Portal:Horror/Selected article archive

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[edit] Archive of Selected article items

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[edit] 2008

[edit] April 2008

Ultime grida dalla savana (1975) (English: Final Cry of the Savanna), also known as La Grande caccia and by its English title Savage Man Savage Beast, is an influential Mondo film directed by Antonio Climati and Mario Morra. Filmed all around the world, its central theme focuses on hunting and the interaction between man and animal. More specifically, the film documents various forms of hunting that can be found in the world today and how humans and animals can both become the hunter or prey. Like many Mondo films, the film makers claim to document real, bizarre and violent behavior and customs, though many of the scenes are actually staged. It is narrated by Italian novelist Alberto Moravia.

This was the first film of Climati's and Morra's Savage Trilogy, the other two films being Savana violenta (This Violent World) and Dolce e selvaggio (Sweet and Savage). The most well known film of the trilogy, Ultime grida dalla savana became influential in exploitation cinema by use of cinematographic techniques that would be repeated in numerous subsequent Mondo films. Two scenes in particular, a lion attack on a tourist in Namibia and the murder of an indigenous man by a group of mercenaries in South America, have gained notoriety for being purported as genuine footage of human death. Also, the film sparked a rivalry between the team of Climati and Morra and the brothers Alfredo and Angelo Castiglioni. These two teams became the forerunners of the second generation of Mondo cinema. (continued...)

[edit] March 2008

Gremlins is a darkly comic American horror movie directed by Joe Dante and released in 1984. It is about a young man who receives a strange creature named Gizmo as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive monsters. This story was continued with a sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, released in 1990. Unlike the lighter sequel, the original Gremlins opts for more black comedy, which is balanced against a Christmas-time setting. Both films were the center of large merchandising campaigns.

Steven Spielberg was the film's executive producer, with the screenplay written by Chris Columbus. The film stars Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates, with Howie Mandel providing the voice of Gizmo. The actors had to work alongside numerous puppets, as puppetry was the main form of special effects used to portray Gizmo and the gremlins.

Gremlins was a commercial success and received positive feedback from critics. However, the film has also been heavily criticized for some of its more violent sequences. Critics alleged these scenes made the film inappropriate for younger audiences who could be admitted into theatres under its PG rating. In response to this and to similar complaints about other films, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) reformed its rating system within two months of its release (more...).

[edit] February 2008

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short-story writer, editor, and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and invented the detective-fiction genre. He is credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.^[1] He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.^[2]

He was born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe, whose parents died when he was young, was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia but was never formally adopted by them. After spending a short period at the University of Virginia and briefly attempting a military career, Poe and the Allans parted ways. Poe's publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian".

Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move between several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845, Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years later. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.^[3]

Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. (more...)

[edit] January 2008

Friday the 13th is an American horror franchise that consists of eleven slasher films, a television show, novels, and comic books. The franchise is mainly based on the fictional character of Jason Voorhees, who supposedly drowned at Camp Crystal Lake as a boy due to the negligence of the teenage counselors. Decades later, the lake is rumored to be "cursed", and is the setting for a series of mass murders. Jason is featured in all of the films, either as the killer or as the motivation for the killings. The original film was written by Victor Miller, and it was produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, with various other individuals taking over those jobs for each sequel.

Originally created to cash in on the success of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), the success lead Paramount Pictures to purchase the full rights to the Friday the 13th franchise with Frank Mancuso, Jr. to produce it. Mancuso, Jr. would go on to develop the television show Friday the 13th: The Series after Paramount released what would be their last film. The television series is not connected to the rest of the franchise by any character or setting, but was created out of the idea of "bad luck and curses", which the film series symbolized. While the franchise was owned by Paramount, four films were adapted into novels, with the film Friday the 13th Part 3 receiving two separate adaptations. When the franchise was sold to New Line Cinema, Cunningham returned to oversee two additional films, and a crossover film with Freddy Krueger from another horror film series A Nightmare on Elm Street. Under New Line, eight novellas and various comic book series were published featuring Jason Voorhees.

The film series was never favored by critics, but still became a financial success at the box office. When comparing the United States box office grosses of other horror film series, Friday the 13th is the highest grossing franchise in adjusted US dollars. (more...)