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Luke Skywalker’s medal from A New Hope is but one lot in a huge array of film memorabilia going up for auction this month.

Most of us don’t have tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars to spend on film memorabilia, but still: it’s nice to dream. This month will see Propstore auction off a quite mind-melting array of movie-related items, with costumes and props from major blockbusters to cult obscurities.

One of the big-ticket items is arguably Luke Skywalker’s medal, as seen at the end of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope. It has a starting bid of $150,000, and is expected to fetch somewhere between $300,000 to $600,000.

According to Propstore’s listing, only two of these medals – made from resin and covered in gold leaf – were made for the production, and while Mark Hamill wore the one up for sale in A New Hope, Harrison Ford...

Terminator 2: Judgment Day, filmmaker James Cameron's 1991 follow-up to his 1984 blockbuster The Terminator, remains a classic of both the sci-fi and action genres, with plenty of critics and fans regarding it as superior to its predecessor. Its innovative special effects, intense action sequences, and still-relevant themes about the dangers of our increasing reliance on artifical intelligence all give the film a timeless quality, despite being released over three decades ago.

But, as it turns out, AI wasn't the only social issue that Terminator 2 tried to warn us about. Cameron has made it clear in multiple interviews that it was no accident that the film's frightening antagonist, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), wears an LAPD officer's uniform for most of the film's runtime. Indeed, Cameron intended for this costume choice to be a subtle commentary on the way cops are often trained to become "machines" designed for violence and brutality.

Released just a few months after the 45th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” “Alien: Romulus” brings the franchise roaring back to life after a seven-year hiatus. Director and co-writer Fede Álvarez leveraged its complex mythology by staging his installment between the events of the original film and its 1986 follow-up “Aliens.” But just as important was Álvarez’ combining filmmaking techniques used on those earlier chapters with the most up-to-date technology available to deliver its many thrills — and in the process, to cement the series’ reputation as one of the great cinematic showcases for artisanal creativity.

In addition to a $350 million (and counting) worldwide box office haul to mark the success of the movie, Álvarez’ collaborators Eric Barba, Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser, Daniel Macarin and Shane Mahan received a collective Academy Award nomination for best visual effects. It’s an honor shared by four previous “Alien” films, and one that’s especially welcome...

“I’m basically a storyteller, just with the skin on a character’s face,” explained Mike Marino, the prosthetics maestro whose reputation is fast becoming as lauded as movie makeup legends Rick Baker and Stan Winston.

At this year’s Golden Globes, Marino was acknowledged not once, but twice by winning actors on stage: First by Colin Farrell, who is unrecognizable in HBO’s “The Penguin”; and then by Sebastian Stan, who won for his role in the dark indie comedy about disfigurement and self-acceptance, “A Different Man.”

“That was a huge compliment,” Marino told TheWrap of the shoutouts. “People were texting me that night — producers and actors and heroes of mine like Rick Baker — joking, ‘These are the Marino Globes.’ I’ve been doing this for my whole life and I’m just super thankful and fortunate to do what I do. Prosthetics work isn’t the crazy, booming business it once was,...

If you're a fan of old-school horror, then you're probably familiar with the name Tom Savini. If you're not, then you’ve almost definitely seen a movie he’s played a role in making, as Savini is mostly celebrated for his work as a make-up and special effects guru, doing for horror what someone like Stan Winston did for science fiction. Also, he’s acted in a bunch of movies, and has even tried his hand at directing feature films, too.

While filming Piranha II: The Spawning, director James Cameron had a fever dream that would lead to him creating a slasher horror science fiction epic called The Terminator. The film would defy all odds, grossing nearly $80 million dollars on a $6.4 million dollar budget. Putting the world on notice that both Cameron and his star, Arnold Schwarzenegger had arrived. How do you top that? I guess you make arguably the greatest action movie of all time, and one of the greatest films to ever grace a movie screen in general. This is the story of what the f*ck happened to Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

One thing Judgment Day has in common with all other sequels in the franchise, is that the story begins with a battle for the rights. This story included an almost physical fight between Cameron and Hemdale Production Company’s John Daly after Daly attempted to alter...

Jurassic Park is a pioneer of immense proportions. Not only did the 1993 Steven Spielberg classic usher in a new era of cinema with its revolutionary special effects, but the movie, which was adapted from Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel, also provided new context of dinosaurs and helped advance the study of the prehistoric creatures. In Jurassic Park, Sam Neill’s character, Alan Grant, made strides in his research as he found that dinosaurs were less reptilian and more bird-like (despite the popular imagery). The dinos in Spielberg’s film were showcased as such.

ScreenRant reports on a video from YouTuber, CoolioArt, that has recently gone viral. In CoolioArt’s viral video, the raptors in the famous kitchen scene from Jurassic Park have been replaced with more accurate depictions of what the scientific community now theorizes the raptors look like based on fossil evidence. While the look of the breeds from...

Wolf Man's gory practical effects get a detailed look in a new video from Leigh Whannell's upcoming horror movie. Co-written and directed by Whannell – also known for Saw, Insidious, and 2020's The Invisible Man – the upcoming horror movie is a reboot of the classic 1941 film, following a family man who moves into his inherited childhood home and is attacked by a werewolf during a full moon, leading to his terrifying transformation that endangers his wife and daughter. Wolf Man's cast includes Christopher Abbott in the titular role alongside Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, and more.

Now, shared by Universal Pictures, a new behind-the-scenes video provides a detailed look at the gory practical effects in the upcoming Wolf Man. The video features co-writer–director Leigh Whannell and special make-up effects designer Arjen Tuiten explaining why practical effects were the right choice for the film, along with its stars Julia...

The Yautja species are among the most terrifying alien creatures in all of science fiction, and the many different variants seen in the Predator franchise boast significant kill counts. From Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch Schaefer taking down the Jungle Hunter seen in the original Predator to the Feral variety in Dan Trachtenberg’s prequel Prey, these extraterrestrials count animals, humans, and even Xenomorph aliens among their long list of victims. With terrifying techniques, such as Predators’ tendency to skin their victims, to encounter one of these creatures in the real world would be a truly frightening proposition.

With epic crossover series like Alien vs. Predator, thrilling prequels that outlined the species mythology, or exciting spin-offs that took viewers off Earth, the sheer volume of Yautja variants was truly impressive. As a trophy-hunting species that thinks of killing as a type of sport, the Yautja have gone down in cinematic history as some of the smartest,...

A couple of leaked screenshots from The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell's Wolf Man reboot have found their way online (via Reddit), and they reveal our first glimpse of the movie's other werewolf.

Our first look at what was assumed to be the titular Wolfman via an actor in a costume at Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights was met with a lot of backlash, but the most recent trailer appeared to confirm that this will be the creature responsible for the initial attack, leaving Christopher Abbott's Blake to change into a different beast altogether.

Whannell addressed the negative response during an interview with NME.

“The marketing department for a movie is so huge,” he said, “it’s really impossible to keep tabs on every single thing. So when something comes out that maybe the internet decides they don’t like, the only thing I can think is: ‘Well,...

The original design for the creature in John McTiernan's 1987 actioner "Predator" was initially spindlier and more animal. It stood taller and sported enormous yellow eyes and a horse-skull-like head. Fun trivia: Jean-Claude Van Damme was the original stunt performer hired to play the spindly version of the Predator. More fun trivia: in the sequel "The Predator," during a Halloween Night sequence, a little kid walks by the camera wearing the original Predator as his costume.

The eventual design for the Predator — called a Yautja in expanded universe lore — was far more humanoid. The Predator was a tall man with a muscular, male physique. It had long claws, shark-like skin, and was outfitted with high-tech alien hunting gear. It wore a mask for the bulk of "Predator," but eventually removed it to reveal a crab-like face, mean eyes, and an undeniably vulval mouth with fangs. The predator's vaginal face is...

When Friday the 13th (1980) was first released into theaters, there was not a lot of hope for a sustained franchise. After all, they knock off most of the characters and the villain out of the gate. Yet in the last days of filming, Jason Voorhees made his first appearance, and Friday the 13th became a twelve-film phenomenon. With December 13th falling on a Friday, it’s a perfect time to revisit the fun franchise.

12. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

It’s almost unfair to rank this movie this low. However, Friday the 13th Part V is a mess from beginning to end. After Corey Feldman’s cameo, it takes more than twenty-five minutes for Jason to return to the screen. Even then, it’s not the Voorhees we’ve come to love. The result was so disastrous, that producers decided to bring Jason back from the dead immediately.

Nearly every culture tells similar folk tales about creepy old hags that practice witchcraft and prey on unsuspecting children, with this irrational fear being at the heart of several real-life tragedies that ended with innocent women being put to death. That’s why I find the idea of redemptive witchcraft stories like The Good Witch and even the ultra-successful Wicked adaptation so fascinating, as despite having been commodified as one of the cutesy mascots of the Halloween season, witches are still at the heart of many of our most frightening stories.

Naturally, this also extends to horror movies, with filmmakers depicting terrifying acts of witchcraft on screen since the very dawn of the medium. And with so many creepy broom-riders out there, we’ve decided to come up with a list celebrating six of the scariest witches in film. After all, there’s a lot more to these sinister spellcasters than black cats and candy-houses.

Image Source: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment When Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park was being filmed in the early 1990s, CGI technology was in its infancy. While Spielberg did utilize some limited CGI, he primarily relied on the expertise of the late, great special effects Academy Award winner, Stan Winston, to create state-of-the-art animatronic dinosaurs. These life-sized creations were designed to act alongside the film’s stars, adding a level of realism that was groundbreaking for its time. For many actors, the prospect of acting alongside these impressive animatronics could have been daunting, potentially altering their performances. However, Jurassic Park star Sam Neill, who played the iconic Dr. Alan Grant, revealed that he didn’t change his approach. We spoke with Neill before the film’s release, Neill shared that having the dinosaurs present on set actually enhanced his performance. He felt that being under the direction of Steven Spielberg, regardless...

Last Updated on December 9, 2024

For years, Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net has been about two things only – awesome art and the artists that create it. With that in mind, we thought why not take the first week of the month to showcase these awesome artists even more? Welcome to “Awesome Artist We’ve Found Around The Net.” In this column, we are focusing on one artist and the awesome art that they create, whether they be amateur, up-and-coming, or well-established. The goal is to uncover these artists so even more people become familiar with them. We ask these artists a few questions to see their origins, influences, and more. If you are an awesome artist or know someone that should be featured, feel free to contact me at any time at theodorebond@joblo.com.This month we are very pleased to bring you the awesome art of…...

Adult Swim once again defies expectations with a bold, brilliant genre experiment that transforms a yule log video into a horror/Hallmark hybrid about second chances.

“I just feel like I’m trapped in a horror movie I can’t get out of.”

Horror and Christmas have been a powerful combination for over 50 years. It was initially a disturbing shock to the system to see sacred Christmas iconography get perverted into dark tools of dread. This surprise has worn off after decades of meditations on killer Santas and Krampus. Even Art the Clown has invaded Christmas at this point. That being said, there’s still nothing like a good, genuine surprise in a horror movie and Adult Swim accomplishes this tall task in its latest holiday offering.

Casper Kelly is always one to creatively experiment with structure, form, and genre. Too Many Cooks, Final Deployment 4: Queen Battle Walkthrough, and to a lesser extent,...

Here at JoBlo Horror Originals we talk a lot about gateway horror films. Depending on the generation you belong to, that can be a few different things. Kids of the 70s will always have Jaws as an introduction to horror and that movie is still a great way to introduce newer generations to the genre after almost 50 years. Two of my favorites from the 80’s, and two films that both my sons have seen, are The Gate and The Monster Squad. Again, both great and both still hold up as not only fun horror flicks but great ways to ease in the younger crowd. As a kid born in 1985, I am much more a child of the 90s so even if you hadn’t read the title of the video you clicked, you could probably guess that I saw Jurassic Park in theaters, it scared and enthralled me and made me want more.

Previously available as a Best Buy exclusive, Scream Factory’s Pumpkinhead SteelBook 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray will receive a wide release on December 3.

Orlando Arocena designed the artwork for the 1988 horror film, which was scanned in 4K from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision Hdr.

Special effects legend Stan Winston made his directorial debut from a script by Mark Patrick Carducci and Gary Gerani.

Lance Henriksen stars with John D’Aquino, Jeff East, Kerry Remsen, and Tom Woodruff Jr. as Pumpkinhead.

Disc 1 (4K Uhd):

2023 4K Scan Of The Original Camera Negative In Dolby Vision (Hdr-10 Compatible) Audio: English DTS-hd Master Audio 2.0, English DTS-hd Master Audio 5.1 Audio Commentary With Co-Writer Gary Gerani And Creature & FX Creators Tom Woodruff Jr. And Alec Gillis, Moderated By Filmmaker Scott Spiegel

Disc 2 (Blu-ray):

2023 4K Scan Of The Original Camera Negative Audio: English DTS-hd Master Audio 2.0, English DTS-hd Master Audio 5.1 Audio Commentary With Co-Writer...

Leigh Whannell, the modern master of horror who wrote films like Saw and Insidious and directed Upgrade and The Invisible Man, is set to scare audiences out of their minds with his newest take on a Universal classic, Wolf Man. And while some people may have seen a bit of what things will look like with both The Wolf Man's trailer and the film being featured extensively in Halloween Horror Nights, Whannell is coming out to set the record straight: What people saw with Halloween Horror Nights isn't what will be seen in the movie. Period.

Whannell's Wolf Man is set to be released in theaters on January 17, 2025, and the director is taking a few breaks from post-production in order to clarify some misconceptions people may have in regard to what his film will look like. Whannell spoke to Comic Book during New York Comic Con 2024, and he addressed...

This essay by Akela Cooper on her favorite horror movie of all time is one of several contributed as part of Variety’s 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time package.

In 1988, Stan Winston, then mostly known for his incredible work as a special effects artist, made his directorial debut with a low-budget film inspired by a Gothic poem. That film was “Pumpkinhead.”

“Pumpkinhead” only got a limited release in theaters. Fatefully, one of those theaters happened to be near my small town in southeastern Missouri. My parents saw the film and came home talking about how good it was. This inspired my brother, around 13 at the time, to ask to see it. I was eight, so I can’t say if it was my parents’ review that swayed me or the fact that everyone in my family was going to see this thing and I didn’t want to be left out,...

A lot of famous slashers are decidedly straightforward: someone with a knife and a vengeance causes chaos. Some slashers, though, introduce paranormal elements, like the subtle mythology that grew behind Michael Myers in later Halloween installments. And some great slashers with supernatural elements serve up the scares and keep you guessing.

So while many slashers follow the familiar horror trope of a masked yet mortal killer, others in the genre elevate the horror with something a little spooky, not burdened by the rules of reality. These films not only deliver thrills and chills but also weave in mythologies that keep audiences guessing. Why choose just one horror genre when you can have slasher kills and paranormal thrills?

i

Pumpkinhead s a Terrifying Fable of Grief and Revenge

The most haunting thing of all is grief without closure. Pumpkinhead follows the story of Ed Harley, a grieving father who seeks vengeance...

The 90s was a great time for adaptations. Jurassic Park is the gold standard, of course, but there was so much more. That book’s author, Michael Crichton, also had Sphere and Congo get greenlit and released while we would see non-horror output like Forrest Gump and Shawshank Redemption, which account for the greatest film of all time… and Forrest Gump. On the horror side we would have Silence of the Lambs, the wonderful It TV miniseries, Exorcist III, and a fun little monster movie throwback called The Relic. At the time, I just thought it was a cool creature feature designed specifically for 12-year-olds like me but looking back all these years later I found out it was an adaptation of a book by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child in what would be the first of 22 separate stories for one of the chief protagonists. That’s all well and...

Steven Spielberg has never once ceased to let his fans get the ultimate experience through his projects. If anything, his exceptional filmmaking skills are the one thing that has allowed him such a tremendous fanbase. The same was depicted perfectly in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, his sci-fi fantasy from 2001, though things just may have gotten a bit too out of hand with this one.

Steven Spielberg. | Credits: Gage Skidmore/Cc-by-sa-2.0/Wikimedia Commons.

A fan of realism and accuracy to the core, Spielberg seems to have eliminated the CGI elements in this one movie to some really great extents. This included him coming up with the idea of making 2 people shoot through cannons into “twelve-foot spinning metal blades” before bursting up into pieces, with the only exceptional part being it was all going to be real and not CGI-curated.

Steven Spielberg Really Decided to Minimize CGI Usage in A.I.

While A.

One of the earliest Alien rip-offs was made for US television. We take a look back at 1981’s The Intruder Within.

Much like Jaws, Star Wars and Mad Max before it, the success of 1979’s Alien prompted studios and producers the world over to make their own hastily-made rip-off movies. Thanks to – shall we say – enterprising filmmakers like Roger Corman and Norman J Warren, we got cheap and cheerful fare like Barracuda (1978), Battle Beyond The Stars (1980) and Inseminoid (1981).

One of the earliest Alien clones to emerge like a shambling monster, though, was The Intruder Within – a low-budget TV movie that cheekily borrowed all sorts of ideas from Ridley Scott’s hit, but transplanted the entire thing from a spaceship in the future to an oil rig in the post-energy crisis early 1980s. As you can probably imagine, it isn’t a lost classic, but it’s fascinating to revisit, both...

‘Alien: Romulus’ is right around the corner, so it’s the perfect time to check out ‘Lily C.A.T.,’ an anime body horror classic that’s a gory tribute to ‘Alien’ and ‘The Thing’.

“Confine them? We’re on a ship. We’re practically confined ourselves.”

Ridley Scott’s Alien is an iconic horror/science fiction hybrid that’s had its ups and downs as a film franchise, but remains an essential genre film 45 years later. Alien is such a tried and true property with limitless potential that it’s kind of remarkable that there hasn’t been an Alien animated series or in-universe anime that’s in the vein of The Animatrix that translates this iconic sci-fi horror property into animated madness where it can really let loose and not be confined by live-action’s limitations. An unreleased Alien vs. Predator anime is the closest thing that audiences have gotten to this,...

Back in 2013, with the release of Evil Dead, Director Fede Alvarez did something unprecedented and incredible, i.e., rebooting a classic horror franchise with an entry as good as if not better than the original movie. A decade later, the director has another opportunity to repeat the same feat as he is at the helm of the upcoming Alien: Romulus, the latest venture in the iconic cosmic-horror franchise, and from the first look of the promotional updates, things are looking really promising as well.

Hailed as the most influential, original, and pioneering amalgamation of the sci-fi and horror genres, director Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise has had an undeniable cultural impact on showbiz since the 1980s. However, with a couple of misfires in the last decade in the form of prequel movies Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, the franchise suffered unfortunate setbacks. Now with Alien: Romulus, the upcoming installment that is...

Film historians agree that computer-generated imagery (CGI) was first used in a motion picture as far back as Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), which utilized abstract computer animation under its opening credits. Of course that’s not immediately what comes to mind when we think of CGI (or just plain CG) today: the earliest, crude instances of the kind of CG that dominates modern filmmaking were first seen in Westworld (1973), Star Wars, Looker (1981), the groundbreaking Tron (1982), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), and The Last Starfighter (1984).

But the first genuine leap in using CG to animate and incorporate photorealistic three-dimensional objects into live-action came in James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989) via the creation of the alien pseudopod made out of digital ocean water. The techniques developed by Industrial Light and Magic for that film blew open the doors to the true CG revolution in cinema, which began in the 1990s...

“Whoever wins, we lose,” read the famous tagline for Alien vs. Predator.

Ask most critics in 2004, and they would insist that we did indeed lose. “The title alone betrays an entire Hollywood mindset of rehash, reheat, recombine. Re-please,” wrote Jessica Winter of Time Out. “A movie based on a video game based on two entirely separate sci-fi horror series—so whatever was interesting in the originals has long been bred out, like double-jointedness,” lamented Ty Burr of the Boston Globe.

These samples captured the general tenor of the critical response, which decried AvP as an unholy diluting of two venerable franchises, a mess that no one in their right mind would want. According to these critics, AvP could appeal to no one who hadn’t read the original Dark Horse comic books, played the video games, or watched and re-watched the xenomorph tease at the end of Predator 2.

Of course the critics were wrong.

The Alien franchise is known for its horrifically diverse array of kills. Using its dual sets of spring-loaded jaws, massive size and unstoppable acid blood against a host of ill-prepared human prey, the titular killing machine in its many evolutions has proven to be one of the horror genre's deadliest icons.

From a troop of jingoistic space marines to a planet of pious prisoners, the film series has introduced a host of characters whose deaths have challenged the next crop of filmmakers to up the ante. Whether it be the killing method, the quality of the character, or the tone of the kill itself, there are limitless possibilities for terrifying moments. With 45 years of thrills and kills under the franchise's belt, Fede lvarez's Alien: Romulus, releasing in August 2024, has a lot to live up to.

Bretts Death Is a Masterclass in Tension Alien (1979)

Related Why Aliens Ripley is Sci-Fi's Greatest...

When Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" opened theatrically on June 29, 2001, it was freighted with impossible expectations. First of all, many cinephiles didn't consider it a Spielberg film. This was Stanley Kubrick's long-promised homecoming to the science fiction genre, which he'd revolutionized cinematically in 1968 with "2001: A Space Odyssey," and, even though he'd initially approached Spielberg about directing the project in 1985, the Hollywood hitmaker was viewed as a creative conduit of sorts.

This was especially true in the wake of Kubrick's unexpected death two years prior. "A.I." would likely be the last film Kubrick worked on extensively to go before the cameras. So while people were excited to see Spielberg's rendition of Kubrick's vision, the doubters were out there. Even with non-escapist masterpieces "Empire of the Sun" and "Schindler's List" in his filmography, some still considered him a sentimentalist.

To this day, some people, despite facts, view "A.

Possession is a relatively common topic on this channel and show and that’s probably because it’s something that has been recorded and pushed as factual by the people claiming to be possessed or investigators for a long time. It generally falls under the scope of he said/she said with most of the presented evidence as fact being very up for interpretation. These are almost always then turned into movies as that open for interpretation aspect of it can lead to a bunch of elements being added for entertainment and dramatic purposes. Today we look at a movie that is based on a book that was inspired by a true story. It’s not exactly possession but it is a poltergeist of a movie that is something very different and was taken quite seriously in both real life and as a movie. The Entity (buy it Here) is...

Horror movies are known for bringing terror and violence, but even they have limits on their on-screen brutality and grim tones. More than just cutting content to avoid harsher ratings and overly putting off audiences, horror movies will occasionally change their entire endings. From not being consistent with the tone of the rest of the movie to going too far with its graphic content, these alternate endings are often major departures that would have changed everything. Even the biggest horror classics and established franchises see these big changes, altering endings for a variety of reasons in post-production.

With that in mind, we've rounded up some of the biggest horror movies with alternate endings that were more brutal than the ones included with their respective theatrical cuts. These planned endings each went a step too far with their content and tone, which is why each of them were ultimately cut. You'll...

Before you dart toward the comments to argue that George Huang’s How to Make a Monster isn’t a remake, let me explain why it’s my focus this month.

In 2001, legendary special effects artist Stan Winston co-produced a series of made-for-cable “remakes” alongside Colleen Camp and Lou Arkoff based on Aip horror flicks of the 1950s. They were all monster films based on Samuel Z. Arkoff properties (Lou’s father) under the banner “Creature Features.” Winston developed these films for Cinemax and HBO, where they’d haunt late-night rotations. He even turned his “Creature Features” villains into a toy line, although sales were underwhelming because the figures released out of synch with each premiere.

I used quotations around “remakes” above because 2001’s How to Make a Monster is a remake by title only. Herbert L. Strock’s 1958 original is about a makeup effects artist who uses his secret foundation recipe to control actors.

Special effects master and creature creator Stan Winston is best known for making the monsters seen in such hit films as "The Terminator," "Invaders from Mars," "Aliens," "Alien Nation," "Predator," "Jurassic Park," "Congo," and "The Relic." He also provided makeup and other eerie beings for "The Thing," "Starman," "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman Returns," and "The Island of Dr. Moreau." He received an Oscar nomination in 1982 for his work on the robot comedy "Heartbeeps." His monsters indelibly changed genre cinema for decades, and his death in 2008 was an immeasurable loss. 

Winston also directed a few notable projects. He directed the music videos for Guns N' Roses and Michael Jackson. Winston also helmed the amusement parks-only 3-D "Terminator" interquel "T2 3-D: Battle Across Time" in '96. Winston only ever directed two feature films: the very, very, very odd cop-teams-up-with-a-gnome comedy "A Gnome Named Gnorm" in 1990, and the horrifying monster revenge thriller "Pumpkinhead" in 1988. 

"Pumpkinhead,...

Still Wakes the Deep is a masterclass of emotional turmoil and existential horror, asking what John Carpenter’s The Thing would look like if it was set on a Scottish oil rig. Although many may look at Still Wakes the Deep as just another indie horror walking simulator, the stakes here were actually a lot higher for me given that I am Scottish and am a massive fan of the works that this game takes inspiration from like The Thing and the films of Ken Loach.

Thankfully, Still Wakes the Deep ranks a lot closer to Trainspotting than it does River City when it comes to comparing other Scottish media. This title really blew me away, mostly thanks to it impeccable presentation. From its solid voice acting, to its horrifying monster designs, to its brilliant writing, this experience gripped me in a way that no Aaa title has been able to in years.

Those who work in the field of special effects tend to get overlooked more than others involved in the film industry, like writers, directors, and (especially) actors. That can be said, unfortunately, about many of those who have behind-the-scenes roles, but if an individual does enough great work in such fields, they can nevertheless become household names. This is arguably the case for Stan Winston, who was active from the 1970s until the late 2000s, and worked on things like makeup, puppetry, practical effects, and some digital effects for a variety of high-profile movies.

“There’s something out there waiting for us, and it ain’t no man.”

The typical slasher movie formula sees a group of people, often teens, stalked and hunted by a relentless killer with bladed weapons. Predator, released in theaters on June 12, 1987, retooled the slasher rules, swapping out vulnerable adolescents with a well-armed elite military squad prepared to take on guerilla camps in the jungle. Yet, not even they were equipped for the extraterrestrial threat that targeted them as worthy prey.

Seeing special ops so effortlessly dispatched in the grisliest ways is one effective way to increase the threat level of any horror antagonist, alien or otherwise, but director John McTiernan layers in gradual reveals about the eponymous hunter in a way that launched a franchise and clinched the creature’s movie icon status.

This movie monster has not one, but two major reveals.

The Setup

Vietnam War veteran Major...

The term wizard can be thrown around a lot. Wizards make magic, can create life from the ether, and conjure things that are beautiful and sometimes monstrous. There aren’t many wizards out in the world these days, but I know of one by name and that name is Rick Baker. Baker is a master of the monsters and a wizard of special effects. He’s an artist and a visionary who made some of the most memorable creatures and effects to grace movie and TV screens of the last few decades. He’s also an unabashed Monster Kid who has never lost his love and fascination for the classics. On todays episode of What Happened To This Horror Celebrity we’re meeting a wizard of the wicked and magician of monsters as we reveal what happened to Rick Baker.

Rick Baker was born in 1950 to Doris and Ralph Baker in New York.

If I lived in the "Alien" universe, the last thing I'd ever do is step foot on a mysteriously empty spacecraft. Or heck, leave Earth at all; it seems there's little out there in the cosmos besides Xenomorph hive after Xenomorph hive. Space is terrifying enough as is and with bug-looking rape/murder monsters thrown in? Pass.

However, the main characters in "Alien: Romulus" doe not share my trepidation. The official synopsise says the film follows a crew of colonists who, while salvaging supplies from an abandoned space station, discover that it's hosting Xenomorphs. The film's newest trailer does nothing to disabuse the presumption that this is going to end poorly for them.

"Romulus" is set between the 1979 original "Alien" and 1986 sequel "Aliens." The film's set design evokes the steamy, factory look of "Alien". Stan Winston's effects team from "Aliens" was also recruited to create this movie's monsters practically.

Tom Savini. Rick Baker. Dick Smith. Rob Bottin. Ve Neill. Stan Winston.

The world of special effects makeup often feels like a dying art, with studios and streamers increasingly pursuing CGI and digital FX over practical artistry. Now, there is absolutely room for both styles and different films call for different methods, but gone are the days where the average moviegoer can recognize the name of a special effects makeup artist. Diehard fans are, of course, the exception to the rule, and there's at least one name that horror fanatics all know by heart and are stoked as hell to see on an end credits crawl: Steven Kostanski.

For the uninitiated, Steven Kostanski is one of the most fascinating voices in genre cinema working today. His films "The Void" and "Psycho Goreman" are both well-loved favorites, he finally gave the "Leprechaun" franchise a solid film with "Leprechaun Returns," and Kostanski's...

Killer dog movies offer a terrifying twist - beloved pets turning into deadly beasts. From rabid dogs to genetically engineered killers, this subgenre offers various plotlines. Some killer dog movies deliver social commentary, all feature survival against scary pets.

There are a lot of monsters in horror movies, but killer dog movies are much more terrifying as the threat comes from deadly beasts that were once beloved pets. One of the earliest examples of this wasn't a horror movie but was a tense drama from 1936 called Killer-Dog, a story about a family dog accused of killing sheep. However, before the dog is put down, the family asks a judge to determine its fate. While that was mostly about proving the dog's innocence, the killer dog movies that arrived decades later caused fear by showing a family pet turning into an out-of-control killing machine.

Even though it's a specific horror subgenre,...

For years, Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net has been about two things only – awesome art and the artists that create it. With that in mind, we thought why not take the first week of the month to showcase these awesome artists even more? Welcome to “Awesome Artist We’ve Found Around The Net.” In this column, we are focusing on one artist and the awesome art that they create, whether they be amateur, up and coming, or well established. The goal is to uncover these artists so even more people become familiar with them. We ask these artists a few questions to see their origins, influences, and more. If you are an awesome artist or know someone that should be featured, feel free to contact me at any time at theodorebond@joblo.com.This month we are very pleased to bring you the awesome art of…

Mauricio...

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: Justice for Lori Petty!

One of cinema’s greatest action heroes is a fiercely feminist freedom fighter captured by an oppressive regime controlling the water supply of a post-apocalyptic landscape. Seeking revenge after her family was ripped from her, the heroine escapes the grasp of the army by stealing a vehicle of war, and ventures across the vast post-punk deserts of Australia with the ultimate goal of eventually slaying the white-haired tyrant who ruined her life.

No, I’m not talking about Furiosa, Charlize Theron’s iconic badass in “Mad Max: Fury Road.

VFX director Robert Legato admits mistakes in CGI and lighting techniques used in an Interview With The Vampire scene breakdown. Practical effects and digital VFX were combined in the movie to bring the living dead cast and key set pieces to life. Despite critical acclaim, Legato reflects on how he would handle the movie differently with modern technology and more experience.

Nearly 30 years after the movie hit theaters, VFX director Robert Legato candidly reflects on a specific moment from Tom Cruise's Interview With The Vampire adaptation. The 1994 adaptation of Anne Rice's iconic gothic horror novel starred Brad Pitt as the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, whose life in 18th century New Orleans is turned upside down upon meeting the charismatic Lestat de Lioncourt (Cruise), who transforms him into a bloodthirsty creature of the night. Interview With The Vampire is celebrated as both a critical and financial hit,...

Four months. We’re now just four months away from the return of the Alien franchise with brand new movie Alien: Romulus, wherein director Fede Alvarez will put his own personal stamp on the terrifying sci-fi saga. Disney presented some new footage at CinemaCon last night, though the footage unfortunately isn’t available online.

That being said, we do at least have some footage descriptions from various outlets that were in attendance at CinemaCon. And there’s a common thread in the many descriptions that we’ve been reading. As promised by Alvarez, Alien: Romulus is a practical effects-heavy affair!

Collider’s Steven Weintraub tweets, for starters, “The Alien: Romulus [CinemaCon] scenes are brutal and scary and exactly what I wanted. The practical effects and sets looked great.”

That Hashtag Show’s Hunter Bolding tweets, “Alien: Romulus, from the small amount of footage we were shown, looks like a return to Alien being horrifying.

If Civil War star Cailee Spaeny isn’t already on every casting shortlist in town, then her 2024 is about to etch her name in stone.

Coming off of her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Priscilla Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, the Missouri native returns to the big screen with another critically acclaimed A24 film in Alex Garland’s Civil War. The duo previously collaborated together on Garland’s sci-fi miniseries Devs, and fulfilling a promise he made years ago to write his cast new roles, Spaeny is one of six Devs actors in the British filmmaker’s new action-thriller.

Spaeny plays aspiring war photographer, Jessie Cullen, and after being saved on the streets of New York City by her photojournalist hero, Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), she maneuvers her way into joining Lee’s road trip to Washington, D.C. Along with two other journalists, Joel (Wagner Moura) and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson...

Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum both share a love for the soulful and memorable Triceratops from the original Jurassic Park movie. Sizzling with nostalgia, Sam Neill opts for the treacherous chicken-like dinosaurs as his favorites in the Jurassic Park franchise. After reinvigorating the series, Jurassic World 4 is set to revamp the franchise again with Gareth Edwards at the helm and rumored star Scarlet Johansson.

Having worked with dinosaurs in several movies of the Jurassic Park franchise, Og stars Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Sam Neill have each revealed which dinosaur is their personal favorite. Despite there being many different breeds of prehistoric beasts to choose from, it seems that one particular dinosaur from the original movie really resonated with two of the stars that encountered it.

Jurassic Park PG-13Adventure Sci-Fi Release DateJune 11, 1993DirectorSteven SpielbergCastSam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin FerreroRuntime127Main GenreAdventureWritersMichael Crichton,...

Fede Alvarez brings a refreshing change by using practical effects in Alien: Romulus for authenticity and immersion. Alvarez reunites the original Alien team for animatronics and puppets, staying true to the series' roots and enhancing realism. Legendary director Ridley Scott approves Alvarez's approach, emphasizing the minimal role of CGI for an immersive cinematic experience.

Director Fede Álvarez is taking a stand against the CGI trend with his upcoming film, Alien: Romulus. In a recent interview with THR, Álvarez shared his commitment to using practical effects for the film's creatures and sets, mirroring the techniques used in the iconic 1986 film Aliens.

The director's passion for practical effects extends beyond just the creatures. "I have this obsession with no green screens, so we built every creature and set," Álvarez said. "Everything had to be built so we were really living and breathing in these spaces." While he acknowledges the value of CGI in certain situations,...

Alien: Romulus isn't going to be a CGI-fest.

Speaking about the upcoming film with THR, director Fede Álvarez commented on the movie's special effects. He shared how he'd brought in the same team who developed the Xenomorphs for James Cameron's Aliens to help craft the new creatures for Alien: Romulus. The filmmaker also addressed how spaceships were built and miniatures were used for the sets. That's not to say that there's no VFX in the film at all, but Álvarez suggested that it's only used as sparingly as possible, as the idea is for the audience to never pick up on it, taking them out of the movie.

Related Director Hints Alien: Romulus Will Be Scarier Than the First Alien Movie Director Fede lvarez says Alien: Romulus will avoid the pitfalls of Ridley Scotts Alien by doubling down on the sheer horror of the slasher story.

"For the creatures,...

Consider this a rite of passage for the "Alien" franchise. Any time a new movie is set to debut, the most pressing question on the minds of fans typically manifests around how the Xenomorph design will look this time around. Every movie has brought its own twist on the formula of H.R. Giger's classic original conception, either opting for a more animalistic look (as in "Alien 3") or more like an unholy mash-up prototype (on display in both "Prometheus" and "Alien: Covenant") that mostly only hints at the well-known creature from the original. But arguably no director added to the lore and made it their own quite like James Cameron did with "Aliens," introducing the concept of the Xenomorph queen and reimagining the species as an insect-like hive.

While the rest of us are still coming down from the high produced by the excellent "Alien: Romulus" teaser, director Fede Álvarez...