Half Price Horror

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 of judgment? Does it mean that they won't even bother researching the setting because they're scared of showing vapid twentysomethings anything outside of their limited knowledge of the world?

...let's take a look and see.

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 didn't commit.

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 from the Id.

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 answers... and we're about to take a deep dive into the film to discuss them.

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!