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April 21, 2026

This Week in Horror History | Silent Hill, Stephen King, George Romero, Cult Horror & More (April 20–26)

This Week in Horror History | Silent Hill, Stephen King, George Romero, Cult Horror & More (April 20–26)

This Week in Horror History for April 20–26 dives into a packed week of horror release dates, anniversaries, cult favorites, and modern genre hits—from Vacancy (2007) and Silent Hill (2006) to The Hand (1981), Until Dawn (2025), and this week’s Deep-Cut Spotlight, The Dark Half (1993).

- April 20, 2007 — Vacancy: stripped-down motel horror, snuff-film panic, and one of the nastiest little studio thrillers of the 2000s.
- Where to watch (U. S., this week): PlutoTV; rentable on Amazon, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.
- April 21, 2006 — Silent Hill: one of the most atmospheric horror game adaptations ever made, with ash-choked visuals and nightmare imagery that still haunt. Where to watch (U. S., this week): PlutoTV; rentable on Amazon, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.
- April 24, 1981 — The Hand: Oliver Stone’s strange psychological horror detour, with Michael Caine unraveling while a severed hand seems to take on a life of its own. Where to watch (U. S., this week): Tubi; also on Amazon, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.
- April 25, 2025 — Until Dawn: the choice-driven horror game becomes a blood-soaked movie built around time loops, death traps, and repeat-night terror. Where to watch (U. S., this week): Netflix; also on Amazon, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.
- Deep-Cut Spotlight — April 23, 1993: The Dark Half: George A. Romero adapts Stephen King into a bitter, nasty, underrated horror film about authorship, rage, and a murderous alter ego. Where to watch (U. S., this week):Prime Video, MGM+, Prime Video with Ads, YouTube Free; rentable on Apple TV and Fandango at Home.
- Birthday Roll: Veronica Cartwright, James McAvoy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Amber Midthunder.
- Weekly Recommendation — I Trapped the Devil (2019): a claustrophobic, paranoid slow-burn that fits this cursed little calendar window perfectly. Where to watch (U. S., this week): AMC+, Shudder; also on Amazon, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.

From roadside terror and ash-covered nightmare towns to killer doubles, psychological breakdowns, and modern horror game adaptations, this episode tracks how one single week in April delivered a wildly varied run of horror history. Follow the Weekly Spooky feed for more horror podcasts, spooky deep dives, horror movie discussion, and genre anniversaries every week.

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👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
WEBVTT

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A very specific kind of dread belongs to late April.

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The weather says spring, the calendar says we're closing in

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on summer, and horror says absolutely not. This is the

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part of the year where the genre likes to play dirty,

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roadside panic, fog soaked nightmare towns, severed entities, body part madness,

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and one more reminder that even modern studio horror still

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loves a good death trap. So tonight we're walking straight

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into one of those beautifully unhinged weeks where the genre

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keeps changing masks without ever losing the grin underneath. Welcome

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back to this week in horror history. I'm your host,

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Enrique Kuto, and tonight we're talking about April twentieth through

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twenty six, a seven day stretch that gave us stripped

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down Motel Terror, one of the best looking video game

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horror adaptations of the two thousands, a gloriously odd Oliver

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Stone Nightmare, a brand new game adaptation trying to turn

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a choice based classic into a blood soaked crowd pleaser,

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and a George Romero deep cut about a writer literally

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being consumed by his darker self in a vicious story

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about authorship, anger and the monster that steps out when

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the safe persona dies. April twentieth, two thousand and seven,

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Vacancy hits theaters. This is lean, mean, no nonsense motel horror,

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and that is exactly why it still works and it's

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something people can identify with. In fact, I'm gonna finish

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recording this and pack up to head to a hotel myself.

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Oh boy. Nimrod Antal takes a simple setup a couple

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stranded in the wrong roadside dump and turns it into

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a pressure cooker about surveillance, cruelty, and the feeling that

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the walls themselves are against you. Kate Beckinsale and Luke

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Wilson play it straight, which it really does help because

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the movie doesn't need irony. The premise is already nasty enough.

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The premise of the premises, I suppose. Commercially, it did

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solid business about thirty five point four million dollars worldwide

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on a nineteen million dollar budget, which may not be

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blockbuster money, but it's more than respectable for a grim

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little thriller. This Nasty and the sequel is a hell

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of a lot of fun too. I do recommend that one.

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Although it's a lot of fun It's great for totally

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different reasons. And if you want to watch what might

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possibly be the most shameless horror movie knockoff ever made

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outside of maybe The Last Shark, which a federal court

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ruled to be a ripoff of Jaws, you can also

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check out Terror Trap with Michael Madsen Jeff Fayhee. It's

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a lot of fun. It is a total a shameless

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ripoff of Vacancy, but with a few more explosions and goofiness.

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I'm getting sidetracked, though, If you want to give Vacancy

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a watch or a revisit, they're accepting reservations right now now.

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You can watch it free with ads on Pluto TV

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or rented on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango

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at home. On April twenty first, two thousand and six,

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Silent Hill opens wide for a lot of horror fans.

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This was the moment a game adaptation finally understood that

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atmosphere was half the battle. Christoph Ganz did not just

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borrow monster designs. He went after the suffocating mood, the

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industrial howl, the sense that grief and guilt have physically

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stained the town. Whatever you may think of the script,

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the imagery has held on for twenty years, and it

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also connected with audiences roughly one hundred point six million

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dollars worldwide on a fifty million dollar budget. That's pretty

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respectable and a real theatrical footprint for a weird, ash

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covered nightmare pilgrimage movie. So if you want to take

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a trip to the eerie world of Silent Hill, you

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can do so free with ads on Pluto TV or

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rented on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and of course

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Fandango at Home. April twenty fourth, nineteen eighty one, The

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Hand arrives Oliver Stone directing a psychological horror movie about

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a severed hand going on a murder spree, with Michael

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Caine looking increasingly wrecked as reality comes apart around him.

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Is exactly the sort of sentence that makes this show

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worth doing. The Hand is not a mainstream classic, but

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it is a wonderfully peculiar artifact, part paranoid character study,

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part killer limb shocker, part early eighties studio oddity. That's

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almost an understatement. Financially, it never got close to escape velocity,

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bringing in about two point four five million dollars in

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the US against an estimated six point five million in

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Canadian dollars, but as a relic of a period when

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major talent would occasionally wander into extremely strange horror side streets,

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it's pure catnip. If you want to take a walk

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on the weird, I do highly recommend the hand. You

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can watch it right now free with ads on two

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BTV or rent slash By on Amazon, Apple TV and

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Fandango at home April twenty fifth, two Thy twenty five

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until Dawn opens in the United States. Turning a choice

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driven horror game into a movie is a tough job

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because half the fun of the original is feeling responsible

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for who lives and who dies. The film version swerved

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by leaning into a time loop setup, giving the material

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a different engine while still chasing that same all night

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survival feeling. Whether you loved it or not, it absolutely

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earned a place in the conversation. I saw it opening night.

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I enjoyed it, but as a massive and longtime fan

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of the original Until Dawn game, there were some disappointments

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here and there, but I will say I had a

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good time with it, and there were lots of until

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Dawn Easter eggs to enjoy. But they committed one massive

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faux pas there was no Larry Fesden in it, and

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that that ain't cool kids. At the box office, it

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earned about fifty four point one million dollars worldwide on

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a fifteen million dollar budget, a pretty strong result for

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a grim studio horror title in a crowded modern marketplace.

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If you want to dive in and give it a

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watch or give it a review because it's been a year,

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head to Netflix and watch it with your subscription, or

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rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV and Fandango

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at home tomorrow right here on the weekly Spooky Feed.

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Love Gets Ugly, a late night obsession, a chemistry lab,

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a girl who should have said no one last time,

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and a mistake that turns desire into something ravenous in

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chemically imbalanced, a sort of love story by Rob Field's.

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What starts as a lust soaked campus desperation curdles into panic, blood,

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and the kind of romance that doesn't end with flowers

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or apologies. It ends with screaming in the dark, something

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pounding at the glass, and a girl with blood in

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her eyes who suddenly wants you more than ever. But

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not all love stories are sweet, Some are feverish, some

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are twisted, and some want to tear your throat out

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before they kiss you. So when Wednesday comes, don't miss

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weekly Spooky. This one is savage, sticky, funny, mean, and deeply,

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deeply wrong in the best of ways. So make sure

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you're subscribed, tune in tomorrow and fall in love at

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your own risk. We come back. We're heading into our

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deep cut spotlight with George Romero, Stephen King, a murderous

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pen name, and a film that feels like a nasty

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little warning about what happens when the ugly side of

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a writer stops staying on the page. Welcome back, Let's

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get a little meaner. On April twenty third, nineteen ninety three,

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the Dark Half opens in theaters. This is our spotlight

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because it lands right at the intersection of three things

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horror people love, arguing about underrated Stephen King adaptations, Late

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Era O'Ryan film's weirdness, and George A. Romero doing something

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nastier and sadder than his zombie reputation sometimes gets credit

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for The setup is Irresistible. A writer who buried a

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violent pseudonym decides to publicly kill it off, only for

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that darker identity to step out into the world and

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start murdering people. Timothy Hutton gets the fun of playing

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both Thad Beaumont and George Stark, and the movie lives

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or dies on that split. Romero does not frame Stark

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like some glamorous demon. He's petulant, vulgar, and mean in

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a way that makes the whole thing feel less like

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Gothic fantasy and more like a self loathing panic attack

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turned corporeal. That's why the film has lasted. It's not

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just about a monster double. It's about the fear that

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the ugliest thing you make might actually be the truest

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thing inside of you. Commercially, it underperformed about ten point

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six million dollars domestically against a reported fifteen million dollar budget,

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but that is exactly why it belongs in this very segment.

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It's a studio release that feels too bitter, too internal,

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and too odd to have ever become a broad crowd

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pleaser as a Romero deep cut, though it freaking rules, man,

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and it's available to watch very easily, whether it's on

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Prime Video with subscription, MGM plus with subscription, Prime Video

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with ads, or free with ads on YouTube as well,

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and of course it's rentable on Apple TV and fandango

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at home. So go ahead, spend a little quality time

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with your dark half. And now it's time for some

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horror birthdays for faces tied to this exact week on

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the calendar. First up born on April twentieth, nineteen forty nine,

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Veronica Cartwright, between alien invasion of the Body Snatchers, the

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Witches of Eastwick, and just her overall ability to look

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genuinely wrecked by supernatural or sci fi chaos, She's one

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of the great panic energy performers in genre history. She's

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also a fascinating person. I highly recommend listening to her

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interview on Party Nerds popcast over on YouTube or wherever

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you are listening to this. Happy Birthday, Veronica Cartwright April

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twenty first, nineteen seventy nine. James McAvoy is born Horror

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fans don't need a long explanation here. Split alone locks

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him in, and he brought the same unnerving edge to

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Speak No Evil a decade or so later. Really talented actor,

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whether it's horror or any genre he tackles. Happy Birthday,

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James McAvoy on April twenty second, nineteen sixty six. Jeffrey

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Dean Morgan is born He's now horror TV royalty thanks

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to The Walking Dead, and he has that rare quality

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where even when he's charming, he still feels like he

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could become a well, a problem at any second. Happy Birthday,

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan and finally born on April twenty six,

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nineteen ninety seven, Amber mid Thunder Pray was one of

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the best franchise revivals in years, and she carried it

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with the exact kind of grit and presence. A great

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survival horror lead requires a very happy birthday to Amber

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mid Thunder For are then and now then, this one

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week in April gave horror a filthy roadside snuff film thriller,

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a prestige looking video game nightmare, a strange psychological studio

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misfire courtesy of Oliver Stone, a Romero adaptation about a

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killer alter ego, and a modern game movie built around

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repeated deaths and dwindling chances. Now that spread feels incredibly current.

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Horror is still bouncing between stripped down survival stories, adaptation experiments,

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cult rediscoveries, and movies about identity splitting apart under pressure.

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The tools change, but the fear seldom does, and for

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our Weekly Recommendation released on April twenty six, twenty nineteen,

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on video on demand as well as US theaters. I

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Trap the Devil. This is a small, ugly, anxious, little

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holiday horror film that plays like a family nightmare wrapped

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around one impossible question, what if your paranoid relative is

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actually right? It's tense, claustrophobic, and it really is mean

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in the best way. I highly recommend it, especially around

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the holidays. But it came out in April, so here

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we are if you want to give it a watch.

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It's available to stream with your AMC Plus or Shutter subscription,

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and its rentable of course on Amazon Prime, Apple TV,

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and fandom Ango at Home. Well, my Spookyes, that's it

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for this week in horror history. If you love horror

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with dates attached, come back next Tuesday and we'll do

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it all again with another cursed little bit from the calendar.

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Tomorrow on Weekly Spooky, make sure you don't miss the

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brand new Strickfield story Chemically Imbalanced, a sort of love story.

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It's a lot of fun and just the kind of

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thing you need to keep the spooky rolling in your weekly.

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We'll have something surprising for you on Friday, and of

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course a compilation of some of the scariest stories from

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the weekly Spooky Vault on Saturday and on Sunday. I

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really don't know what the unknown broadcast is, but it's

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always there. So until next time, my friends, remember our

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days are numbered, because that's how we tell them apart,

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see you next week.