Horror is for Grrrls

Spoilers for a 40-year-old movie contained below                        When you read as much horror journalism and scholarship as I do, watching well-known horror films is often an exercise in confirming what you think you already know. Notice I say well-known and not well-liked because, while its pop culture influence is undeniable, no one, not even fans, are under any delusions that Friday the 13 th is high art. It has its disciples, sure, but is also generally acknowledged as the lowest in quality of the classic slasher franchise-starters. Having watched it, I can confirm that to be true.             Friday the 13 th was among the glut of movies replicating the formula of Halloween in hopes of replicating its profitability, and is more or less interchangeable with any of them. While it’s nice to imagine a blockbuster franchise growing from, say, Maniac or Pr...

                          If there’s one activity I love more than any other, reader, it’s paying money to watch movies so inglorious and trash-laden that no self-respecting theater would charge more than $5 to see them. So imagine my delight to discover a $5 movie theater , in Brooklyn no less, that would show me a horror matinee of a movie they refused to name. I even insisted we get to the theater half an hour early to make sure we get the best seats, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering Lily.             Naturally, this film was The Fly II.             The idea of a sequel to a Cronenberg film is about as ludicrous as a sequel to Melancholia and stands as a testament to just how big a commercial hit The Fly really was. Say what you want about the ‘80s, but it was the decade when a reboot of ...