Blood on my Sofa: Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror is a Documentary like No Other

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Wicked Horror is the author of Blood on my Sofa: Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror is a Documentary like No Other. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Welcome to Blood on my Sofa! Each month I will be providing you with a movie recommendation. It won’t be just any movie, but a movie I watched during the previous 30 days that really rocked my world. In this installment, we will be taking a look at Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. Every now and then, we are blessed with a horror film that offers more than just scares. We get a chance to witness the telling of a heartfelt story, one with layers of character development, plot twists and life lessons. But even more uncommon is a horror that provides an honest history of the world, one that exposes the true nature of intolerance to change within a nation. And allow me to take it a step further, to the rarest of the rare, to films that not only talk about history, but become a part of history itself. A film such as this becomes relevant because of many factors, even one as clear-cut as a title that reveals the importance of film to humanity, without the viewer ever having to see a single frame. This February, a film with this kind of power arrived. The streaming service Shudder has provided us with this unparalleled documentary, beautifully titled Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. The film is based on the book by Dr. Robin Means Coleman. Horror Noire gives us the chance to watch and listen to new and seasoned actors, filmmakers, and educators in the horror entertainment industry. Directed by Xavier Burgin and written by Ashlee Blackwell and Danielle Burrows, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror is appropriate for anyone and necessary for everyone. The film removes a veil. It uncovers the struggles that black people have endured in horror. In a seamless flow, it takes us through and explains clips from classics such as Night of the Living Dead (1968), Blacula (1972), Abby (1974), The People Under the Stairs (1991), Candyman (1992), Tales from the Hood (1995), Eve’s Bayou (1997), and more. By the time of these films, we were beginning to see black actors in lead roles. Also See: Blood on My Sofa: Let’s Talk Terrifier However, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror unmasks the deviant behavior of the film industry before these films existed. At a point in time, black people were only allowed to play servants, housekeepers, or servers to white actors. Though there appeared to be growth in the forthcoming years, talented actress Rachel True (The Craft, Embrace of the Vampire) reveals in the documentary that her roles in the ’90s simply served as a supporting actor, often asking the white lead if he or she was okay during times of turmoil. Her revelation on how many different ways to say “Are you okay?” provided audiences with both humor and hurt. Similar stories mirrored hers from legends such as Tony Todd (Candyman, Final Destination), Keith David (The Thing, They Live), Loretta Devine (Urban Legend, Urban Legends: Final Cut), Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead, Zone of the Dead), and Kelly Jo Mintor (The People Under the Stairs, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child). Painting the scenes of struggle behind the camera were seasoned directors Rusty Cundieff (Tales from the Hood, Tales from the Hood 2), Ernest R. Dickerson (Bones, Juice), William Crain (Blacula, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde), and more. The proudest part for viewers is witnessing black people elevated and refusing to remain limited by industry standards. There was a celebration for the newer black directors such as Jordan Peele, and the worldwide releases of films with black leads, e.g. Get Out (2017) and The Girl with All the Gifts (2016). What remains evident is that there is still more work to accomplish for all races to be considered equal in the entertainment industry. There is so much to learn in this documentary. But aside from what it teaches is what it initiates. After the film ends, a conversation begins, though not just about horror, but also about film, acting, black culture, inequality, representation, misrepresentation, perseverance, triumph, and people, legends, trailblazers–anyone and everyone who paved the way for the day we all will witness an all-inclusive presence in cinema.

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Blade Reboot a Distinct Possibility According to Latest Rumors!

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Wicked Horror is the author of Blade Reboot a Distinct Possibility According to Latest Rumors!. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Marvel executive Kevin Feige told JoBlo back in 2017 that there was a definite possibility that fans would see another Blade film someday. And if sources close to We Got this Covered are to be believed, then someday may mean someday soon.  A WGTC tipster told the outlet that Marvel is currently planning an R-rated Blade film. And if Tweets and interview cops from Wesley Snipes are to be believed, there is a high probability that the actor will be involved with the project. Speculation suggests that a reboot of the franchise would see Eric Brooks passing on his skillset to his daughter (possibly his child from the comics, Fallon Grey). Will things finally pan out for fans hoping for another Blade film? We certainly hope so. But, your guess is as good as ours at this point. We currently have nothing more than scuttlebutt and speculation to go on. But rest assured that we will update you if/when we learn more about this project. Blade follows a vampire hunter who is half human and half vampire on his quest to eradicate the world of blood suckers.

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Impossible to Defend Horror Movies We Can’t Help But Watch

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Wicked Horror is the author of Impossible to Defend Horror Movies We Can’t Help But Watch. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

There’s a certain appeal to bad movies, especially bad horror movies that are impossible to defend. There’s a charm to the campiness, and even when people are fumbling their lines or just stumbling around the set in general, there’s an earnestness to them that’s hard not to appreciate. Yet, for all the good-bad horror flicks, there are the ones that are just bad. Most of them fall by the wayside but some find their audience, and sometimes that’s understandable. People need to see a trainwreck every once in awhile. Everyone will slow down to get a glimpse of a bad car accident. You can’t help but watch. It’s impossible to defend these horror features. Yet we’re still drawn to them on some level, for reasons we don’t understand and probably don’t want to. Related: Five Bad Horror Movies that are Still Worth a Watch Leprechaun Origins As bad as the Leprechaun franchise could be, Leprechaun Origins is just an inexcusable mess. The last thing the filmmakers had any interest in making was a Leprechaun movie, and their very clear attempt to make it better only made it so much worse. The monster couldn’t be less interesting and there’s no one to root for because all of the characters are kind of awful, both in that they’re flat and that they’re bad people. Yet people still keep checking it out, despite all the warnings. Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 Silent Night, Deadly Night had to have a sequel, not necessarily on the grounds of its success, but the grounds of its controversy. It was huge enough to cement its popularity. So they wanted a sequel, but they really didn’t want to make one, so at first Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 was just going to be reused footage from the first. The director was just tasked with editing old footage into a new movie. That’s why the bulk of it is done in flashback, and the present-day stuff was shot with no money over just a couple of days. It never really had a chance to be that good of a film. While it’s worth watching for the “Garbage Day” scene, the rest of it is a pretty hard act to swallow. Halloween: Resurrection On a technical level, Halloween: Resurrection isn’t the worst and there are some interesting things about it. But the things about it that don’t work, they just really, really don’t work. And that’s what makes it count for this list. The web show aspect, the idea of killing off Laurie Strode right in the opening, Busta Rhymes as the protagonist and making sure that he’s the one who takes out Michael at the end. All of that leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth. Thankfully, there’s Halloween (2018) as a palate cleanser. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation Next Generation is a really, really bizarre movie. Kim Henkel, who co-wrote the original, basically used this opportunity to remake The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and fix all the things he considered to be wrong the first time. The thought process that went into this thing is so insane, that I really wish I could go back and be a fly on the wall. Just to listen. Just to hear them bring in things like robotic legs, over-the-top parody of Leatherface’s gender identity, and of course the Illuminati. This one is total insanity, and while that makes it worth a viewing, it’s still a bizarre misstep in the legacy of the franchise that is impossible to defend. Birdemic: Shock and Terror Birdemic isn’t even the fun sort of bad. It doesn’t feel like the Asylum rip off of The Birds because that would probably be more interesting. I don’t know how this has gotten the following that it has. It’s about as bad as it gets and it’s impossible to defend. Even many no-budget horrors shot over the course of a day managed to be more interesting. The birds here are the kind of CGI that even Windows 95 would be ashamed of. Troll 2 Troll 2 is absolutely worth a watch. It’s so bad that it’s a beautiful disaster. Nothing about it works, but everything fails in perfect harmony. No one scene is better or worse than any other. There’s synchronicity in Troll 2. The part where it gets inexcusable is when you consider not only how many people have seen it but how many times they’ve seen it. Troll 2 has fans. When you watch a bad movie over and over and over again, there’s a point where you have to admit to yourself that you might actually like something about it.

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Netflix Horror Spotlight: Slasher, Season 2

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Wicked Horror is the author of Netflix Horror Spotlight: Slasher, Season 2. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

​Netflix Horror Spotlight brings you Wicked Horror’s top picks for what to watch on Netflix, whether it’s the latest indie darling, a classic masterpiece or a silly slasher that deserves a bit more attention. In this edition, Joey Keogh heralds the burgeoning slasher resurgence with the brilliant second season of anthology series Slasher. Last time I wrote about Slasher, almost three years ago now, I heralded it as a strong and consistently scary little endeavour but worried that when Season 2 rolled around it would fall apart the same way American Horror Story (rather spectacularly) did. Happily, series creator and frequent writer Aaron Martin has done it again. Season 2 is nasty, suspenseful, and keeps its mystery tight over eight more terrific episodes. This time around, the action is relocated to a summer camp, re-imagined as a cult-like yoga retreat populated by the kinds of people who roll crystals around in their hands and find the smell of cooking meat personally offensive. The story actually begins five years previous, with a bunch of twenty-something camp counsellors partying hard in the woods only for something terrible to happen. Related: Hell Fest is a Hugely Entertaining Slasher Throwback Back in the present, the clearly damaged core group returns to the scene of the crime, as it were, to further cover their tracks. Unfortunately, aside from tussling with the aforementioned kumbaya types they also have a masked serial killer on their tail who, as bloodied graffiti intones, knows what they did last, well, you get the picture. Evoking Urban Legend with the killer’s furry hood getup, but set in the snowy wilderness of Until Dawn, things get very bad very quickly. There’s been something of a slasher resurgence in cinema lately, from feminist teen movie Tragedy Girls to Adam Green’s surprise Hatchet sequel Victor Crowely, and last year’s devilishly clever Hell Fest. But it’s still pretty incredible to see a TV series, with close to eight hours of screen-time to work with, establish a premise, killer, and cast of characters as well as the best 90-minute horror movies, if not better. Not one moment of Slasher Season 2 is wasted, which is quite the achievement considering much of the action takes place between a couple of snowy cabins in the woods. Martin circumvents the one-location trappings by flashing back to the camp days (annoyingly noting “5 years ago” every single time — we get it, they’re in camp uniforms and that one chick looks more alternative, it’s clear), simultaneously fleshing out the story and the characters. While we’re used to slasher victims being one-note walking body bags, ever since Scream, the trend has moved more towards featuring characters we believe in and like, whose survival we can root for (this logic obviously doesn’t apply to the likes of Texas Chainsaw 3D, which I still kind of love regardless). Slasher keeps us on our toes by offing a couple obvious final act survivors early on, swiftly establishing that nobody is safe. The kills are gory AF. The first involves a chainsaw slicing through someone with such ratchety precision, the shot held for much longer than anticipated, guts spilling all over the place, that it’s stomach-churningly brilliant. The FX aren’t always seamless, but it hardly matters when characters are being murdered with screwy mechanical tools or, in one hilarious moment, a snowmobile. In what could reasonably be called an homage to The Return of the Living Dead, one poor character lays dying on a table for what feels like forever, struggling to breathe, near constantly whining in pain. The decision not to make the murders quick and easy, and to refuse to cut away so the audience gets some respite from the violence, further elevates Slasher above the standard fare. Martin manages to both pay homage and pave his own way — no small feat in this sub-genre. The performances are strong from an impressively diverse cast. The premise isn’t stretched too thin, rather tempers fray and allegiances are formed and destroyed via the claustrophobic, often desperate mountainside setting. There’s plenty of people walking outside alone when they really shouldn’t, but Martin and his various writers, along with director Felipe Rodriguez, play with our expectations often enough that nothing feels too predictable. The killer’s reveal will work for some more than others, but it comes impressively late in the proceedings and delivers a gut punch that I, as a long-time slasher fanatic, didn’t see coming. Likewise, via this reveal, Martin once again pays homage to typical slasher conventions without giving the game away too soon. If you’ve seen enough of these things you’ll probably work it out just in time, which is always part of the fun. See Also: Frightfest 2017 Review: Tragedy Girls For a sophomore season, Slasher: Guilty Party (as its weirdly thoughtless subtitle goes) is strong, surprising, and hugely inventive. The gore is brilliantly disgusting, the setup believable and devilishly constricting, and the characters run the gamut from mouthy queen bee to a nerd with hidden darkness but, crucially, none of them are all-out assholes. It’s also frequently scary — genuinely, bone-chillingly so, not just fleetingly. Two seasons in, Slasher has proven itself as top-tier stuff within this sub-genre. Binge all eight episodes in one sitting for maximum exposure. If you’re brave enough. Slasher: Guilty Party is available on Netflix now, along with its predecessor,The Executioner, which also kicks all kinds of a**

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New on Netflix: March 1st, 2019

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Wicked Horror is the author of New on Netflix: March 1st, 2019. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Welcome to New on Netflix, a feature here at Wicked Horror in which we provide the latest updates on what’s coming to the streaming service for the week. In recent times, Netflix’s shift in content has been interesting. While many fan-favorite movies and TV shows have been Netflix staples for the better part of a decade, they’ve been taken off the service with more frequency. Some of them return, some of them don’t, and while these are all simply the result of licensing deals that were already in place before these properties even hit the service, they do shed some light on the content provider’s new focus. Netflix is continuing to shift gears away from movies and TV shows owned by other studios or companies and is producing their own content with staggering frequency. As we continue to provide updates on what’s been added to the service, it will always be interesting to note the balance between original and licensed content being added to the Netflix library. With that in mind, here are the latest Netflix additions for the week of March 1st, 2019. A Clockwork Orange  Stanley Kubrick’s classic adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ novel has returned to Netflix. A horrific, raw, dystopian sci-fi tale, it features a wholly unsettling lead performance from Malcolm McDowell. A deeply disturbing look at the nature of youthful violence, it’s both blunt and extremely stylistic at the same time. It remains an important milestone in the director’s filmography.

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Check Out This Super Creepy, Exclusive Clip from Upcoming Horror Movie Discarnate

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Wicked Horror is the author of Check Out This Super Creepy, Exclusive Clip from Upcoming Horror Movie Discarnate. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

There’s a new creature feature/supernatural thriller on the block with the intriguing title Discarnate (nope, me neither, but it sounds good). To whet your appetite for what’s to come, we have an exclusive clip of the movie for Wicked Horror readers to check out. Suffice to say, it’s a creepy lil’ doozy. The flick stars Bex Taylor-Klaus, who stole the show in last year’s slasher Hell Fest, along with Nadine Velazquez (The League) and Thomas Kretschmann (Avengers: Age of Ultron). The mysteriously vague premise sees a neuroscientist inadvertently unleashing a deadly supernatural force on the world. In the clip below, Taylor-Klaus sits in darkness, lit only by the light of her laptop, and ominously discusses the various shape-shifting demons present in basically every myth and legend on Earth. As she chats about the merits of such stories in society, in a separate location, another character contorts and spasms their body as some kind of…change takes over. The atmosphere is charged with intrigue and mystery, and the FX look pretty gnarly (always important with these kinds of stories). There’s definitely some bloody goo being dribbled  out at one point. I’m obsessed with Bex Taylor-Klaus and will watch her in anything, so I’m already sold (yes, including the Scream TV series that we’re all now collectively pretending didn’t happen because it was that terrible). Great creature FX and a bad ass actress in the leading role? Count me in. Check out the clip for yourself below. You can watch Discarnate on Digital and On Demand from March 5, 2019. Pre-order the flick right here.

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Review: Level 16 is Stylish, Intriguing, and Fiercely Female-led

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Wicked Horror is the author of Review: Level 16 is Stylish, Intriguing, and Fiercely Female-led. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

​The female gaze is strong in Level 16. ​Set in the elite Vestalis Academy (a boarding school/prison for young women), the film frequently deals with ickily implied sexual and physical assault. And yet, the all-female cast (the only men featured are a doctor and some heavies, one of whom has a distractingly loud metal-plated shoe) is never exploited or treated with anything less than the utmost care and attention. Our heroine is Vivien, a true believer, played with quiet fortitude by Katie Douglas. She’s first introduced helping out a fellow boarder, Celina Martin’s partially blind Sophia, who’s fallen out of line only for Vivien to end up punished herself. As she’s dragged off, the young girl pleads “Don’t let them hurt me” while a whole line of detainees keep their gaze forward, pretending not to even notice her. Level 16 then skips into the future as this particular class is being inducted into, well, the 16th level of the school. Here, they will take their final steps towards personal perfection before being adopted, they are told, by a brand-new family. It’s clear things aren’t as rosy as they appear. For one thing, even Vivien is counting the days secretly on the wall behind her bed. Soon Sophia gravely intones all is not what it seems.  What’s in those pills they’re forced to ingest daily anyway? Level 16 is the sixth feature from prolific Canadian filmmaker Danishka Esterhazy. It’s a mysterious, intriguing, and often deliberately provocative experience that isn’t hindered by its evident low budget limitations (the entire thing takes place in the one building, but the setting is brilliantly claustrophobic). There’s much discussion about “clean” girls and the whole idea of feminine virtues. “When a girl is obedient and sweet, the world cannot help but love her,” Vivien is told by her doctor (a man, natch). Although the girls are all seemingly named after famous Hollywood starlets (Greta, Vivien, Ava), they are conditioned to stay in their lane at all times. Curiosity and anger are seen as vices. Their beauty is their currency, meaning the students (prisoners?) of Vestalis aren’t even allowed to venture outdoors lest it ruin their immaculate complexions. And yet, there’s a sickness in the academy. Many of the students are coming down with ghastly rashes on their skin, or even full on bedsores. Clearly something isn’t right and the fact the place is run by a woman (Sara Canning’s Miss Brixil, an aesthetic mixture of every character Lily Rabe and Sarah Paulson have ever played on American Horror Story), who is herself complicit in whatever’s going on, makes it even worse. Esterhazy, who ​wrote as well as directed here, keeps the mystery under wraps until the final act, the academy staff’s dastardly deeds memorably revealed in the movie’s single big shock. Level 16 is about atmosphere rather than all-out scares, and it’s much to the story’s credit that we remain on the hook right up until the end. That sense of intrigue is never lost, even for a moment. Esterhazy coaxes several great performances out of her young, mostly unknown cast, chief of which is the Florence Pugh-esque Douglas, who walks a fine line between naivete and nervous ambition as Vivien. There’s a sense that things are going to down the road of something like The Village (oh god that’s a bad road) when someone whips out an iPad, but the fact Vestalis clearly exists in defiance of the modern world is assumed, rather than used for shock value. Level 16 could reasonably be read as a hyper feminist allegory about the prohibitive standards of beauty imposed upon women both young and old. The upper floors of the academy are lit blue, the lower red, suggesting that regressing leads only to pain. Esterhazy wisely leaves several questions unanswered as the film wraps up because, well, there isn’t really an answer to how society treats women. Not yet. In the meantime, though, movies like this make a mean case for standing up and fighting to dismantle the patriarchal system lest we all end up relegated to scrubbing our faces under duress. WICKED RATING: 7/10 Director(s): Danishka Esterhazy Writer(s): Danishka Esterhazy Stars: Katie Douglas, Celina Martin, Sara Canning, Peter Outerbridge Release: March 1, 2019 Studio/Production Company: Dark Sky Films Language: English Length: 102 minutes

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