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You know what January does to horror fans, well, it
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lies to you. It shows up wearing a sensible sweater
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and a quiet calendar page and says, relax, nothing scary
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is going to happen. And then on the eighteenth, it
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drops a camcorder into your hands, shoves you into a
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packed New York apartment party, and lets the sky rip open.
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This week isn't about cozy winter vibes. It's about cold water,
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bad signals, hungry teeth, and the weird moment when the
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modern world realizes it still has ancient monsters hiding behind
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the dry wall. So lock your doors, charge your phone,
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and keep one eye on the horizon, because this time
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of year has a nasty habit of proving the haunting
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was always here. Welcome back to this week in horror
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history for January twelfth through January eighteenth, your time capsule
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of screams and the dates that they first crawled into
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the world. Tonight, a crocodile movie that wanted to be
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a straight creature feature thriller and got dragged into real
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world chaos. A deep sea base that discovers the ocean
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doesn't care about your budget, your oxygen, or your Exit Plan,
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a legacy sequel that proved you can bring the slasher
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movie back as long as you tickle the nostalgia, and
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a brand new horror novel that turns the wilderness into
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a hungry maze. Then for our deep cut Spotlight, we
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talk about one of the most influential found footage movies
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that most people seem to have forgotten about in that category.
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And finally, a j horror pick where your phone doesn't
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just ring, it sets you up, and not for a
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relaxing lunch. On a Tuesday afternoon. January twelfth, two thousand
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and seven, Prime Evil hits theaters. Prime Evil is the
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kind of January release that feels like it should be
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background noise, but it isn't. You've got a massive crocodile,
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a news crew trying to capture a story, and the
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movie's real menace, a grim, tangled backdrop of violence that
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makes the whole thing feel queasy in a way that
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most killer animal movies don't even scratch the surface of,
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even with big claws. It's also a very interesting example
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of mid two thousands studio horror trying to look serious
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while still selling you a midnight matinee. It's big teeth,
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big screams, and a monster you can you know, run from.
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It's a little time capsule of that era's tone. It's glossy,
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but it's cynical, and it's pretty to look at, but
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meaner than you would expect. And speaking of giant crocodile movies,
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one of my favorite underrated killer crock movies, which came
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about about seven years earlier, is the aptly titled Crocodile,
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directed by Toby Hooper. It's just a fun, silly creature
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feature and I always enjoyed it. And here's a piece
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of trivia you have no need to know about me.
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It was the first DVD I ever owned. It just
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kind of worked out that way. But yeah, Primeval, it's
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a film I've always enjoyed. I think creature features have
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their place in horror history, and it's a big one
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and the resurgence of them, it's definitely been cyclical during
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two thousand and seven two thousand and eight, that was
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right when we were about to have the big swing
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of those Sci Fi Channel original monster movies, which they
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really dominated the low budget independent film scene until Lifetime
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took over. Yeah, that's right. If you're not aware if
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you want to make a higher budget but still low
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and indie thriller, what have you, You really need to
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take it to the lifetime channel because sci fi does
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not pay nearly as much. So whether you're revisiting Primeval
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after a very long time, or you want to watch
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it for the first time like Titanic, I don't know
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why I made that joke. You can find it available
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to rent or buy digitally on Amazon, Apple TV, and
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Fandango at home. And remember, it's not the sharp teeth
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you need to worry about. It's the crushing force of
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the Jaws. January thirteenth, nineteen eighty nine, Deep Star six
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Splashes down to Earth. Deep Star six is the undersea
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horror movie that knows its strongest weapon isn't the creature.
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It's the floor plan, a remote base, narrow corridors, heavy doors,
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and the constant reminder that the ocean is pressing in
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from every conceivable direction. The setup is simple. A navy
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crew builds deep, drills deeper and cracks open a space
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that should have stayed sealed. After that, it becomes a
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movie about logistics. The true horror dwindling oxygen, failing systems,
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and panics spreading faster than any monster could ever hope
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to swim. It helped set the stage for the whole
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wet claustrophobia wave that followed, one of my favorites from
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that time period being The Abyss. Although you know it
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was a James Cameron monster joint, but I still think
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it's more horror than not. If you want to revisit
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Deep Star six, and I do highly recommend it, especially
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if you enjoy that claustrophobia feeling. While it's available to
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rent or buy digitally on Amazon or Apple TV, you
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might be able to find it somewhere else, but I couldn't,
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and maybe you're just better than me. January fourteenth, twenty
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twenty two, Scream returns to Woodsboro. Scream twenty twenty two
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did the rare thing. It honored a franchise without embalming it.
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It's sharp, mean, funny, and it understands that modern horror
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fans are both smarter and more exhausted than ever. It
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also nails the hardest tone in slasher history. The balance
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between this is ridiculous and this is happening to you.
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It's a movie where the jokes land and then the
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knife lands too. It landed Like a Monster at the
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box office in January, the kind of theatrical hit that
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helped fuel the current wave of legacy sequels and horror
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comebacks started by the Halloween reboot from David Gordon Green.
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You can give Scream twenty twenty two a watch. It's
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available on Paramount Plus to watch with a subscription, and
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you can render by it on pretty much any digital
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store like Amazon Prime or Fandango at Home. January sixteenth,
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twenty twenty four, This Wretched Valley is published. Jenny Keefer's
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debut novel takes the let's go hiking premise and twists
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it into pure dread. A group disappears in the Kentucky wilderness,
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time goes strange, and the landscape it feel like it's
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actively rearranging itself to keep you lost. It's the kind
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of book that turns the outdoors into a kind of
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puzzle box, one that has such sites to show you
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one wrong turn, one foggy ridgeline, and suddenly the valley
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feels less like geography and more like appetite. If you
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like folk horror energy with modern pacing, and you enjoy
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the feeling of reading something that makes you want to
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stay on the trail. This is a solid winter pick.
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It's available on paperback, ebook and audiobook editions. They're widely
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available through all major retailers, booksellers, and libraries. Tonight's episode
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of This Week in Horror History is brought to you
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get yourself a tasty treat of coffee that won't keep
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and support the show all right. Now, take a breath,
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because after the break, we're grabbing the camera and stepping
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into January eighteenth, two thousand and eight, The night New
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York stopped feeling real Welcome back to this week in
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horror history. Keep that camera steady. It only gets worse
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from here. January eighteenth, two thousand and eight, Cloverfield hits theaters.
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Cloverfield is a monster movie that never lets you see
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the whole monster. Well not really, and part of that
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may be due to the type of lenses consumer cameras
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used at the time. Instead, it traps you with six
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people who just wanted one last party and turns the
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city into a shaking hallway of smoke, sirens, and falling concrete.
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Now this isn't just a genius found footage gimmick. It's
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the way the movie weaponizes perspective. You only know what
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the camera knows. When the power goes out, you're blind
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with them. When the crowd panics, you're in the middle
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of it, and when the rules of what a monster
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movie is supposed to show get ripped apart, your brain
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starts filling in the gaps with something far worse than cgi.
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It also hits that perfect early social media moment where
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everybody has a camera, but nobody has a plan, and
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the only way to process terror is to document it.
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The movie feels like a time capsule. Now with two
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thousand and eight technology, two thousand and eight behavior, and
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even two thousand and eight anxiety, and yet the panic
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itself is evergreen. And the marketing campaign was incredible. I
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was in my twenties in two thousand and eight, and
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boy howdy the website was brilliant and the way they
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peaked our curiosity really was genius. The marketing on Cloverfield
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was next level, and for whatever reason, that's how found
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footage marketing campaigns seemed to be. I mean, look at
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the big heavy hitters. Blair Witch Project had one of
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the most incredible campaigns of all time that made millions
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of people have to go see what happened in the
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Blair Woods. Then you have paranormal Activity, which was really
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incredible at marketing the idea that you were going to
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be truly and utterly terrified. Now, whether these films delivered
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is neither here nor there. My point is, Wow, the
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marketing really hits and really pulls you in, and of
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course it's worth mentioning. Cloverfield performed like a January event,
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which is not that common, roughly one hundred and seventy
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two million dollars worldwide on a twenty five million dollar budget. Which,
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don't get me wrong, is an incredibly, incredibly fat budget
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for a found footage movie. But of course, most found
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footage movies don't have a giant monster terrorizing New York City.
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It's important to keep in mind that January is often
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where they dump films that they think may not perform well,
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or films that have a built in audience. This is,
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no doubt a proof of concept that small can feel
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enormous if you control the ride. The legacy is bigger
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than the sequels and spinoffs, which are all fun in
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their own way and very very varied. Cloverfield helped prove
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that horror could be a blockbuster without losing its teeth,
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and that less information can be the scariest special effect
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of them all. And I cannot recommend enough of You've
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Never Seen a ten Cloverfield Lane. That's one of my
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absolute favorites of all time. Currently, you can watch it
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on Paramount Plus with a subscription, or MGM Plus through
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a bundle or subscription. You can also rent or buy
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it on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and of course Fandango
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at Home. Time to light a spooky candle for our birthdays.
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January twelfth, nineteen sixty five, Rob Zombie was born. Hey Yeah,
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musician turned horror filmmaker with a heart deeply settled in
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grindhouse and a love for dirty Americana. I've never been
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the biggest fan of his films, but I've always appreciated
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what he was going for, and of course he really
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shaped the sonic attributes of my childhood with his haze
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and yeazz and his driving guitars. So Happy birthday, Rob.
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On January twelfth, nineteen fifty four. Frank Lilojia is born, writer,
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director of Fear No Evil and Lady in White. A
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filmmaker who knew how to make the supernatural feel personal
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in a way few other filmmakers have been able to accomplish.
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A great director and I really do recommend you revisit
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as many of his films as you can, whenever you can,
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because they will stick with you. Happy birthday, Frank Leloggia
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January sixteenth, nineteen forty eight. One of the biggest heavy hitters,
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John Carpenter is born. He's the minimalist King, the man
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who brought us Halloween, the Thing, and a lifetime of
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synth music dread. Not only has John Carpenter made movies
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like Halloween the thing. But in my opinion, of all
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of the kind of kings or masters of horror out there,
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he has the most hits and the least misses. Now,
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obviously he wasn't box office gold every single time he
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came out the gate, but if you look at his
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even underrated films, man, they really stand out, especially for
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talking mid nineties and back. I mean, in the Mouth
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of Madness, Prince of Darkness. They're all really solid movies.
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So John Carpenter, we hope you have a great birthday
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and keep the piano humming for as long as you can.
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January seventeenth, nineteen seventy seven. A more modern heavy hitter
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in the horror genre is born Lee Wenel, a modern
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horror architect who changed the genre substantially with Saw and
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Insidious with his own sharp character First Nightmares. Leewenel is
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sometimes I feel like overrated and underrated at the same time,
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and I mean that in the most loving way possible.
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If you get a chance, sit down and watch the
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original Saw movie and you'll see why, because that is
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such a solid, instant classic of a film. Happy birthday,
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Leewenel for our then and now comparison here's the through
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line for this week. Horror loves systems that fail. Primeval
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says the story is bigger than the monster, and suddenly
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the creature feature tastes almost bitter deep. Star six says
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technology can go deeper than wisdom, and the Ocean answers
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with its own murky salty teeth. Scream twenty twenty two
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says we remember the rules, then shows you how grief
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and fame can warp them. And Cloverfield, Well, Cloverfield says,
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you can record the disaster, you just can't control it,
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which feels even more true now because we live in
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the era where catastrophe arrives with a push notification, a
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shaky video, and a comment section arguing about what it
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really is. Perception has not gone away at all. It's
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still king even when everything is documented. Maybe that's why
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found footage seems to never truly die. It doesn't just
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show fear, It shows how people behave when fear becomes content,
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and that is a horror story all by itself. And