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On Friday nights (and special occasions!), IndieWire After Dark takes a beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

In March 2025, we’re highlighting favorites from puppeteer Paul Lewis — with Two Midnight Movies (and a Muppet!) That Influenced “The Rule of Jenny Pen.”

First, read the Bait: a weird and wonderful pick from any time in film. Then, try the Bite: a behind-the-scenes breakdown of the project’s ending, impact, and any other spoilers you’d want.

“The Rule of Jenny Pen” is in theaters and streams on AMC + and Shudder March 28.

The Bait: “That’s a Thousand Hours of My Life You Just Saw”

If TV writing isn’t a job anymore, then TV magicians must be totally screwed, huh? In the 1978 psychological horror classic “Magic,” Anthony Hopkins — aka everyone’s favorite cannibal psychiatrist — trades in his red-headed FBI agent from “Silence of the...

In the horror genre, it's rare to find a film where the blood and gore doesn't represent some deeper meaning for audiences to discover. This is especially true for earlier entries in the medium; while current movies draw inspiration from classics, films from the '50s and '60s were often wholly original and used by their creators to critique some aspect of society. Countless films use killers and monsters to represent the daily fears of their audiences, but few are as unnervingly effective as John D. Hancock's Let's Scare Jessica to Death. Streaming on Prime Video, it follows a woman who, after a recent stint in a mental ward, retreats to the countryside with her husband and friend in the hopes of building a haven away from the city's toxicity.

There are few things we love more than a John Carpenter interview, and author Michael Doyle will soon present us with the ultimate treat in that department: 16 years worth of exclusive interviews with Carpenter have been collected together for his upcoming book Bringing Darkness Instead of Light: Conversations with John Carpenter!

Coming soon from Fab Press, Bringing Darkness Instead of Light: Conversations with John Carpenter is being billed as “the definitive book on the archetypal Hollywood maverick.”

Fab Press previews, “Bringing Darkness Instead of Light is the culmination of over 15 years of startlingly candid conversations between John Carpenter and author Michael Doyle.

“In a wealth of frank, often funny and lively exchanges, we enjoy an unprecedented insight into the famously-private filmmaker’s life and career, rich with amusing anecdotes and jaw-dropping details never previously seen in print. They delve not just into the production of his movies, but also the creative process,...

Author Stephen King has always been pretty vocal about his opinion of horror movies, whether he loves them or hates them, but there is one movie he called "quite simply, one of the best ghost stories ever filmed" (via Horror News). The movie is Let's Scare Jessica to Death, and that is high praise coming from the prolific maestro of the macabre. It is easy to see why, as the movie is a complex exploration of paranoia wrapped up in a compelling ghost story. The 1970s supernatural thriller was also ahead of its time in several ways, and could easily find itself comfortable beside your more stylish A24-productions.

Still, many may not have heard of Let's Scare Jessica to Death, with the movie taking a long time to gain appreciation, existing for decades as an obscure gem championed by a vocal cult fandom. We will look at how the...

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: In Defense of Female Hysteria and Cinematic Foreplay

Final girls have it rough in general. Running from chainsaws is exhausting. Hanging on meat hooks is no fun. And if you get possessed by a demon, your boyfriend just will not see you the same way. Still, there’s a special sadism to the torture inflicted on scream queens sacrificed to horror movies about female hysteria.

It’s a subgenre best summed up by the dramatic question “Is this bitch haunted or just crazy?” — a cataclysmic collision of society’s sexist...

Stars: Stephan Goldbach, Michelle Jones, Alyssa Kempinski, Tom Martin, Thea McCartan, Rob O’Rourke, Marcin Paluch, Tracy Willet, Matt Ziegel | Written and Directed by Brendan Steere

Originally shot in 2012 as a thesis project at the School of Visual Arts, professor Roy Frumkes is the film’s executive producer, Animosity had a festival run that included Fantasia and the Boston SciFi Film Festival. But after a small release it quickly faded into obscurity. Then writer/director Brendan Steere had an unexpected, and unlikely, hit with The VelociPastor.

Never one to pass up a quick cash in, Wild Eye Releasing has now dusted Animosity off and scheduled it for re-release. Is it one of their better finds, or just another student film that should stay forgotten?

A woman (Thea McCartan; Altered Hours) stalks and kills her daughter with a skill saw before taking a shower and showing the house to prospective buyers Mike...

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By Todd Garbarini

By all accounts, Jennie Logan (Lindsay Wagner) has it all – beauty, intelligence, a loving husband (Alan Feinstein) named Michael, and a good friend in whom she confides (Constance McCashin). While they do not have children, Jennie and Michael seem to be unperturbed by the lack of tiny bare feet on the hardwood floors – there is plenty of time for all of that. Or is there? Looks can be deceiving and it is not long before we discover that this seemingly “perfect couple” have their own demons to wrestle with.

Guided on a tour of the sprawling Victorian manse prior to their eventual purchase by a matter-of-fact realtor (Pat Corley) who off-handedly remarks that the unfinished attic is unworthy of even the most cursory glance, Jennie feels drawn to it, though she cannot fathom why. Following their purchase and move-in, Jennie...

October doesn’t have to be the exclusive month of chilling, thrilling films, and no one recognizes that more acutely than horror streamer Shudder, which recently announced a cheeky “Halfway to Halloween Month” (read: April), dedicated to the kind of fresh genre programming usually relegated to autumn. Included in that stacked assortment of new programming is Corinna Faith’s “The Power,” an alluring-sounding thriller that joins the streaming outfit’s steadily growing body of original films.

An entrant in the 2018 edition of the Brit List, the much-anticipated period thriller uses real history to unspool a supernatural thriller. Set in the early winter of 1974, the film picks up during the “Three-Day Week” period in the UK, during which a combination of power conservation and striking miners plunged the country into a planned, partial blackout for over two months. Against that already unnerving backdrop, Faith readies a story that would be scary,...

It’s a great time to be a horror fan. Not only are Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and Shudder awash with all kinds of horror movies old and new, but the Criterion Channel is getting in on the gruesome action with a month’s worth of horror titles from the 1970s.

The subscription service is the digital offshoot of the Criterion Collection, which for more than 35 years has been providing definitive archival home video versions of classic and contemporary films from around the world. Criterion launched its streaming service last year as a way to offer a curated cross-section of its library of films online.

Horror has always had a respectful home at Criterion, with the company publishing definitive editions of a number of the genre’s landmark films. The October rollout of horror movies for the Halloween season is similar to what other companies are doing, but the focus is the difference here.

Horror fans, specifically those interested in classic horror, have just been handed a gift by The Criterion Channel. The streaming service has announced a massive collection of 70s horror classics will be arriving on the service just in time for the Halloween season. This includes a wide range of selections from some of the most iconic filmmakers to ever tackle the genre, including Tobe Hooper, George A. Romero, Wes Craven and David Cronenberg, just to name a few.

The Criterion Channel recently released a trailer detailing what the collection contains. Per Criterion, "This tour through the 1970s nightmare realm is a veritable blood feast of perverse pleasures from a time when gore, grime, and sleaze found a permanent home in horror." The trailer offers but a small taste of the tour, which includes a total of 29 classics, rarities and oddities from the decade.

Some bonafide horror classics are included in the collection,...

Too often we're recommended the same hot-topic new horrors and renowned classics. It seems we either gravitate to whatever Rotten Tomatoes has recently deemed "Certified Fresh," or go for the old staples. While classics like The Exorcist, The Shining, Jaws, and Halloween are legendary for a reason, we miss so much great horror in the process of picking out what's widely known. Some of the best horror films in existence are seldom talked about outside of the nerdiest, horror-loving circles.

I'll take the liberty to insert some "I" in here - I've been compiling horror lists for many years now, and most of what I deem the "scariest" or "best"movies are films most major publications won't put on a "best horror" list. As I discuss my favorite horrors I frequently hear "I've never heard of that," and it's subsequently forced me to coerce those I know into watching a...

Body Parts & Let’s Scare Jessica to Death Two Cult Classic Thrillers Make Their Blu-ray™ Debuts January 28, 2020 from Scream Factory This January, Scream Factory brings the cult classic thrillers Body Parts and Let’s Scare Jessica to Death to Blu-ray for the first time! Available January 28, 2020, both releases come loaded with …

The post Scream Factory Brings Cult Classic Thrillers “Body Parts” and “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” To Blu-ray January appeared first on Hnn | Horrornews.net.

The original Black Christmas released in 1974 and the first remake released in 2006 are both rated R. That's not something the new Black Christmas can boast, as the holiday killer thriller has been stamped with what some feel is the dreaded PG-13. A move to pull in tween girls who aren't old enough to see darker fare. Well, horror fans aren't having it, lighting up a healthy discussion on Twitter. Now, the screenwriter of the movie has come out to defend the PG-13 rating.

Writer April Wolfe, who is behind this latest take on the Holiday horror classic, has some things to say about her new horror movie receiving a PG-13 rating. She admits that they set out to make something a little more harsh and covered in a lot more blood. But test screenings changed their thinking. In a Twitter post, she says this.

"Here's the deal: We wrote it with an R in mind.

Last year, I was invited to check out the set of The Possession of Hannah Grace, which will arrive in theaters on November 30th, thanks to Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Entertainment. After an exorcism goes horribly wrong, the body of Hannah Grace is taken to a local morgue, but she doesn't stay dead. Thankfully, we were on set at the perfect time to witness things unravel at the morgue, and I saw firsthand how terrifying and claustrophobic a morgue can be.

Kicking off a series of interviews we conducted on set with a group of journalists, I wanted to share our discussion with producer Sean Robins and writer Brian Sieve, who is no stranger to horror, having been a writer on the Scream and Teen Wolf TV series. Keep an eye out for more interviews with the cast and crew, including Shay Mitchell and Hannah Grace herself, Kirby Johnson.

Top 100 horror movies of all time: Chicago Film Critics' choices (photo: Sigourney Weaver and Alien creature show us that life is less horrific if you don't hold grudges) See previous post: A look at the Chicago Film Critics Association's Scariest Movies Ever Made. Below is the list of the Chicago Film Critics's Top 100 Horror Movies of All Time, including their directors and key cast members. Note: this list was first published in October 2006. (See also: Fay Wray, Lee Patrick, and Mary Philbin among the "Top Ten Scream Queens.") 1. Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock; with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam. 2. The Exorcist (1973) William Friedkin; with Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow (and the voice of Mercedes McCambridge). 3. Halloween (1978) John Carpenter; with Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran. 4. Alien (1979) Ridley Scott; with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt. 5. Night of the Living Dead (1968) George A. Romero; with Marilyn Eastman,...

Tfh Fan Week with Steve Senski! concludes at Trailers from Hell, with Kickstarter backer Senski introducing John Hancock's "Let's Scare Jessica to Death," starring the mercurial Zohra Lampert as a former medical patient terrified she's losing her mind when she sees apparitions at a Connecticut farmhouse -- or does she? Hancock's debut is scary comfort food for hordes of horror fans who first encountered it on Creature Features, and enjoys a fan following larger than its so-so critical reception would indicate.

As a horror fan and collector, one of the things I find utterly maddening is discovering that a title I’m dying to add to my collection is out of print and selling for a fortune. Rather than do the sane thing, and wait for the film to be re-issued, I usually cough up absolutely idiotic sums of money, because I am reckless, impatient, and highly impulsive. Since I am also thoughtful, I have compiled a guide to out of print titles (Oop), the going rate, and more. Included in the list below are ten films in various stages of manufacturing moratorium. Several of them are recently out of print, so we are providing you a ‘heads’ up to so that you have the opportunity to snag them before they become hideously expensive.

Popcorn (1991) Trailer

Popcorn

This 1991 film is commanding nearly $80 on Amazon for a brand new copy. I impetuously...

by Colleen Wanglund, MoreHorror.com

Based on the short story “Carmilla” by Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) is a low-budget horror film directed by John D. Hancock (Bang the Drum Slowly {1973}). It stars Zohra Lampert as Jessica, a woman who was recently released from a mental institution. Jessica, her husband Duncan (Barton Heyman) and family friend Woody (Kevin O’Connor) move to a country farmhouse on an island in Connecticut. Their reception by the residents of the small town is a cool and strange one, but doesn’t put them off. Upon their arrival at the farmhouse, the trio meets a squatting hippie named Emily (Mariclare Costello), whom they allow to stay the night. Emily suggests they have a séance and as a result, Jessica begins to hear voices.

Ultimately Emily is asked to stay indefinitely and Jessica begins to experience more strange happenings. The...

The East End Film Festival opens this evening with Roger Sargent's doc, The Libertines: There Are No Innocent Bystanders. The festival then kind of goes berserk on Sunday with Movie Mayday, "a free day of cinema, live music, cinema trails, virtual tours, filmmaking competitions, quizzes and talks blanketing the whole of London's East End," and a screening of Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) at the Barbican that Electric Sheep's pretty excited about. They also urge readers not to miss Friday's screening of Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan of Angels (1961) "in the beautiful church of St John on Bethnal Green."

Update, 4/29: "As part of the East End Film Festival, legendary Portishead Adrian Utley was approached to select a film to screen and introduce; he chose the new digitally restored Taxi Driver — cleaned up by Martin Scorsese himself." Simon Jablonski: "The Quietus spoke to Adrian Utley to find out the details...

London's pubs offer punters an alternative cinematic experience of fun themed nights, forgotten films – and the freedom to talk

Film buffs have suddenly never had it so good. In recent months I have had the choice of such films as Psycho and Taxi Driver, 80s Hollywood gem Cutter's Way, cult favourite The Man With X-Ray Eyes and an evening devoted to art house favourite Luis Buñuel, without having to set foot inside a cinema or venture more than three miles from my north London home.

Psycho was on at my local, the Nobody Inn, and Taxi Driver directly opposite on the other corner of Newington Green in the neighbourhood trattoria's regular Monday movie night slot. The others, and many more movies like them, were screened at more formal gatherings, all part of a fast-growing trend for film clubs springing up across the capital.

The changing nature of pubs, London's dearth of repertory cinema,...