Blood and Sleaze

The Body Count Continues…

It honestly wasn’t a surprise when teaser posters, bearing that tagline (and a roman numeral II), began to rear their heads in theaters throughout the spring of 1981.
Read more »

Where Will You Be When The End Begins?

I’ve never seen a George Romero film that I didn’t like (although The Dark Half sure comes close), and I’ve never seen a George Romero zombie film that I didn’t love … until now. It’s not that Romero’s fifth foray into the world of the living dead is a bad film, but it is a little surprising to see just how much Diary of the Dead comes up short in comparison to his other zombie epics. Maybe it’s not exactly fair to hold Diary up to the well established standards of the first three Dead films. Not yet, at least. After all, earlier films have had decades to resonate with horror fans, endure through endless reevaluations and be dissected by fans on message boards and at conventions. It might be hard to believe now, but even 1985’s Day of the Dead was once regarded as a tired and true disappointment. Its enjoyed an intense revival over the past ten years, however, and it’s not uncommon to find people who now cite it as their favorite zombie epic of all time. Not bad for a film once dismissed as z-grade schlock.
Read more »

My appreciation of Adam Green’s Hatchet fell somewhere in the middle of all the hype. It’s certainly not a bad film, miles ahead of most slasher films we’ve seen lately, but I’m hesitant to call its antagonist the next great icon of horror. I feel like that’s just a bit too premature and forced. Let’s see what the fans think of it in five, ten years before we start comparing it to Friday the 13th, okay? That said, Green’s follow-up feature, Spiral, is such a different experience that you’d never know it was a film by the same director. You’ve got to admire that.
Read more »

Today the Hollywood Reporter broke word that Supernatural star, Jensen Ackles, is in final negotiations to take the lead role in Lionsgate’s remake of the 1981 slasher classic, My Bloody Valentine. What’s funny about this is that Ackles’s co-star on Supernatural, Jared Padalecki had recently been announced as the leading man in Paramount and New Line’s upcoming Friday the 13th reprisal. Probably a smart play for both of these productions since their show has acquired quite the following. Getting their fans in theaters on opening weekend can only help …
Read more »

In 1957, Mary Lou Maloney went up in flames. Now she’s back. And she’s burning mad.

1980’s Prom Night was among the first slasher films to burst out from the post-Halloween floodgates, and while it doesn’t seem like you can find a positive review of that film online anymore, it was a big success at the time and remains, for my money, one of the best films of the slasher subgenre. What’s really interesting about its follow-up film, though, is that it’s not a slasher film at all. While it’s true that a plethora of masked madmen followed in the wake of Michael Myers in the earliest years of the 80s, other horror heavies were making their bloody debuts as well: Jason Voorhees and Freddy Kruger. Soon many films were following in the wake of both Michael and Jason, but thanks to the incredible success of A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984, there were other filmmakers out there who decided to focus their energies on creating the next popular nightmare man (or woman). Hence, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II.
Read more »

Campfire tales for the opening of the original Friday the 13th always simmer to the fact that it arrived amidst Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and The Empire Strikes Back, two heavyweights predicted to K.O. the low-budgeted independent slasher film. And although Darth Vader won out in that hot summer, hissing an infamous line of dialogue that is more fondly remembered than that of 1980’s burning question “Who Shot J.R.?,” the unlucky counselors of Camp Crystal Lake couldn’t be denied their place in cinema history.
Read more »

Hello folks. It’s certainly been a while since Blood and Sleaze has updated and sadly, I’m the person to point the finger to concerning the astounding lack of action going on around here. Working 40 hours a week at a job too fast-paced to surf the net doesn’t give me any time during the workday to do anything. I might be able to squeeze out a post or two on our message board, but that’s about the most of it. Now, I realize that’s not reason enough to justify ignoring B&S for the better part of a year … laziness has absolutely been a factor in all of this.
Read more »