Sean S. Cunningham
An exploration of '80s horror movies through the perspective of the actors, directors, producers and SFX craftspeople who made them, and their impact on contemporary cinema.
To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story is the harrowing story of a stuntman overcoming a dehumanizing childhood filled with torment and bullying in Sparks, Nevada. After surviving a near-death burn accident, he worked his way up through Hollywood, leading to his ultimate rise as Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th series and making countless moviegoers forever terrified of hockey masks and summer camp. Featuring interviews with cinema legends, including Bruce Campbell (Ash vs. Evil Dead), Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), and Cassandra Peterson (Elvira: Mistress of the Dark), To Hell and Back peels off the mask of Kane Hodder, cinema's most prolific killer, in a gut-wrenching, but inspiring, documentary. After decades of watching Kane Hodder on screen, get ready to meet the man behind the mask in To Hell and Back - an uniquely human story about one of cinema's most vicious monsters.
Taking inspiration from Peter M. Bracke's definitive book of the same name, this seven-hour documentary dives into the making of all twelve Friday the 13th films, with all-new interviews from cast and crew.
For decades, Freddy Krueger has slashed his way through the dreams of countless youngsters, scaring up over half a billion dollars at the box office across eight terrifying, spectacular films.
A short featurette about the creator of the Friday the 13th franchise.
Ignoring the warnings of the locals, a group of teenage camp counselors takes on the job of reopening Camp Crystal Lake — on Friday the 13th no less, and raise the ire of Jason Voorhees, a masked, homicidal maniac.
A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.
A group of teenage girls heading into the city hook up with a gang of drug-addled ne'er-do-wells and are brutally murdered. The killers find their way to the home of one of their victim's parents, where both father and mother exact a horrible revenge.
Sid, the sloth, takes a school of children out on a camping trip from home, only to find that in typical Sid style, he is not a very good guide and the children he takes with him don't have a very good time.
This historical and critical look at slasher films, which includes dozens of clips, begins with Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Prom Night. The films' directors, writers, producers, and special effects creators comment on the films' making and success. During the Reagan years, the films get gorier, budgets get smaller, and their appeal wanes. Then, Nightmare on Elm Street revives the genre. Jump to the late 90s, when Scream brings humor and TV stars into the mix.
Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.
A tribute to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, featuring contemporary filmmakers, writers, performers, and cultural critics.
2004 documentary of the Friday the 13th franchise for the 5-disc DVD boxset From Crystal Lake to Manhattan.
Featuring interviews, film clips, and production stills, this miniseries explores what went into the making of most bone-chilling moments in cinematic history and searches beyond the conventions of the genre to uncover the number one scary movie moment of all time.
40-minute documentary on the making of Wes Craven's 1972 classic, The Last House on the Left.
In an attempt to free himself from a state of forgotten limbo, evil dream-demon Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) devises a plan to manipulate un-dead mass murderer Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzenger) into slicing-and-dicing his way through the teenage population of Springwood. But when the master of dreams loses control of his monster, a brutal fight to the death is the only way out in this long anticipated crossover between two of modern horror's most notorious killers!
Produced for the 30th anniversary of the film's theatrical release, this documentary gives a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a film about brutal murder and even more brutal revenge that has become one of the classics of the modern horror genre. Includes interviews with the cast and crew, including director Wes Craven, who relates some of the difficulties he had getting the film finished and released.
A documentary charting the rise and fall (and inevitable undead rise) of fictional killer Jason Vorhees from the Friday the 13th series, which takes in the "video nasty" phenomenon in general.
Aliens in human disguise commandeer a rural airport during a snowstorm. To survive, the people trapped inside must determine which of their own is not of this Earth.
An unpredictable and irresistible thriller about instant celebrity, primetime morality and America's endless appetite for junk food TV. Television producer Karen Webber has built her career on her ability to create top-rated primetime TV. But as housemates and crew start turning up dead on the hit show XCU, Karen and her cast of instant celebrities can't possibly anticipate just how extreme their reality show is about to become!
In the year 2455, Old Earth is now a contaminated planet abandoned for centuries -- a brown world of violent storms, toxic landmasses and poisonous seas. Yet humans have returned to the deadly place that they once fled, not to live, but to research the ancient, rusting artifacts of the long-gone civilizations. But it's not the harmful environment that could prove fatal to the intrepid, young explorers who have just landed on Old Earth. For them, it's Friday the 13th, and Jason lives!
Jason Voorhees, the living, breathing essence of evil, is back for one fierce, final fling! Tracked down and blown to bits by a special FBI task force, everyone now assumes that he's finally dead. But everybody assumes wrong. Jason has been reborn with the bone-chilling ability to assume the identity of anyone he touches. The terrifying truth is that he could be anywhere, or anybody. In this shocking, blood-soaked finale to Jason's carnage-ridden reign of terror, the horrible secret of his unstoppable killing instinct is finally revealed.
Detective Lucas McCarthy finally apprehends "Meat Cleaver Max" and watches the electric chair execution from the audience. But killing Max Jenke only elevated him to another level of reality. Now Lucas' family is under attack, his sanity in question, and his house haunted. Aided by a disreputable college professor, can Lucas reclaim his mind, house, and family? Features Lance Henriksen as the Lucas McCarthy and Brion James as Max Jenke. One of the few movies featuring these actors as main characters.
A loner answers a simple newspaper ad and finds himself framed for murder.
The crew of an experimental underwater nuclear base are forced to struggle for their lives when their explorations disturb a creature who threatens to destroy their base.
Young urban professionals Jesse (Arye Gross) and his girlfriend Kate (Lar Park Lincoln), move into an old mansion that has been in Jesse's family for generations. They are soon joined by Jesse's goofy friend Charlie (Jonathan Stark), who brought along his diva girlfriend Lana (Amy Yasbeck), in the hopes of being discovered by Kate, who works for a record company. Jesse has returned to this old family mansion after his parents were murdered when he was a baby. While going through old things in the basement, Jesse finds a picture of his great-great grandfather (and namesake) in front of a Mayan temple holding a crystal skull with jewels in the eyes. In the background is a man Jesse learns is Slim Razor, a former partner of his great-great grandfather turned bitter enemy after a disagreement over who would get to keep the skull.
A brother and sister arrive in a small town to help their relatives run an amusement park, and they find the town is terrorized by a local street gang.
Homicidal maniac Jason returns from the grave to cause more bloody mayhem. Young Tommy may have escaped from Crystal Lake, but he’s still haunted by the gruesome events that happened there. When gory murders start happening at the secluded halfway house for troubled teens where he now lives, it seems like his nightmarish nemesis, Jason, is back for more sadistic slaughters. But as things spiral out of control and the body count rises, Tommy begins to wonder if he’s become the killer he fears most.
Roger Cobb is a author who has just separated from his wife. He moves into a new house and tries to work on a novel based on his experiences in the Vietnam War. Strange things start happening around him; little things at first, but as they become more frequent, Cobb becomes aware that the house resents his presence.
Two sets of two college guys spend a spring break together in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There they have lots of fun in and out of the sun.
Three years after Steve Peterson's wife, Nina, was murdered in front of their 11 year old daughter Julie, she and his new girlfriend Sharon Martin are kidnapped by the same killer, the psychotic Artie Taggart. Imprisoning them in a bunker below Grand Central Station, he throws the police into a race against time to save the girls and catch the killer.
Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning.
A cop and his partner manage a little league baseball team, trying to turn the group of misfits into a competitive team.
Manny coaches soccer for the fashionable Creighton Hall school, but is relieved of duty because he is 'not a good match' for the school. He finds a job at a Catholic home for orphans, where he forms a new soccer team, with the help of one very good player Pepe who turns out to be a girl. 'Pepe' is the sister of one of the orphans, who comes to the all-boy orphanage posing as a boy, because her former foster home was an abusive environment. Along the way, Manny has incurred a gambling debt, his creditors begin to lean on him, and the boys find out. They set up a soccer game and stake the outcome against Manny's debt. If they win, the debt will be forgiven.
Is Emma a voyeur vampire who can turn into a bat? Apparently, and she leaves many smiling faces on her victims after going down on them during a full moon. When they're not having sex with their suspects, two cops investigate the murders.
A disturbed gang of youths kidnap, torture and murder two teenage girls; unbeknownst to the gang, the parents of one of the girls live nearby...
Between 1980 and 1989, the horror genre gave us well over 200 slasher flicks; most of them were cheap, and very few of them had much of a lasting impact on audiences (aside from rabid horror fans like us, that is). Flaws and all though, we loved most of these horrific endeavors. Taking the format of ‘70s classics such as Black Christmas, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and, of course, the quintessential slasher movie, John Carpenter’s Halloween, studios realized they could make a lot of money chopping up teens. So much so that the genre would collapse in on itself like a dying star before the decade was done.
