released within months of each other, marked a significant point of no return. Celebrating (or lamenting) their 20th anniversary in 2025, these two entries are less remembered for expanding Clive Barker’s mythos and more for highlighting how far the series had drifted from its grim, sensual origins.

Hellraiser: Deader 

Of the two, Deader fares slightly better—not because it’s a faithful addition to the Hellraiser canon, but because it begins life as something else entirely. Originally a standalone supernatural thriller script, it was retrofitted to include the Cenobites and the Lament Configuration, resulting in a stitched-together film that almost works in spite of itself.

Kari Wuhrer leads the story as a hard-nosed journalist chasing down an underground death cult in Romania. The film flirts with themes of trauma, addiction, and blurred reality—concepts that Hellraiser once handled with provocative boldness—but here, they’re dulled by a by-the-numbers execution. Still, the moody Eastern European backdrop and committed turns from Wuhrer, Marc Warren, and Paul Rhys give it some atmosphere, and the central premise—of a cult obsessed with conquering death—does echo Hellraiser’s fascination with pushing bodily and spiritual limits.

But despite flashes of creativity, Deader never shakes its identity crisis. The Cenobites are barely relevant to the narrative, and Pinhead’s presence feels perfunctory. It’s not a Hellraiser movie so much as a middling thriller that happens to feature a few familiar hooks.

Hellraiser: Hellworld 

If Deader is diluted, then Hellworld is downright disposable. Set in a pseudo-Internet-era gaming world, Hellworld attempts to be meta and modern, pitting a group of teens against a Hellraiser-themed online game. The resulting film feels like Scream meets House on Haunted Hill—but without the tension, intelligence, or atmosphere of either.

Despite the presence of genre legend Lance Henriksen and a young Henry Cavill (long before the cape), the cast is wasted in a script that relies on techno-jargon, faux-twists, and a painfully forced attempt at self-awareness. Doug Bradley’s Pinhead appears for his final time here, but his screen time is minimal, his dialogue rote, and his menace utterly defanged.

The film ends with a ridiculous twist that robs it of even the shallow pleasures of a bad slasher flick. For many fans, Hellworld marks the lowest point in the franchise—and it’s hard to argue with that sentiment.

Doug Bradley: The Final Configuration

If Hellworld is a disappointing swan song, it’s also the end of an era for Doug Bradley, who portrayed Pinhead across eight Hellraiser films from 1987 to 2005. With his commanding presence and Shakespearean delivery, Bradley transformed what could have been a gimmicky monster into a tragic, philosophical figure—a dark priest of pain and pleasure who lingered long after the credits rolled.

Bradley’s contributions to the franchise can’t be overstated. In Hellbound and Hell on Earth, he explored the remnants of humanity in Pinhead’s psyche; in later films like Inferno and Deader, he still managed to bring gravitas even when the writing failed him. His final appearance in Hellworld may be a muted farewell, but his legacy remains stitched into the flesh of the genre.

The Prognosis:

Twenty years on, Deader and Hellworld stand as cautionary tales about franchise fatigue and the dangers of branding over storytelling. What began with Clive Barker’s twisted poetry and existential dread had, by 2005, become little more than window dressing. Still, Deader holds a flicker of creativity, and even in the depths of Hellworld, Bradley’s shadow looms large—a final, ghostly reminder of what Hellraiser once dared to be.

  • Retrospective by Saul Muerte

I Don’t Want to Be Born (1975) – 50th Anniversary Retrospective

01 Sunday Jun 2025

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The devil came to the pram—and brought a Hammer cast with him.

Also known by several more sensational titles—The Devil Within Her, Sharon’s Baby, and It’s Growing Inside Her—Peter Sasdy’s I Don’t Want to Be Born is one of the stranger, more uneven horror offerings of 1975. Half supernatural shocker, half demonic soap opera, the film boasts a surprisingly strong cast and a deeply odd premise that has earned it a peculiar kind of cult status over the past fifty years.

Set in a heightened, almost surreal version of London, the film sees Joan Collins’ character give birth to a monstrously violent baby—seemingly possessed by the vengeful spirit of a spurned dwarf lover. What follows is a bizarre series of deaths, each more absurd than the last, all linked by the ominous presence of a pram and its pint-sized occupant.

Though the concept teeters on the edge of parody, Sasdy—who brought genuine Gothic flair to Hammer productions like Taste the Blood of Dracula and Countess Dracula—attempts to play it mostly straight. His direction tries to keep the tone grounded, but the outlandish plot frequently undercuts any attempt at gravitas.

Joan Collins, in full glam-horror mode, commits admirably to the madness. Her co-star Ralph Bates, with whom she previously appeared in Hammer’s Fear in the Night, provides a steadying presence. The cast is stacked with familiar faces from British genre cinema—Donald Pleasance as a soft-spoken doctor, Eileen Atkins as a nun with spiritual insight, and the ever-iconic Caroline Munro in a brief but welcome turn.

Despite its flaws—and they are many—the film’s connections to Hammer’s waning golden age give it an air of familiarity. In many ways, I Don’t Want to Be Born feels like a last gasp of the studio’s supernatural melodrama, though filtered through the grittier, more sensationalistic lens of mid-‘70s exploitation cinema.

The Prognosis:

On its 50th anniversary, it’s fair to say that I Don’t Want to Be Born is more curiosity than classic. But for devotees of Collins, Sasdy, and the weird crossover space between Hammer horror and post-Exorcist hysteria, it’s an oddly compelling footnote in British horror history.

  • Retrospective Review by Saul Muerte

The Ghoul (1975) Tyburn’s house of horrors—where secrets fester in the attic.

01 Sunday Jun 2025

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Half a century on, The Ghoul (1975) stands as one of the more curious entries in the twilight years of British Gothic horror. Directed with solemn precision by Freddie Francis and headlined by the ever-graceful Peter Cushing, the film was a sincere attempt by Tyburn Film Productions Limited to resurrect the moody, atmospheric horrors of the Hammer era—an ambition that resulted in a mixed, but memorable, outing.

Set in 1920s England, the story revolves around a former clergyman (Cushing) who harbours a dark family secret: his cannibalistic son, locked away in the attic of his remote country manor. As uninvited guests and unwitting thrill-seekers stumble upon the estate, the horror quietly unfolds under a heavy blanket of mist, melancholy, and moral decay.

Tyburn—also behind The Legend of the Werewolf—clearly aimed to evoke the bygone days of elegant, character-driven horror. In that spirit, Cushing delivers a beautifully nuanced performance, as always lending depth and humanity to a role steeped in sadness. His scenes carry a weight of personal grief—particularly poignant given the recent loss of his wife at the time of filming.

Director Freddie Francis, returning to familiar Gothic territory, crafts an atmosphere of slow-burn dread, though the pace and plotting may leave some modern viewers wanting. Veronica Carlson—reunited with Cushing from previous Hammer entries—offers a restrained but dignified performance, while a young John Hurt brings a twitchy, unpredictable energy that adds texture to the film’s more traditional framework.

Producer Antony Hinds, a key figure in Hammer’s golden era, worked under the pseudonym John Elder here, contributing to a film that often feels like a swan song to a dying genre. While The Ghoul may not reach the heights of its forebears, its sincerity, craftsmanship, and dedication to classic horror tropes make it worth revisiting.

The Prognosis:

Fifty years later, The Ghoul stands not as a triumph, but as a loving echo—one that reminds us of a genre clinging to its traditions even as the horror world around it began to shift. For admirers of Cushing, Francis, and British Gothic, it remains a thoughtful if flawed gem from a studio that deserved a longer life.

  • Retrospective Review by Saul Muerte

Fog, Flesh, and Fear: The Doll of Satan and the Gothic Roots of Giallo

01 Sunday Jun 2025

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“Behind every shadow lies a secret. Behind every secret, a scream.”

🗝️ “Behind every shadow lies a secret. Behind every secret, a scream.”

By the time La bambola di Satana (The Doll of Satan) crept into Italian cinemas in 1969, the giallo genre was still sharpening its knives. Mario Bava had lit the fuse with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Blood and Black Lace (1964), but it would be another year before Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage pushed the subgenre into full flight. The Doll of Satan landed at a curious midpoint: a gothic thriller draped in giallo stylings, ripe with misty castles, erotic hallucinations, and a hooded killer lurking in the shadows.

Directed by Ferruccio Casapinta—his only directorial credit—this occult-tinged thriller follows Elisabeth, a young woman returning to her family’s ancestral castle after her uncle’s mysterious death. As the inheritance looms, so do whispers of hauntings, cryptic locals, and ulterior motives. Elisabeth is soon plagued by bizarre, erotically charged visions and finds herself trapped in a web of deceit, culminating in dungeon-bound torture at the hands of a masked figure. Her fiancé, Jack, begins to suspect that the castle’s legend hides a far more human treachery.

While The Doll of Satan never fully commits to the baroque excess or stylish violence that would come to define giallo in the 1970s, it bears several of the genre’s fingerprints: a vulnerable woman in a labyrinthine estate, conspiracies surrounding wealth and inheritance, dreamlike hallucinations, and a killer whose identity is concealed behind cloaks and masks. Yet it’s still deeply tethered to the gothic tradition—with its rain-slicked graveyards, ancestral curses, and fog-choked corridors, the film feels caught in the final breath of the old horror world, even as it reaches toward the future.

There’s an undeniable camp charm in the way the film blends eroticism and suspense, from the exaggerated dream sequences to the near-operatic melodrama. Bruno Nicolai’s score—steeped in mood and menace—adds a ghostly elegance that elevates the film beyond its limited budget and occasionally clunky pacing. Casapinta may not have had the finesse of Bava or the bravado of Argento, but he delivers a stylish, if uneven, curiosity that flirts with the giallo blueprint.

The Prognosis:

The Doll of Satan stands as a minor, though intriguing, footnote in the evolution of Italian horror. It reflects a moment of transformation—when horror cinema in Italy was beginning to trade gothic gloom for lurid thrills, and the supernatural gave way to psychological menace. For giallo enthusiasts and completists, it offers a seductive glimpse into that transitional twilight, where haunted castles began to echo with the sound of switchblades.

  • 1960s Retrospective Review by Saul Muerte

The Dhampir Rises Again: 40 Years of Vampire Hunter D’s Haunting Influence

28 Wednesday May 2025

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Premiering Exclusively on Shudder, AMC+ and HIDIVE – Friday 30 May
“In a world ruled by vampires, only a half-blood dares to hunt them.”

When Vampire Hunter D premiered in 1985, few could have predicted the cultural ripple effect it would have across manga, anime, and horror for decades to come. Now, forty years later, this gothic, genre-defying milestone returns with a long-awaited streaming premiere on Shudder, AMC+, and HIDIVE—offering a perfect moment to reflect on its enduring power.

Set in the far-flung future of 12,090 A.D., the film unfolds in a post-apocalyptic landscape where science and sorcery coexist, and humanity lives in fear under the rule of the vampire Nobility. At its centre is Doris Lang, a brave young woman marked for unholy matrimony by the ancient Count Magnus Lee. Her only hope lies in the hands of a mysterious wanderer known only as D—an enigmatic vampire hunter with a tragic secret etched into his very bloodline.

Directed by Toyoo Ashida and based on the novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi with iconic illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano, Vampire Hunter D was a revelation for its time. It merged the aesthetics of Western horror—Dracula, Frankenstein, Lovecraft—with a distinctly Japanese post-apocalyptic flair, opening a door to global audiences that had rarely encountered horror anime in this form. The film’s blend of violence, melancholy, and romanticism felt alien and refreshing—an animated Gothic western that flirted with sci-fi, body horror, and dark fantasy.

The horror in Vampire Hunter D is not just visual—it’s atmospheric. Shadowy castles, mutated creatures, and the decaying elegance of the vampire Nobility all serve to create an air of terminal beauty, where death and corruption linger in every frame. The film pulses with dread, not just from its antagonists, but from the melancholic burden D carries as a dhampir—caught between two worlds, never at home in either.

Manga, and later anime, would absorb and amplify these motifs. Vampire Hunter D helped normalise horror as a serious mode within manga storytelling, inspiring a lineage that includes Berserk, Hellsing, Claymore, and Attack on Titan. Its DNA can be traced through the decades, proving that gothic horror, when stylised with poetic nihilism and speculative world-building, could resonate far beyond Japan.

Though animation has since evolved in leaps and bounds, there’s a charm in Vampire Hunter D’s hand-drawn grit—a visual texture that feels inseparable from its era and identity. It may lack the polish of modern anime, but it makes up for it in atmosphere, tone, and mythic presence.

The Prognosis:

As it celebrates its 40th anniversary with a new generation of fans ready to rediscover it, Vampire Hunter D still holds its scythe high. Part horror, part tragedy, and wholly influential, it remains a cornerstone of horror anime—and proof that even in a world of monsters, the greatest fear often lies within the hero himself.

  • Retrospective Review by Saul Muerte

Vampire Hunter D premieres exclusively on Shudder, AMC+ and HIDIVE – Friday 30 May