The Weekly Horrorscope

The 2010's were a great decade for horror with the emergence of prestige horror and larger budgets pushing studio projects to greater quality levels. We saw movies like Hereditary, Get Out, A Quiet Place, Let Me In, as well as the highest grossing horror movie of all time, It. Independent, smaller films thrived in this new environment and well-made and intelligent films became the standard. Jerry & Matt look at two diverse exam...

In a landscape littered with bad sequels and reboots, it was a challenge to seek out the very best end movies of a series. Often times, a successful series only ends because the films stop making money, usually because the quality has diminished dramatically and the audience moves on. In the best scenarios, filmmakers have a defined vision that is completed or they don't want to repeat themselves and dilute their own art. Jerry &am...

The ought's brought a big shift in horror, leaving the stale 90's way behind them. Several new avenues for modern or elevated horror emerged, from French New Wave, to the found footage surge, the J-horror invasion and the torture porn era. New voices emerged and pushed the genre forward, some of whom still shape the landscape of horror today. Jerry & Matt look at two influential movies that greatly impacted the decade with Amer...

2024 was a monumental year for horror, with an impressive array of outstanding films. The year brought us the usual order of sequels, prequels, and remakes, but many of these were outstanding in their own right, not just quick cash grabs with diminished quality. We were also treated to original ideas and concepts that remind us how fresh and innovative horror can be. Jerry & Matt discuss some of the top films from 2024 and spen...

The 1990's saw a transition in horror, as the most predominant films split into either edgy thrillers, such as The Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, and Misery, or into teenage driven franchises like I know What You Did last Summer, Final Destination, and Scream. Pure horror films struggled to find a foothold in this environment, but like a beloved Final Girl, horror always survives. This week, Jerry & Matt look at two intelligent a...

With the proliferation of home video and lower barrier of entry to filmmaking, the 1980's were a decade inundated with horror movie releases. Within this volume, we saw masses of cheap and poorly made films, but also examples of great creativity and ingenuity. Streaming has replaced the direct-to-video model, but in many ways the 80's created the format for how we access horror movies to this day. As one of the most prolific, the d...

As Dr. Oblivion stated in the film Videodrome, "the television screen has become the retina of the mind's eye". This is a frightening idea without even applying the concept to horror films. From scratchy static allowing entity's into our homes, to mind altering signals that warp our brain, television has become a technological touchstone ripe for allowing terror into our lives. Jerry & Matt look at two very different films wher...

Plot twists and misdirection have long been a hallmark of horror films. Fantastical imagery and haunting, dream-like sequences blur the lines between reality and fiction, often leaving viewers guessing at where the story is headed. Jerry & Matt look at two very different films where all is not what it seems, with David Cronenberg's mind-melding exposition of media, Videodrome, from 1983, and M. Night Shyamalan's disjointed retu...

Being so closely related on the evolutionary scale, man has always been fascinated with primates and love putting them in films. They can be shown as cute or silly in roles played for humor (Right turn, Clyde), sent into space, spread diseases, or evolve beyond man into a dominate human species. They present a mystery to us, a link to what we may have been in the past and unknown potential of what they may be capable of. It is this...

With origins dating back to biblical times, witchcraft is one of the most enduring, yet reality based topics in all of horror. From cartoon version to Halloween costumes, witches can be an under-appreciated topic for real terror. This week, Jerry & Matt look at two very diverse representations of witchcraft, with Robert Eggers' dark and disturbing tale from 2015, The Witch, and Spell, from 2020, a B-movie mash-up of wasted pote...

Children represent unlimited potential and the future of our society. In almost all cultures, it is a primary function of adults to protect and defend the younger and weaker members so that potential can someday be realized. In horror, children create even greater tension when in peril due to this ingrained protective nature. This week, Jerry and Matt look at two very diverse films that put children at extreme risk with the abstrac...

The sea represents a broad canvas for horrors real and imagined. Tales of killer sharks, haunted ships, and Lovecraftian creatures from the deep have been a staple of fiction and films for decades. With the frightening power of nature and the vast unexplored depths of the oceans, there are endless ways to portray "Terror at Sea". Jerry & Matt look at two diverse films that probe very different horrors with Virus from 1999, and ...

Horror has long been a field that pushes boundaries and embraces societal taboos. Sex has been a theme or undercurrent in horror films for decades and can blur the line between exploitation and perversity. This week Jerry & Matt look at two very different films with sex and perversion at the center of their narratives. Teeth from 2007 is a dark, comedic take on a mythological deformity, vagina dentata. Antichrist from 2009 is a...

The concept of a human supplemented with bio-mechanical parts was introduced in the 1960's and was mostly a concept to explore in fiction, much like flying cars and manned space crafts. With the increases in computer capabilities and the introduction of AI and self-learning, the idea of cyborgs began to carry horrific implications. These fears were the basis of James Cameron's seminal sci-fi film The Terminator, from 1984. It was c...

The 1970's are considered by many to be the greatest decade of all time for horror movies. Iconic films like The Exorcist, Alien, Halloween, Dawn of the Dead, Carrie, and Suspiria were all born in this fertile decade of imagination and terror. The 1970's represent the birth of modern horror and many of this tentpole films hold up now, half a century later. This week, Jerry and Matt select two movies that are at the top of any horro...

Horror has long used the purity and goodness of the "final girl" trope to give us someone to cheer for. That idea has evolved so that women are represented as more than just screaming survivors, but warriors whose survival instincts drive them to fight against overwhelming odds. Jerry and Matt look at two prime examples of these badass women with Jen from Revenge, a 2017 French-made blood-soaked tale, and Grace from Ready or Not, a...