Aug. 18, 2026

This Week in Horror History | Halloween Primer: Blade, Exorcist III & American Werewolf

This Week in Horror History | Halloween Primer: Blade, Exorcist III & American Werewolf
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Key Takeaways

  • The week of August 17 through August 23 holds some of the most iconic horror anniversaries in film history, bridging the gap between summer and the upcoming Halloween season.
  • Fred Dekker's 1986 cult classic "Night of the Creeps" uniquely combines alien invasion, zombie horror, teen comedy, and detective noir into a single fast-paced creature feature.
  • William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist III" stands out as a brilliant supernatural detective story featuring one of the most famously terrifying hospital-hallway jump scares in cinema.
  • John Landis's "An American Werewolf in London" masterfully blends dark comedy, emotional tragedy, and groundbreaking practical makeup effects by Rick Baker without weakening any of its core elements.
  • Modern horror gems like David Bruckner's "The Night House" and Adam Wingard's "You're Next" utilize negative space and home-invasion tropes to cleverly subvert audience expectations.

Blade, The Exorcist III, An American Werewolf in London, You’re Next, The Night House, and Night of the Creeps headline this episode of This Week in Horror History, covering August 17 through August 23. Our late-summer Halloween horror pregame continues with Marvel vampires, supernatural possession, haunted-house grief, masked home invaders, alien parasites, reanimated corpses, and one of the greatest werewolf transformations ever filmed.

Inside this episode:
August 17, 1990 — The Exorcist III opens in U.S. theaters
William Peter Blatty returns to the world of The Exorcist with a rain-soaked supernatural detective story starring George C. Scott as Lieutenant Kinderman. A series of murders carries the signature of the Gemini Killer—a serial murderer who should already be dead—leading Kinderman toward a locked psychiatric ward, an impossible suspect, and one of the most terrifying hospital-hallway sequences in horror history.
August 20, 2021 — The Night House begins its U.S. theatrical run
Rebecca Hall stars as Beth, a grieving widow left alone inside the lakeside home her husband designed. When music begins playing by itself, footprints appear outside, and a reversed version of the house seems to wait across the water, grief takes on an architectural shape. Director David Bruckner turns negative space, mirrored rooms, hidden plans, and absence itself into a supernatural presence.
August 21, 1998 — Blade opens in U.S. theaters Wesley Snipes introduces Marvel’s Daywalker in a stylish collision of vampire horror, martial arts, comic-book action, ancient mythology, and late-1990s cool. Armed with swords, silver weapons, and absolute confidence, Blade hunts a hidden vampire society while Deacon Frost pursues the power of an ancient Blood God.
August 23, 2013 — You’re Next reaches U.S. theaters A wealthy family’s anniversary dinner becomes a masked home-invasion nightmare when attackers wearing animal faces surround an isolated house. The intruders expect frightened victims—but they do not expect Erin, whose survival skills transform every room, doorway, and ordinary household object into a potential weapon.

Deep-Cut Spotlight — Night of the Creeps
Alien parasites, fraternity zombies, exploding heads, college-campus chaos, and Tom Atkins with a flamethrower collide in Fred Dekker’s gloriously strange 1986 creature feature.
After a frozen body is accidentally thawed during a fraternity prank, slug-like alien parasites begin entering human hosts, taking control of their brains, and reanimating the dead. Soon the campus is overrun by infected students, undead fraternity brothers, possessed animals, and a growing outbreak headed directly toward the college formal.
Night of the Creeps throws alien invasion, zombie horror, slasher history, teen comedy, detective noir, and creature-feature slime into the same movie. Fast, funny, gross, and packed with practical-effects charm, it is an ideal cult-horror addition to any early Halloween movie marathon.

Horror Birthdays This Week:
Taissa Farmiga, Peter Weir, Ray Bradbury, and Park Chan-wook enter the birthday roll, bringing connections to American Horror Story, The Final Girls, The Nun, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The October Country, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Thirst.
Ray Bradbury’s autumn carnivals, October shadows, and dark childhood wonders make this an especially fitting week to begin the annual transition from summer horror into full Halloween season.

Weekly Recommendation — An American Werewolf in London
Two American backpackers cross the Yorkshire moors, ignore some extremely urgent local advice, and encounter something monstrous beneath the full moon.

John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London blends horror, comedy, romance, supernatural tragedy, and groundbreaking practical effects without weakening any of them. David Naughton’s transformation remains one of the defining sequences in werewolf-movie history: brightly lit, painfully physical, and presented without a merciful cutaway.

Rick Baker’s landmark effects earned the first competitive Academy Award for Makeup, but the movie lasts because the creature spectacle is tied to a genuinely tragic story. David is funny, likable, frightened, and slowly becoming dangerous to everyone around him. For horror fans pregaming for Halloween, An American Werewolf in London delivers full-moon atmosphere, haunted warnings, undead visitors, creature effects, dark comedy, and the painful realization that some transformations cannot be stopped.

Plus, Weekly Spooky returns Wednesday with another original horror story, followed by more frightening history, terrifying true stories, horror movie discussion, and unexplained broadcasts throughout the week. From The Exorcist III and The Night House to Blade, You’re Next, Night of the Creeps, and An American Werewolf in London, this week in horror history proves that evil can hide inside a hospital patient, take shape within an empty house, operate beneath a modern city, surround a family home, crawl into the human brain, or wait beneath the light of a full moon.

Summer is beginning to fade, the nights are arriving earlier, and the Halloween horror pregame is officially gaining momentum.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

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📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!


🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Fred Dekker's 1986 film Night of the Creeps about?

Night of the Creeps is a horror-comedy creature feature where slug-like alien parasites accidentally escape after a fraternity prank, taking over human brains, reanimating the dead, and causing a campus-wide zombie outbreak.

When was The Exorcist III released in theaters?

The Exorcist III officially opened in U.S. theaters on August 17, 1990, bringing author William Peter Blatty back to the franchise to direct a rain-soaked supernatural detective story starring George C. Scott.

Who created the werewolf transformation effects in An American Werewolf in London?

Legendary special makeup effects artist Rick Baker created the groundbreaking werewolf transformation sequence, earning the very first competitive Academy Award for Makeup.

WEBVTT

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The end of August is when the night starts, arriving

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just a little earlier. The heat remains, but the shadows

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are longer. Somewhere between the last light and the first

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street lamp, the world looks staged for something terrible. This

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week Horror History gives us a murder case with an

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impossible suspect, a grieving widow discovering the architecture of absence,

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a vampire hunter walking into a blood soaked rave, and

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a family reunion where the attackers in animal masks chose

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the wrong survivor. Then, after the break, our deep cut

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spotlight drops alien slugs onto a college campus and lets

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Tom Atkins investigate the mess with a flamethrower and exactly

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the right attitude. So lock the windows, step away from

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the basement stairs, and if someone whispers your name from

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the hospital corridor, just keep walking. Trust me. Welcome back

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to This Week in Horror History, your weekly time machine

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through the creepiest anniversaries in film, TV, books, comics, and games.

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I'm your host, Enrique Kuto, and tonight we're talking about

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August seventeenth through the twenty third. Coming up, William Peter

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Bladdie returns to the Exorcist for a detective story about faith,

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evil and a dead serial killer. Rebecca Hall wakes alone

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in a lakehouse whose empty spaces seem carefully designed. Wesley

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Snipes introduces Marvel's day Walker with swords, shades and a

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ceiling full of blood, and a brutal Indie film that

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entered theatres nationwide turns a wealthy family's dinner into a

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survival test. Then, right after the break, for our deep

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cut spotlight, we have frozen parasites, exploding heads, and the

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nineteen eighty six creature feature that treats every horror subgenre

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like an open buffet. August seventeenth, nineteen ninety nine, The

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Exorcist three opens in US theaters and one of horror's

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most famous battles with evil becomes a rain soaked police investigation.

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William Peter Bladdie adopted his novel legion and was the

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film's principal director. George C. Scott plays Lieutenant Kinderman, who

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once investigated Reagan McNeil's case. Now new killings carry the

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signature of the Gemini killer, a man who should be dead.

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The case leads to a locked psychiatric ward, a patient

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with a familiar face and Brad Duriff delivering volcanic monologues.

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Blad he places theology beside police procedure. If evil is real,

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what evidence could satisfy a detective then? And I would

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be upset if I didn't bring this up. There is

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the hospital corridor scene. The camera waits at a distance,

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making us scan a bright, ordinary frame until patience becomes

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our undoing. The scene earns its reputation every time the

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hallway goes quiet, and every time I've watched the film,

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that jump scare has gotten me consistently. I am definitely

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one of those believers in The Exorcist three as a

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solid film, even when compared to the timeless original. It's

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a damn good time and there is something about a

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police procedural but with you know, Pazuzu involved that definitely

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gets me excited to give it a watch again. And

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if you want to give it a first time watch

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or a well earned revisit, all you have to do

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is check it out on apps like two B TV

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and Pluto TV free with ads, or streaming on Prime Video,

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Peacock and night Flight Plus with your subscription. You know,

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if the cost doesn't make your headspin August twentieth twoenty

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twenty one, The Nighthouse begins its US theatrical run more

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than a year after its Sun Dance premiere, and Grief

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starts drawing shapes in the dark. Rebecca Hall plays Beth,

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a teacher left alone in the lake house her late

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husband designed. At night, music plays by itself. Footprints appear

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on empty ground across the water. Beth sees her house

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but reversed. Director David Bruckner and writers Ben Collins and

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Luke Pietrowski turn negative space into a presence. A chair,

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railing and gap between walls briefly form a human figure.

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Angles change, and nothing is there, or at least almost nothing.

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The Nighthouse is careful about grief, but not in the

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business of making it gentle. Beth is angry, funny, and

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unwilling to accept easy comfort. Every hidden plan and backward

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room becomes part of an argument with the person she lost.

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This is one I feel was very underrated. It hit

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the theaters. I went to see it. I really enjoyed it.

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It is a bit of a downer film, but Rebecca

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Hall's performance really brings it all together because he is

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so likable in the most unlikable way possible. The Nighthouse

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deserves a lot more love than I feel like it got.

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But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it did super well at

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the box office. We'll just give that a quick look. Yeah,

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it had a twelve million dollar budget and made fifteen

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million at the box office, so it probably underperformed what

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people were hoping. But it's really worth a watch if

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you've never seen it. It's available to rent or buy

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on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. August

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twenty first, nineteen ninety eight. Blade enters US theaters and

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Marvel's vampire Hunter walks through a blood shower without even

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removing his sunglasses. Wesley Snipes plays the day Walker, carrying

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vampire strength but without their weakness to sunlight. He hunts

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there hidden society with weapons expert Whistler, while Stephen Darf's

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Deacon Frost pursues an ancient blood god, because what other

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kind of god would vampires chase? Come on? Directed by

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Stephen Norrington from David S. Goyer's screenplay, Blade speaks fluent action,

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martial arts, comic book, and horror. The vampires have boardrooms

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and nightclubs, old enough for rituals, modern enough to own

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the building because only a fool pays another man's rent.

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Am I right? The result is sleek, hard edged, and

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pretty damn direct. Blade knows exactly what he is, exactly

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what he hunts, and exactly how much black leather the

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job requires. I keep chuckling because when Blade came out,

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I didn't get to see it in theaters. I was

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a little too young, but it was a phenomenon on

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home video and I rented it from Blockbuster or Hollywood

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Video almost immediately after it came out. And it still

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holds up. It's aged pretty well. It's kind of a

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pre two thousands kind of peek into what goth culture

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was going to kind of get, like at the height

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of hot topic and all that. But it is a

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lot of fun. Wesley Snipes owns the character. The storytelling

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is solid. There's no reason not to give Blade a revisit.

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If it's been a while, or if somehow you've never

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met our favorite vampire killer, well aside from Peter Vincent

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and Fright Night, but that's for another time. If you

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want to give it a watch tonight, it's very easy.

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It's available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV,

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and Fandango at home August twenty third, two thy and thirteen.

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Your Next finally reaches US theaters after it's twenty and

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eleven festival debut, and a crossbow bolt destroys one very

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tense anniversary dinner. Director Adam Wingard, who would go on

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to direct so many films You've enjoyed, but especially Godzilla

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Versus Kong, and writer Simon Barrett gather the Davison family

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at an isolated house where old resentments already circle the table.

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Then attackers in animal masks surround the property and remove

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every route to safety. So kind of a typical Thanksgiving. Really.

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The intruders expect panic, but they don't expect Erin, played

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by Sharnie Vinson. Her survival skills flip the setup without

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making danger into a joke. Every room holds a threat,

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but Erin sees tools not just for escape, but for

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bloody revenge. Your Next balances brutality with a vicious sense

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of family common. The masks are creepy, the traps painful,

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and the people inside the house remain remarkably committed to

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making their personal problems everyone else's emergency. So very much

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a family drama in that way, When Your Next came out.

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I was amped. It was being promoted all over the

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place because in twenty thirteen there were still a lot

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of horror movie remakes. Although it's not like they've kind

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of cut back now, but remakes were in kind of

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a lull, and everybody was saying, for those of you

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who want original horror, you're next. That was the tagline.

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I caught it in the theater, I loved it, and

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I revisited it last year. It still holds up. It

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is a blast, a total action horror, gory blast. If

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you've never seen your next before and you want some

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wacky slasher antics, it's a film you need. And if

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you've seen it before, trust me, the revisit will do

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you some good. It's available to watch free with ads

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on the Roku channel and Pluto TV, and available to

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rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango

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at Home tomorrow on Weekly Spooky. It's the end of summer.

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The tents are up, the drinks are cold, the lake

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is perfectly still, and something underneath has been waiting a

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very long time. In Darkness under Clear Lake by Bruce Haney,

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Michelle and Brian head out for five quiet days of camping, swimming, reading,

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and finally escaping the stress of everyday life. Then they

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discover some old friends are camping right next door. So

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much for peace and quiet, but awkward reunions and too

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many drinks quickly become the least their problems. When Brian

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goes snorkeling alone and never comes back, hours of searching

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go by until almost midnight. That's when the bubbles begin.

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Brian walks out of clear Lake after spending hours beneath

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the surface. His skin is water logged, his eyes almost white.

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He won't speak, and he refuses to let go of

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the strange carved object clutched in his hand. Then he

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grabs his wife and starts dragging her back into the water.

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What follows tears open something far bigger than one haunted lake,

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where things with human shapes and razor teeth are already

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waiting below the surface. Because Clear Lake isn't hiding a body,

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It's hiding a door. So enjoy the last days of

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summer with us tomorrow on Weekly Spooky, and make sure

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you subscribe so you never miss something scary. To keep

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your Halloween vibe going, All right, spookies, let's take a

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quick breather. But when we come back, we're headed to

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August twenty second, nineteen eighty six for one of my

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favorite all time eighties films from one of my favorite

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all time eighties directors. The good news is your dates

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are waiting. The bad news is so are the alien

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parasites that reanimated them. And we're back, my spookies. Let's

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get into it. On August twenty second, nineteen eighty six,

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Night of the Creeps begins a limit us theatrical run

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and turns a college formal into the last place anyone

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should worry about getting a date. This is the feature

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directing debut of Fred Decker, who would go on to

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direct Monster Squad shortly after, which, if you listen last week,

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one of my all time favorites. He opens this film

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in black and white, where an alien experiment crashes into

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Earth in nineteen fifty nine. Then the movie jumps to

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the eighties, a fraternity prank and two nervous friends who

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accidentally thaw out a very big problem. That problem is

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a nest of slug like parasites. They enter through the mouth,

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take over the brain, and reanimate the dead. Soon the

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campus has walking corpses. Infected pets and an approaching formal

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as well as a body count moving faster than anyone

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can explain away. While this is already a super fun

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eighties horror concept, what puts it way over the top,

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aside from the very very strong, sardonic and witty dialogue,

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is Tom Atkins. He owns the Shadows as Detective Ray Cameron,

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carrying old trauma, dry contempt, and the sense that he

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survived three detective movies worth of hell wandering into this one.

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That mixture is kind of a pleasure to the film.

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Neither of the Creeps has alien invasion, zombie siege, slasher history,

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teen comedy, and that gooey creature features slime Decker lets

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the pieces crash together until sparks start to fly. It's

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a movie made by somebody who clearly loves horror enough

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to play with the entire toolbox. It's fast, funny, and gross,

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but also far more tender toward its awkward heroes then

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you might guess from the title. It really is a

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film that holds up incredibly well. I got the recent

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release on four k of it and it blew my mind.

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Night of the Creeps is like the perfect film to

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watch after you graduate from Monster Squad, because you go

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from kids and monsters to young adults and monsters, and

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there's a lot to love about it. Also, keep an

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eye out if you give it a rewatch, because there's

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a little hint of Monster Squad in Night of the

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Creeps when somebody writes Monster Squad rules on a bathroom stall. Yeah,

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I'm a nerd. I'm a nerd, But if you've never

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seen Night of the Creeps, you got to fix that.

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It's available to rent or buy digitally from Amazon Video,

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Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. Let's scrape the creepy

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calendar once again for some horror birthdays starting on August seven, sventeenth,

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nineteen ninety four, when Tysa Farmija is born a modern

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scream queen across American horror story The Final Girls, The

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Nun and the Nun Too. She's brought a lot of

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humanity and there's something else. I don't know. It's hard

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to describe. I don't want to say like girl next

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door because that's so cliche. But she brings a believability

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to unbelievable circumstances that I think makes her fit very

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well in horror history. So Happy Birthday. Taysa born on

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August twenty first, nineteen forty four is Peter Weir, the

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director who's Picnic at Hanging Rock makes daylight, missing girls,

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and an ancient landscape feel uncanny in a way I

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couldn't have envisioned on my own, that's for sure. And

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I've always personally been a big fan of his made

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for TV horror film The Plumber, But that's just me.

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Happy Birthday, Peter Weir. On August twenty second, nineteen twenty.

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Ray Bradberry is born the author who filled the October

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Country and something Wicked this Way comes with carnivals and

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autumn shadows. A man who's made an incredible indent into

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horror history, science fiction history, just really literature history. Happy Birthday,

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Ray Bradbery And born on August twenty third, nineteen sixty

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three is Park chan Wook, the filmmaker behind Thirst, where vampirism, guilt, desire,

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and black comedy are bound together with impressive control. And

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don't even get me started on Old Boy who. A

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very happy birthday to Park chan Wook and all of

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our horror history birthdays for our then and now this week,

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horror keeps redesigning the place where danger enters. Nineteen eighty

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six sends a parasite through the mouth and turns the

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whole campus into a host. Nineteen ninety puts impossible evil

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inside a hospital patient who's locked away and asks a

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detective to prove it. Nineteen ninety eight reveals a vampire

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nation operating behind the doors of the modern city. Twenty

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thirteen turns the family home into a battlefield, then gives

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one guest the skills to redraw the map, and twenty

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twenty one uses the shape of a house its walls,

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gaps and mirrored plans to make the absence feel occupied.

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And finally, for our week recommendation, if you want your

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full moon horror but funny, painful, and still capable of

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breaking your heart, let's head back to August twenty first,

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nineteen eighty one, when John Landis's film An American Werewolf

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in London opens in Los Angeles and New York. David

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Naughton and Griffin Dunn play American backpackers David and Jack,

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who crossed the Yorkshire Moors, ignores some extremely urgent local advice,

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and meet a creature under the moonlight. The film moves

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between comedy and horror without either having to behave Jack

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returns with advice from beyond the grave, while David faces

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a transformation that feels less like magic and more like

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a body forced through a machine. Rick Baker's work won

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the first Competitive Academy Award for Makeup. The Transformation remains

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a showcase bright room, no merciful cutaway, every bone insisting

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on making a change itself, but the effects serve a

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tragedy because David is likable, making the curse very cruel.

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Forty five years later, the movie can still make you laugh, flinch,

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and feel lonely before the moon finishes with you. What

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can I say about American Werewolf in London that hasn't

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been said before. It's an absolute classic, highly quotable, funny

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and scary, some jump scares, and it still get me

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to this day. So if you've somehow never seen it,

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you need to fix that. And if you need a

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little midweek pick me up, it's always a good one

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to put on. And it's available to rent or buy

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on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home. Well

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my Spookyes, that's your trip through August seventeenth to twenty

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third in horror history Tomorrow Wednesday, there's a fresh horror

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story waiting for you right here on the Weekly Spooky Feed,

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so make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast app.

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And on Friday, I'll be back with cutting deep into

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horror as we talk about a film many of you

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may have missed out on that is so cuckoo bananas

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you may not believe our description of it. It's called

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Tonight She Comes and my goodness that film is something

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I just finished rewatching it for the episode and wow.

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And of course we'll be back here next Tuesday bringing

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you more horror history. Until then, remember our days are numbered,

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because that's how we tell them apart. See you next week.

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Fi