News

Amazon is having a massive sale on over 150 horror movies from the Scream Factory catalog, with Blu-rays as low as $8.49 and 4K Ultra HDs starting at $15.91.

These prices are only available for limited time, so stock up now!

$8.49 Blu-rays:

Candyman

Dark Angel

Lifeforce

Ninja III: The Domination

Sleepaway Camp

$9.76 or less Blu-rays:

Kindred

Nosferatu the Vampyre

Psycho (1998)

Ravenous

The Babadook

The Doctor and the Devils

The Slumber Party Massacre

Zombie High

$9.99 Blu-rays:

Assault on Precinct 13

Body Bags

Cherry Falls

Day of the Dead

Dog Soldiers

Ginger Snaps

Lake Placid

Motel Hell

Night of the Comet

Night of the Demons

Psycho II

Psycho III

Pumpkinhead

The Crush

The Funhouse Massacre

The Howling

The People Under the Stairs

$11.49 Blu-rays:

Cat People (1982)

Class of 1984

Deadly Blessing

Death Becomes Her

Dreamscape

Final Exam

Firestarter

Metalstorm

RoboCop 2

RoboCop 3

Shocker

Slumber Party Massacre (2021)

The Boy Who Cried Werewolf

The Burning

Village of the Damned...

I was absolutely floored by The Ugly Stepsister when I caught it at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. When I heard it was a subversive take on Cinderella, I groaned, as this was at the height of Snow White’s terrible press run, and I didn’t really need to see yet another fairy tale told over again – especially as there was a pretty solid retelling done back in the nineties with Drew Barrymore, Ever After, which doesn’t get much love. Suffice to say, I had no clue what I was getting into, with this a gory, body horror version that puts the Grimm back into this Brothers Grimm story. It’s the darkest fairy tale movie I’ve seen since The Company of Wolves or Snow White: A Tale of Terror.

Taking the perspective of one of the “ugly stepsisters”, director Emilie Blichfeldt has made a gruesome,...

Performers have the uncanny ability to embody a character with nothing more than their acting talents. But sometimes, a role requires the skills of a makeup artist. Throughout film history, there have been many instances when an actor became unrecognizable for a project. In recent years, that has become easier, thanks to motion capture technology and visual effects. For example, Josh Brolin was wearing tennis balls and a bodysuit -- not purple paint -- while playing Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which made the character much less terrifying behind the scenes.

However, it's always more impressive when the work is a combination of an actor's abilities and the makeup team's prowess. Whether they turned into a creature of the night or a real-life serial killer, the actors on this list are just some of the stars who became unrecognizable for one of their roles.

Read more: 10 Completed Movies That...

Plot: Elvira (Lea Myren) has one all-consuming obsession: to win the affection of her kingdom’s handsome prince and live happily ever after. Yet, she lives in the shadow of her beautiful step-sister, Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), who seems fated for the happy ending she’s always dreamed of. But, in a kingdom where beauty is prized above all things, Elvira will get what she wants, no matter what…

Review: The Ugly Stepsister is the gruesome, body horror Cinderella reimagining you never knew you wanted. Given the many variations on the classic tale, it’s incredible to think that we’ve never gotten a hard-r-rated flick in the vein of The Brothers Grimm’s version of the story. Let’s not forget that the take on Cinderella ends with the evil stepsisters mutilating their feet to fit into Cinderella’s slipper. Director Emilie Blichfeldt conjures up a version that...

From Snow White to Cinderella, the cinematic world has seen many retellings of these fairy tales over the years. Many of these tales, like Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel, crossed themselves to the horror genre with a mix of fantasy. One such film from the 80s doesn't just retell the tale of Little Red Riding Hood but turns the classic bedtime story into a dark, haunting and unforgettable cinematic experience. Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves, rather than showing a colorful, happy fairytale, confronts the darker aspects of desire and fear. The film plunges the audience into its subconscious, revealing the unsettling truths hidden beneath the surface. Even 41 years later, this British fantasy film stands as one of the greatest gothic tales ever told in cinema.

The Company of Wolves is a screen adaptation of British author Angela Carter's 1979 short story of the same name. Carter, who...

Game of Thrones andHouse of the Dragon have helped popularize a dark fantasy aesthetic characterized by menace-looking warriors in glinting armor, twisted-looking castles, and the return of eerie old magic. To make up for the absence of these TV shows, it's not uncommon for fantasy fans to look into the past for unique fantasy movies, seemingly forgotten in time. After all, the fantasy films from the '80s and '90s directly inspired many elements of modern fantasy movies and TV shows.

Classics like Conan, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal and Willow continue to influence popular culture through their bygone style. However, there is still a wealth of other fantasy movies that remain hidden gems. This retro or dark fantasy deserves revisiting by any fan of the genre. It melds the impressive effects of horror and sci-fi with the glamor, adventure and theatricality of historical fiction dramas to create worlds, heroes...

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and Syfy’s celebrating accordingly with a marathon of the Leprechaun movies. But if you’re looking for horror inspiration that’ll bring the laughs and screams beyond the pint-sized killer’s holiday-appropriate franchise, this week’s streaming picks are dedicated to Irish horror comedies that do just that.

If you’re feeling lucky, here’s where you can stream these Irish horror-comedies this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

Extra Ordinary – Kanopy, Paramount+

This horror-comedy from writers/directors Mike Ahern & Enda Loughman delivers laughs and ectoplasm in spades. Maeve Higgins stars as the kindly Rose Dooley, a lonely woman with a unique ability to see and deal with ghosts. When a washed up rock star (Will Forte) enters a Satanic pact that entails sacrificing his daughter, Rose must team up with client and crush Martin Martin (Barry Ward) to save her.

This year’s edition of the Sundance Film Festival felt a touch bittersweet to me. You see, Sundance is on the verge of relocating, with it increasingly unlikely that it will continue in Park City past the 2026 festival edition. Having been going to Sundance since 2010 (where does the time go), I must admit I felt a little sad sitting in some of the classic Sundance spots this year, like the Holiday Village Cinemas (where all the press screenings are) and the classic Eccles theatre, as after next year that might be the end of their run as premium Sundance spots. I’ve seen so many classics in these theatres, and it will be a shame to bid adieu to Park City.

Oh well, at least we have the 2026 edition to look forward to. As it is, the 2025 edition turned out to be the best edition of the festival since it was rocked by the pandemic.

When you think of werewolves, your mind probably goes straight to foggy forests and full moons—but let’s not forget the other perfect backdrop for a beastly horror story: snow. Wintery werewolf movies are quite the niche but still an oh-so-satisfying subgenre. One where the frigid chill of the season cranks up the tension, and the isolation of a snowy landscape creates the perfect hunting ground for our furry friends.

Werewolves in the snow are pure nightmare fuel. There’s something about the mix of primal creatures and icy environments that feels so right. Maybe it’s the visual of blood staining freshly fallen snow, or the way a howling wind seems to mimic the call of a wolf. Whatever it is, winter werewolf movies hit a little differently, offering both atmospheric dread and some ferocious fun.

So, whether you’re here for gothic fairy tales, dark comedies, or...

Editor’s note: this list was originally published in September 2023. It has since been updated to coincide with the release of “Wolf Man.”

Of all the classic horror movie monsters, werewolves, quite frankly, get the short end of the stick. Vampires and zombies have dozens of iconic films to claim as their own, while ghosts and witches pop up in movies all the time. But werewolves? Their great films are fewer and further between.

One of the oldest and most widespread creatures of folklore, the modern idea of werewolves originated from ancient Greek literature before growing into a common figure in European oral traditions. But onscreen, werewolves are less omnipresent — and typically less successful — than those starring significantly younger creatures of the night like vampires. Universal Pictures’ first attempt to bring werewolves to screen, 1935’s “Werewolf of London,” flopped and paled in comparison to masterpieces like “Dracula” and “Frankenstein.” The...

The allure of the werewolf has persisted for centuries, rooted in mythology that speaks to our darkest fears and primal instincts. Representing a loss of control and a descent into savagery, werewolves embody the tension between humanity and beast. In cinema, these themes have been explored in a variety of ways, from tragic tales to gory thrill rides.

With the release of Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man (2025) today, the werewolf genre has received a modern update that honors its roots while exploring the emotional depths of family, sacrifice, and monstrous transformation. To celebrate, we’ve compiled the ultimate list of the best werewolf films ever made, ranked by acclaim and legacy.

10 Great Werewolf movies 1. An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Dir. John Landis

This groundbreaking horror-comedy follows two American backpackers, David and Jack, as a werewolf attack in the Yorkshire moors leaves one dead and the other cursed. David’s...

Werewolf films have never had the same cultural impact as vampire movies, or kaiju movies, or ghost stories, but in many ways that lesser renown is a selling point. Because it's a subgenre less codified by Hollywood, and less subject to certain tropes, the werewolf film has been able to,...

The 1980s saw a wave of dark fantasy films that felt like moody fairytales. Some films, like Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves, are retellings of actual fairytales, while others, like Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, are brand-new material. Building on identifiable children’s stories automatically attracts a younger audience, especially when the marketing for the film plays up the source material. In 1988, Jan Švankmajer released Alice, one of the darkest versions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Well aware of his possible audience, one of Alice's first lines is, "Now you will see a film made for children...perhaps." Half stop-motion, half live-action, Alice sees a young Kristýna Kohoutová play the titular Alice. The film follows the basic framework of the original Alice in Wonderland while dilating the surrealist logic and coming-of-age aspects to unsettle the audience with a more subliminal type of horror. For...

Airell Anthony Hayles is no stranger to the world of horror. The British filmmaker, producer, and writer has steadily carved out a space for himself in the genre, delivering a mix of thought-provoking narratives and imaginative frights. With a degree in Theatre and Film Studies from Goldsmiths College, University of London, Airell’s passion for storytelling and genre cinema has led him to work on projects as varied as Heckle, starring Steve Guttenberg and Dani Dyer, and Werewolf Santa, a darkly comedic twist on holiday folklore.

His latest project, Advent, premieres at FrightFest Halloween before its digital release on 25 November 2024. The film blends supernatural horror with contemporary themes, drawing inspiration from the sinister “Blue Whale Challenge” and placing its protagonist—a social media influencer—at the mercy of a cursed advent calendar. It’s a concept that embodies Airell’s approach to horror: merging unsettling modern realities with classic storytelling tropes.

The Company Of Wolves The Company Of Wolves, 11.25pm, Talking Pictures TV (Freeview channel 82), Tuesday, December 3

For many children in the UK and beyond, their first encounter with a wolf will be through the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, as a young girl tries to stay safe as she delivers food to her grandma. This adaptation of Angela Carter's book - co-scripted by Carter herself alongside Neil Jordan - is most definitely not for children as it immerses us in the imagined gothic dreamscape of its young heroine Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) after a cautionary tale from her gran (Angela Lansbury) about men whose eyebrows meet in the middle. Things in this world don't operate by the rules, and the action is fuelled by the subversive sexual undercurrent experienced by Rosaleen as the wolf inspires fear and attraction in equal measure. Although the structure is on the loose side,...

Every year, there is a whole host of new fairytale retellings. Disney movies and edgy remakes cater to every demographic under the sun by invoking fond childhood recollections of beloved folklore. In 1979, British author Angela Carter released her iconic short story collection, The Bloody Chamber. Two of these stories, The Company of Wolves and The Werewolf, would inspire Neil Jordan to adapt them into his own dark and moody film. Following Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) into her fantastical dreamscape, The Company of Wolves tracks the young girls childish desires as they melt into mature ones. A modern girl living in the countryside, Rosaleen falls asleep and enters a wonderland filled with magic and danger. A twist on the classic Little Red Riding Hood, Jordan and Carter elevate the typical werewolf metaphor from the traditional beast-within narrative into a glossy pastiche about the harrowing relationship between desire and fear.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Bam

A series of “silent” movies includes films by Tati, Miguel Gomes, and Chaplin.

Film at Lincoln Center

The new 4K restoration of Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors continues.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Seventh Victim and The Fog play on Friday; a Godzilla series gets underway; The Indian in the Cupboard plays on 35mm Saturday and Sunday.

Metrograph

Rio Bravo, Funny Games, Insomnia, Kung Fu Hustle, The Outfit, and The Good, the Bad, the Weird show on 35mm; My Crazy Uncle (or Aunt), Insomnia, and Crush the Strong, Help the Weak begin.

Roxy Cinema

Dancer in the Dark and Scream play on 35mm, while Suspiria and Without You I’m Nothing also screen.

Museum of Modern Art

A massive retrospective of Portuguese cinema continues, while the films of Mohammad Reza Aslani screen.

IFC Center

4K restorations...

As the final stretch of October sets in, there is still plenty of time to catch favorite flicks, spooky, witchy, scary or cozy in the season of pumpkins, monsters and more. Freeform’s 31 Nights of Halloween has several classic films airing all month long such as Casper (1995), Arachnophobia, Goosebumps, Edward Scissorhands, etc.

More recent films like 2021’s Ghostbustesr: Afterlife, 2022’s Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) and Haunted Mansion (2023) will also be available. Disney+ is the home of several of the movies in the below list, as is Max. Follow along below for your favorite titles as well as what is available by streamer and network.

Movies:

While Bram Stoker’s Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola is streaming on MGM+, several other vampire movies like Interview with the Vampire are available on Max. Peacock also boasts a couple newer fanged flicks like Renfield (2023) and Abigail (2024). Twilight is not streaming anywhere currently, but...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

The new 4K restoration of Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is now playing.

Bam

Robert Frank and Rudy Wurlitzer’s Candy Mountain begins screening in a new restoration. (Watch our exclusive trailer debut.)

Museum of the Moving Image

Monsters Inc. and What About Bob? play in a Frank Oz retrospective; Chantal Akerman’s American Stories: Food, Family and Philosophy screens on Sunday; The Texas Chain Saw Massacre shows throughout the weekend.

Metrograph

The Decameron, Fellini Satyricon, In America, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Legend of Suram Fortress, Corpse Bride, All the President’s Men, The Candidate, We Won’t Grow Old Together, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, and Momma’s Man show on 35mm; an Azazel Jacobs series and Follow the Money: Kimberly Reed Selects begin; The Phantom of Ester Krumbachová, Rabbit on the Moon,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Bam

Films by Warren Beatty, Mike Judge, and more play in Facing the Future; the restoration of I Heard it Through the Grapevine screens.

Roxy Cinema

Gummo, Love Streams, and Dancer in the Dark play on 35mm, while Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro screens screens on Saturday and a 16mm puppet program shows Sunday.

Museum of Modern Art

A massive retrospective of Portuguese cinema begins, featuring films by Paulo Rocha and Manoel de Oliveira, among many others.

Museum of the Moving Image

A highlight of the 1969 Directors’ Fortnight includes prints of Oshima’s Death By Hanging and Garrel’s The Virgin’s Bed; a Frank Oz retrospective continues.

Anthology Film Archives

Dreyer’s Ordet plays in “Essential Cinema.”

IFC Center

The black-and-white restoration of Johnny Mnemonic plays, as does a 40th-anniversary restoration of Paris, Texas and Bennett Miller’s The Cruise; The Company of Wolves,...

Growing up, trying to find our way in the world, and making sense of changes can be a difficult and even frightening experience. The awkward uncertainty during the informative years had long found ties with the horror genre as a way to interpret real-life struggles. Combining the two genres has undoubtedly proven to be a successful pairing. From the gruesome Teeth (2007) to the often-celebrated The Craft (1996), coming-of-age horror movies have become fan favorites.

Yet one dark take on the coming-of-age genre is often touted as the best: John Fawcett's Ginger Snaps. Combining lycanthropic terrors with navigating the informative years certainly proved to be an insightful take on the genre, but there is one movie that did the same thing decades before. The Company of Wolves (1984) is often overlooked, but it is on par with Ginger Snaps and shares enough similarities that fans should be howling at the chance to...

The Criterion Channel’s at its best when October rolls around, consistently engaging in the strongest horror line-ups of any streamer. 2024 will bring more than a few iterations of their spooky programming: “Horror F/X” highlights the best effects-based scares through the likes of Romero, Cronenberg, Lynch, Tobe Hooper, James Whale; “Witches” does what it says on the tin (and inside the tin is the underrated Italian anthology film featuring Clint Eastwood cuckolded by Batman); “Japanese Horror” runs the gamut of classics; a Stephen King series puts John Carpenter and The Lawnmower Man on equal playing ground; October’s Criterion Editions are Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Hunter, Häxan; a made-for-tv duo includes Carpenter’s underrated Someone’s Watching Me!; meanwhile, The Wailing and The Babadook stream alongside a collection of Cronenberg and Stephanie Rothman titles.

Otherwise, Winona Ryder and Raúl Juliá are given retrospectives, as are filmmakers Arthur J. Bressan Jr. and Lionel Rogosin.

Conventional horror movies centered around werewolves often go heavy on special effects, showcasing the transformation from man to wolf and its subsequent uncontrollable slaughter. But the transformative aspect and dual nature of werewolves provide fertile ground for metaphor beyond their primal, animalistic urge to eviscerate everything in their path.

Out this week is The Beast Within, a werewolf movie with a fairy tale twist, framing its horror story from the perspective of a young girl discovering the truth about her afflicted father.

It’s the unconventional approach to werewolf lore that inspires this week’s streaming picks: five unconventional werewolf horror movies that defy easy categorization and use lycanthropy to explore historical horrors, the growing pains of youth, or simply loneliness.

Here’s where you can stream them this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

Brotherhood of the Wolf – AMC+, Kanopy, Pluto TV, the Roku Channel,...

The Fantasia International Film Festival kicks off its 28th edition this week, running from July 18 through August 4, 2024, at the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screens and events at Montreal’s Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée. That means multiple weeks of dense genre programming, buzzy premieres, and more.

The festival is set to debut Chuck Russell’s Witchboard remake, the Mike Flanagan-presented found footage Shelby Oaks, the latest from La Llorona filmmaker Jayro Bustamante, Steven Kostanski’s Frankie Freako, and more, but there’s a wealth of titles beyond the high profile titles worth seeking out.

Here are five horror movies to keep an eye out for at this year’s fest, from festival darlings to fresh debuts.

The Beast Within

The narrative debut of filmmaker Alexander J. Farrell explores the duality of werewolves with a Grimm fairy tale-like twist. Stopmotion’s Caoilinn Springall stars as Willow,...

Surrealist wonderland stories saw their last heyday in the 80s, with features like Jim Hensons Labyrinth, or Neil Jordans The Company of Wolves. Horror movies with a folk angle have, recently, garnered not only cult success but critical acclaim, with films like Robert Eggers The Witch becoming an instant darling. Despite these two genres' similarities, it is unusual to find a movie at the cross-section of a fairytale and folk horror. Enter Rainer Sarnets internationally acclaimed November. Best described as a dark fairytale, 2017's November loosely follows a young girl, who happens to be a werewolf, Liina (Rea Lest). Liina is embroiled in a love triangle with Hans (Jrgen Liik), a local boy. Hans is in love with a sleepwalking baroness. As the three teens pine, Sarnet takes his viewer on a guided tour of their village. There, automatons made of farming equipment steal cattle, townspeople con the devil, and...

Warring with Harvey Weinstein, marvelling at Tom Cruise, realising Mona Lisa and many other films were about himself … the great Irish director looks back on his astonishing career

Neil Jordan has spent his career telling strange, twisting stories that have mesmerised, surprised and occasionally misfired. Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, The Company of Wolves, Breakfast on Pluto – these films all veer off in unexpected directions, ambushing the audience. But it turns out the director saved the biggest twist for himself. Watching some of his films at a festival some years ago, Jordan was startled to see his own private life up there on the screen. It seems he had unknowingly channelled his relationships with his father, his wife and his children into stories about gangsters, terrorists and hot vampires. “I was shocked at how much of myself I revealed,” he says. “It was like a physical shock.”

That Jordan burgled...

Fairy tales are the source of many of our favorite fantasy films and tropes. The classics like Snow White, Hansel & Gretel, and Sleeping Beauty have led to some fantastic feature films and many of them crossed into the horror genre, mixing the fantasy with a hefty dose of blood. The original stories that the fairy tales we grew up with came from were not the spic and span Disney fare we would read. They were dark, gritty stories that, more often than not, revolved around a horrible death or two.

They were morality tales guaranteed to make a child’s or an adult’s blood run a bit colder and scare them into listening. One of the most terrifying and cautionary of these tales was Little Red Riding Hood. Not only did the story include a young woman in danger, but it also involved a werewolf who eats her grandmother,...

Frank Grillo battles lycanthropes in new movie Werewolves, set to release on December 6, 2024. Supermoon triggers latent gene turning humans into werewolves for one night, chaos ensues. Werewolves promises practical effects, powerhouse cast including Frank Grillo, Katrina Law, and Ilfenesh Hadera.

Action star Frank Grillo may be used to fending off violent humans in his films, but this time around, he'll be battling lycanthropes in his new movie Werewolves thats set to release on December 6, 2024. Grillo, who starred in the action-thriller Lights Out earlier this year, is perhaps best known for his roles as Sgt. Leo Barnes in The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year, as well as Brock Rumlow/Crossbones in the MCU. Hell also be featured in the upcoming Dcu television projects Creature Commandos and Peacemaker Season 2 as Rick Flag Sr.

As per Deadline, Werewolves is set to tear its way into cinemas this December, and alongside Grillo...

Next to nursey rhymes and small girls in frilly dresses, one of the things horror filmmakers are most keen to ‘subvert’ are fairy tales. From The Company Of Wolves and Deep In The Woods to Hunted and Final Girl, there are more Red Riding Hoods than you can shake a stick at, Hansel And Gretel feature in both US and South Korean versions, and The Curse Of Sleeping Beauty also makes its mark. Andy Edwards’ Cinderella’s Revenge is another offering in this tradition, mixing an appreciation of its story’s bloody roots with a gory modern twist.

Although Edwards directs, he didn’t write the script, and that shows in what is probably his weakest effort to date. It’s a film that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. For the first 45 minutes it plays it very straight, the only intentional squirm moment involving mutilations...

There’s a compelling idea in anthropology that many ancient werewolf legends are derived from our species’ need to rationalize the more animalistic side of humanity – which is why lycanthropy has historically been used to explain everything from medieval serial killers to cannibalism. While I personally think there’s a lot more to unpack when it comes to tales of wolfmen and women, this is still a great example of why so many of our most enduring fairy tales involve big bad wolves.

And in the world of film, I think there’s only one feature that really nails the folkloric origins of werewolf stories, namely Neil Jordan’s 1984 fairy-tale horror classic, The Company of Wolves. Even four decades later, there’s no other genre flick that comes close to capturing the dreamlike ambience behind this strange anthology, and that’s why I’d like to take this opportunity to...

Cillian Murphy and writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan on the set of ‘Oppenheimer’ (Photo © Universal Pictures)

Since Cillian Murphy just became the first Irish-born actor to win the Best Actor Oscar, I thought it would be appropriate to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a list of the most notable Irish actors who have been honored by the Academy with either Oscar gold or a nomination.

1. Cillian Murphy

Murphy has played non-Irish roles so often and so well that some people may not realize or remember that he is Irish. His best Irish films include Breakfast on Pluto and The Wind that Shakes the Barley. And as noted above, he is the first Irish-born actor to take home an Academy Award in the Best Actor category.

Vicky Krieps and Daniel Day-Lewis in writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Phantom Thread’ (Photo by Laurie Sparham / Focus Features)

2. Daniel Day-Lewis

Day-Lewis...

Disney movies are so popular that many mistake the company's interpretation of the fairy tales as rote. There's far more to fairy tales than any one movie or franchise can definitively tell. Disney sanitizes many folktales and their themes, while other movies lean into the original messaging and symbolism, no matter how mature or gruesome.

Other films and production companies have creative takes on fairy tales, and some take more interesting risks. Some Barbie fairy tale movies also retell tales that Disney hasn't gotten to yet or will never get to. Fairy tale retellings aren't going out of fashion anytime soon, and there are many versions, both textual and film, that retell the old stories in a new light.

Angela Carter's Classic Story The Company of Wolves Was Made Into an '80s Fever Dream Movie

The Company of Wolves

A teenage girl in a country manor falls asleep while reading a magazine,...

The 1980s were a decade full of big hair, punk rock, video games, political drama, and leg-warmers. It was also full of werewolves. In 1981 alone, there were four werewolf flicks in the theaters, those being Wolfen, An American Werewolf in London, Full Moon High, and the subject of this very article, The Howling. The rest of the decade saw many more lycanthropes lighting up the silver screen, including The Beast Within, The Company of Wolves, Silver Bullet, The Monster Squad, Monster Dog, and a plethora of Howling sequels. With so many werewolf movies coming out in a stretch of just ten years, only the truly unique ones that could stand apart from the rest would be remembered as classics. One such classic that innovated upon the typical werewolf mythology is The Howling.

As previously mentioned, Joe Dante’s The Howling has had stiff competition since its release, with the film...

The heat is most definitely on in this episode of revisited, as we’re looking back on a quintessential piece of 1980s action / comedy movie-making, that helped to launch the career of American funnyman Eddie Murphy into the stratosphere. That’s right folk, with the much anticipated fourth entry in the series on the horizon, we’re taking a retrospective look at the Axel F infused goodness that is Beverly Hills Cop. Ok, well, I guess part four isn’t necessarily ‘much anticipated’ across the entire movie-world, but Eddie Murphy has had somewhat of a career resurgence in recent times and apart from a slightly tame and disappointing Coming 2 America, and the relative appeal of You People, he’s made a positive return the spotlight. Part four is currently slated, as per time of writing this video, for 2024 but there have been whispers about it possibly surfacing on Netflix,...

When people think of crazy fairy tale adaptations, their mind usually wanders off to a number of very specific paths. Some are immediately reminded of comedic, ironic approaches to classic children’s stories, such as Shrek or its less remembered cousin Hoodwinked. Others go to movies that add a macabre, twisted element to our beloved fables, from the horror of Gretel and Hansel to the eroticism of The Company of Wolves. There’s a good reason for that. Our Disney-trained minds have grown used to certain kinds of fairy tale stories, sanitized and kid-friendly. Movies that subvert those expectations usually weird us out more than a little bit. However, the wildest cinematic adaptation of a fairy tale to ever cross our unenchanted realm doesn’t have an inkling of subversion in its blood. It is, in fact, a completely earnest, traditional fable with a lot of color and charm — though...

When they move to a quiet suburban neighbourhood, the Ferals appear to be a very normal family. However, they have a dark secret concerning their teenaged son Philémon, and as he begins to fall for his neighbour Camila, his thirst for human blood becomes harder to resist, threatening the family's well rehearsed cover.

The panic and upheaval of adolescence has been a thematic mainstay of the horror genre. From I Was A Teenage Werewolf, Carrie and The Company of Wolves, through Ginger Snaps, Teeth and Raw, horror cinema has exploited the feelings of dread and the fear of being different that so many teenagers harbour. From alarming physical changes to overwhelming feelings of loneliness and fear of rejection, adolescence has been a devil's playground for filmmakers to explore ideas of societal conformity, monstrosity and 'otherness'. Likewise, the pliability of the figure of the vampire means it has been used as a metaphor from everything.

Hey all! John Fallon here aka The Arrow. Our docu-series, Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian: 80’s Horror Memories (binge it here), which thoroughly explores the decade in horror, is now 15 episodes in. We just wrapped 1980, 1981 and 1982 and we are about to go in balls deep into 1983 this coming Monday, August 28 on our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel.

A series of this ilk doesn’t happen by itself, it takes an army of producers, writers, editors and our sole narrator to make the magic happens. So we thought it would be dandy to get our core staff to share with you their 10 favorite (not best) horror movies from the 80’s. Yes, it was tough on all of us to pick just 10 – but we knocked a few back and did what we could. Scroll down and peep our choices!

John “The Arrow” Fallon (Producer / Ball Breaker)

Tenebrae The Thing Nightmare On Elm Street...

One of this week’s most notable new releases is Lionsgate’s big screen horror movie Cobweb, a horror fairy tale of sorts from first time feature film director Samuel Bodin. Bodin’s no stranger to the realm of violent fairy tales for adults; the filmmaker’s direction on Netflix’s Marianne unleashed no shortage of visceral scares unleashed from a fairy tale realm.

This week’s streaming picks center around horror fairy tales, whether they’re direct adaptations or inspired by them. All blend horror and fantasy to deliver cautionary bedtime tales.

Here’s where you can stream these horror fairy tales this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

The Company of Wolves – AMC+, Kanopy, Shudder

In Neil Jordan’s film, young Rosaleen falls asleep at her home and dreams of menacing wolves, many of which disguise themselves as men. All of which makes for...

The idea of retelling placid and gentle children's fairy tales in a bloody, horror milieu is hardly new. Think of a fairy tale or beloved children's classic, and odds are good that someone has already transformed it into a horror movie. Off the top of my head: Neil Jordan made a horror movie out of Little Red Riding Hood with "The Company of Wolves" in 1984. Later, in 1996, filmmaker Matthew Bright brought the same story into a scuzzy modern setting with "Freeway." 1997 saw the release of "Snow White: A Tale of Terror" with Sigourney Weaver as the evil queen.

"The Little Mermaid" was transformed into an awesome 2015 horror musical called "The Lure." Pinocchio starred in "Pinocchio's Revenge." The Gingerbread Man was transformed into "The Gingerdead Man". A quick stroll through the spider-webbed hallways of Tubi might reveal titles like "The Curse of Sleeping Beauty," 1995's "Rumplestiltskin," and multiple films called "The Tooth Fairy.

Making films is like having sex,” Neil Jordan tells me. “You don’t know how other people do it. And you never know if you’re doing it right.” It’s a fitting sentiment, given his films are not like anyone else’s. And they’re also... well, steamy: the sexually charged blood-thirst of Interview with the Vampire; the gothic eroticism of The Company of Wolves; the provocations of The Crying Game and Mona Lisa, two portraits of unkempt men mesmerised by ambiguous femme fatales. As if to keep his audience on their toes, Jordan then likes to pivot – to grand period biopics such as Michael Collins, or rain-soaked wartime melodramas like The End of the Affair.

The Irish writer and director has spent much of his 40-year career being told he’s doing it all wrong. “But I’ve always been fascinated by things I’ve not done before,...

‘Our budget was tiny. The forest was 12 trees on rollers – and for long shots we used bonsai. The crew had worked on Star Wars and thought we were absurd’

I met Angela Carter in 1982, while we were in Dublin attending a week celebrating the centenary of James Joyce’s birth. She’d written a script based on a short story of hers called The Company of Wolves, itself an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood. It wasn’t long enough for a feature film but I proposed a kind of portmanteau structure, with a girl dreaming herself as a fairytale character and her dream grandmother telling cautionary tales. In that way, we could incorporate elements from other traditional tales in Angela’s collection The Bloody Chamber.

Neil Jordan is a prolific filmmaker. His work has spanned many genres over the course of his career, and he's not a writer-director whose movies can be placed in a box. Where to even begin listing his credits? There's "The Crying Game," "Interview with a Vampire," "Michael Collins," "Mona Lisa," and a movie we spent a good deal of time asking him about, "The Company of Wolves." Now, Jordan returns to the world of noir with "Marlowe." 

The filmmaker reunites with Liam Neeson for a Philip Marlowe picture, about the same literary detective character Humphrey Bogart played in "The Big Sleep" and Elliott Gould in "The Long Goodbye." This story is not based on one of Raymond Chandler's hardboiled novels, but Jordan does capture the vibe that defines the character at the heart of those stories. As Jordan told us, he wanted to make a colorful noir and even...

Neil Jordan will next be directing Liam Neeson in The Riker’s Ghost, a unique prison break thriller.

Deadline details this afternoon, “Liam Neeson will play a convict set for release who is forced to break a terrorist out of prison.”

“This is a unique take on the prison escape,” said Neil Jordan. “A bare knuckle ride from incarceration to freedom, by someone who just wants to finish his term. The reluctant escapee will be played by Liam Neeson, and I can’t wait to explore this character with him.”

“I am thrilled to be joining forces again with Neil and Liam,” added producer Alan Moloney. “We have put together an elite team to support Neil’s scripted and directorial vision. This one will have you on the edge of your seat.”

Sean O’Keefe (Spenser Confidential) and Brian Rudnick (Dungeons & Dragons) wrote the script. Parallel Film’s Alan Moloney (Albert...

The film-maker cast Lansbury in his exotic horror folk-tale The Company of Wolves, released in 1984. Here he remembers an actor who ‘always understood’

• Angela Lansbury dies aged 96 – news

• Angela Lansbury: the scene-stealing grande dame of stage and screen – appreciation

I had two Angelas in my life at one stage. Angela Carter (long gone and greatly missed) and Angela Lansbury. There should be a ghost at your elbow, whose only purpose is to remind you how lucky you are.

I would travel over to Clapham Common in south London to work with the first Angela, dissecting her short story collection The Bloody Chamber into interlocking bites and fragments of upended fairy tales that would become The Company of Wolves. I ended up with the second Angela on a sound stage in Shepperton in a forest made of movable trees designed by Anton Furst, financed, somehow, by the producer Stephen Woolley.

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The entertainment industry lost a legend today. The children of Dame Angela Lansbury have sadly had to announce that their mother has passed away at the age of 96 – just five days shy of her 97th birthday. According to the announcement, Lansbury “died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 Am today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022.”

Lansbury is best known for her twelve season, 264 episode run as author / crime solver Jessica Fletcher on the mystery series Murder, She Wrote – a role she went on to reprise in four made-for-tv movies. But when you look on her filmography, Murder, She Wrote is just one of 111 screen acting credits she earned during a career that stretched back to 1944.

Born in London on October 16, 1925, Lansbury is said to have “retreated into playing characters” after her politician father died of stomach cancer in 1935. She became interested in film while attending high school, and...

From director Neil Jordan, 1984’s The Company of Wolves will be making its 4K Ultra HD debut this year, with Scream Factory announcing a Collector’s Edition release this morning.

The Company of Wolves comes to 4K Ultra HD on November 22, 2022!

Extras are in progress and will be announced at a later date.

Fascinating and imaginative, this riveting thriller from director Neil Jordan (Interview With The Vampire) brings the timeless tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” and werewolf fables together in a haunting, compelling and eerie way.

A wise grandmother (Angela Lansbury) tells her granddaughter Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) a disturbing tale of innocent maidens falling in love with handsome strangers … and of their sudden mysterious disappearances when the moon is full and accompanied by the strange sound of a beast in the woods.

Nominated for four BAFTA awards including Best Costume Design, Best Make Up Artist, Best Production Design/Art...

Plot: A lonely woman discovers a Djinn locked away in his bottle. He offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom.

Review: George Miller is a filmmaker who continues to impress. It’s impossible not to connect the man to the brilliant franchise around Mad Max. Yet people sometimes forget the variety in Miller’s work. The director has given us a heart with Babe: Pig in the City and heartbreak with Lorenzo’s Oil. And he even made a dancing penguin super sweet in Happy Feet. And now, Miller’s latest takes on another fantastical element, a genie in a bottle. Three Thousand Years of Longing is a fantasy starring Tilda Swinton as a lonely art scholar who finds an old bottle, one that holds a Djinn (Idris Elba). It’s a weird and slightly wild tale of two lonely souls discovering each other through magic.

Tilda Swinton is Alithea,...

Shout! Factory is celebrating Halloween months early with the launch of its new horror-themed streaming channel Scream Factory TV, set to bow this spring.

Based on Shout! Factory’s “Scream Factory” brand, and following the recent launch of the company’s Shout! Factory TV service, Scream Factory TV will offer horror films, thrillers and science-fiction films, with a particular focus on cult classics. The titles will be available both on demand and as a 24/7 stream of the films.

The channel will launch this April with an initial slate of 30 titles. Notables films include “Black Christmas,” “Dark Star,” “Sleepaway Camp” and “The Last Man on Earth.” In addition, two George Romero films, “Night of the Living Dead” and “Day of the Dead,” will stream on the service. Scream Factory TV will be available online and as a separate vertical on the Shout! Factory TV apps, which can be found on Amazon Fire TV,...

Sue Bruce-Smith, Film4’s Deputy Director and a much-loved figure in the UK biz, has died at the age of 62 following a battle with cancer.

She was diagnosed two years ago and had been receiving treatment at home in Dublin with the support of her family – she passed away on Saturday morning.

More from DeadlineFilm4, BBC, BFI & Pact Back UK Producers Survey That Reveals Stark Challenges Of Indie Biz'Under The Skin': A24 & Silver Reel In Bidding War For TV Rights To Jonathan Glazer's Cult Sci-Fi FilmFilm4 Boards Cornish Horror 'Enys Men', From Director Of Hit UK Indie Pic 'Bait'

Bruce-Smith started her career in 1985 at UK distributor and producer Palace Pictures, a key incubator for the local industry, working on titles including Absolute Beginners, The Company Of Wolves and Scandal. In 1989 she moved to the BFI where she stayed for four years before joining BBC Films.

The star and the writer/director of Sea Fever talk about a diverse array of influential films in a double episode.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Sea Fever (2020)

Soldier (1998)

Unforgiven (1992)

Blade Runner (1982)

Gladiator (2000)

The Ice Harvest (2005)

Wonder Woman (2017)

Ordet (1955)

Ditte, Child of Man (1946)

Frances (1982)

The Accused (1988)

The Deer Hunter (1978)

My American Uncle (1980)

8 ½ (1963)

Ikiru (1952)

Heaven’s Gate (1980)

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

Europa (1991)

Diva (1981)

The Sacrifice (1986)

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

The Party (1968)

Westworld (1973)

The Searchers (1956)

Alien (1979)

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Contagion (2011)

Idiocracy (2006)

The Company of Wolves (1984)

Mona Lisa (1986)

King Kong (1933)

Arrival (2016)

In The Cut (2003)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Mandy (2018)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Dune (1984)

Dune (2020… maybe)

Bright Star (2009)

Basic Instinct (1992)

Innerspace (1987)

American Gigolo (1980)

Thelma and Louise (1991)

Wild Things (1998)

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Life of Pi (2012)

Hulk (2003)

Die Hard (1988)

The Hurt Locker (2009)

Psycho (1960)

1917 (2019)

Shane (1953)

Other Notable Items

Brendan McCarthy

David Peoples

Kurt Russell

Lars Von Trier

Carl Theodor Dreyer

Bjarne Henning-Jensen...