Tag Archives: horror movies

Splatterhouse: History and Inspiration Behind The Classic Arcade Game

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Before there was a video game content rating system, the creators of Dig Dug and Galaga were blazing trails with a different kind of game, dripping with graphic content. In the late 80’s, Namco unleashed the gore-fest known as Splatterhouse into arcades and home ports. Setting the cornerstone for the future of horror gaming and on-screen violence.

“May be inappropriate for young children…and cowards.”

While horror games had been churned out for years on home computers and consoles, scarier aspects were left to the player’s imagination. The depictions of violence and gore in gaming had a very limited scope. That is until the Japanese game developer, Namco, decided to push arcade boundaries as well as break their own mold. Namco was best known, at the time, for the creation of cute and cartoony games like Pac-Man and Mappy. In November of 1988, under the direction of Shigeru Yokoyama, the Splatterhouse arcade game was released. Influenced by popular Western slasher cinema and parental outrage, Namco was counting on shock factor to bring players to the joystick. Unlike other side-scrolling brawler games, Splatterhouse was hyper-focused on detailed gore and graphic violence. Purposely drawing attention to the gruesome content resulted in the arcade cabinet’s immediate success in Japan and Europe. A slower cult following developed in the United states as Splatterhouse wasn’t widely distributed to Western arcades. Lore surrounding the game claim’s its content stirred controversy resulting in a ban while others believe it was a copyright infringement. Home ports that followed for TurboGrafx-16 and MegaDrive would bring a censored version to wider audiences with toned down splatter and character changes.

Gameplay

The original Splatterhouse arcade game didn’t offer much of a backstory. Only presenting the player with an opening sequence of two figures seeking shelter from a rainstorm in a dark mansion. It would be 1990’s home port that would expand on the game’s plot. In the instruction manual, the figures running through the woods are identified as Rick and Jennifer. College sweethearts and parapsychology students that have traveled to West Mansion for a research project. The West Mansion is locally known as “Splatterhouse”, rumored to contain mutated abominations created in a lab by the homeowner, Dr. Henry West. As they enter the mansion and the door slams behind them, Jennifer screams bloody murder and a game over screen appears. But death is only the beginning. Rick awakens from his own unknown demise in a dungeon, resurrected by the “Terror Mask”. An ancient artifact containing a spirit that grants super-human strength to whomever puts it on. Attaching itself to Rick, he is transformed into a rampaging monster out to save Jennifer and take revenge on West Mansion.

A 2-page advertisement for the Turbo-Grafx 16 port was released as a mini comic of Splatterhouse’s origins. Featuring Rick and Jennifer entering the West Mansion, being attacked, and the Terror Mask fusing with our anti-hero.

A Real Video Game Nasty

For any fan of contemporary slasher figures and horror cinema, the main appeal of the Splatterhouse arcade game is guessing who’s who. A game within a game of spotting all the references in weapons, enemies, and backgrounds. Most are quick to point out the resemblance of Rick’s mask to Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th franchise. Beyond the beloved horror icons of the 80s, the concept of a haunted mask hadn’t yet found its true voice. One of the first horror film entries is the 1965 Japanese supernatural drama, Onibaba. A lost samurai passes on the curse of a jealous demoness with the use of a Hannya mask. Almost 2 decades later we would be reintroduced to mask horror with a disconnected sequel to John Carpenter’s best-known movie. Halloween III: Season of The Witch’s plot was a collision between tech and the occult at the Silver Shamrock mask factory. Italy would step up to the under used trope in 1985 with Lamberto Bava’s Dèmoni. Giving audiences a plague of demonic possession when an ancient mask is tied in with a horror movie promotion.

The second most notable horror reference in the franchise is our villain, Dr. Henry West. Highly regarded in the parapsychology community as a brilliant man, his secretive experiments within his mansion have unleashed Lovecraftian horrors on the world. A direct homage to H.P. ‘s 1922 novelette Herbert West-Reanimator and the 1985 horror comedy film that followed. But it is Lovecraft’s obsession with old dark houses that gives the Splatterhouse arcade game its namesake. Short stories such as From Beyond, The Dreams in the Witch-House, and The Shunned House all offer a residence where either mad science or occult ritual take place. Creating massive rifts of trauma that transform the very structure into a living abomination itself. Splatterhouse’s West Mansion is not only filled with hideous monstrosities but actually births them into reality.

Several other horror films of the 80s are remarked on lending inspiration to the bad guys that come for Rick. Deadly Spawn slugs and Poltergeist mirror reflections are mixed in with xenomorph chest bursting and Cronenbergian fetus mutants. The chainsaw-armed boss called “Biggyman” could have borrowed again from Jason on Friday the 13th II, with a burlap bag over his head. Or it might have been a reference to the Phantom in The Town That Dreaded Sundown.

The majority of the Splatterhouse arcade game’s tributes fall under 1987’s Evil Dead II. The final act of Stage II is an entire room and its contents shuddering at the presence of Rick. Attacked by flying furniture and squaring off with a hung portrait flapping about. Stage V gives you pools of sentient severed hands crawling about and a few giving the finger. But it is the moment when Rick encounters Jennifer laid out on a sofa, that leads me to emphasize Evil Dead II. She awakens to transform into a hideous monstrosity that reminds me of Ted Raimi as a Deadite Granny. Rick has no choice but to kill his own girlfriend, in an anguished moment once shared with Ash as he chainsawed Linda.  

“It begins again…!”

The success of the Splatterhouse arcade game in Japan was followed in 1989 with the first and lesser-known sequel of the franchise. Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti was a Japanese exclusive for the Famicom system. More of a cutesy parody of the original, the graphic violence was removed and it was marketed to a younger audience. Wanpaku Graffiti deviated from the original storyline and featured even more horror pop-culture references that made the game downright silly, at times. Fans continue to debate whether or not it was intended to be a prequel to the original game. In 1992, Namco released Splatterhouse 2 for Sega Genesis. The game’s plot would pick up 3 months after the events of the Splatterhouse arcade game. Rick plagued with nightmares and tempted by the spirit of the Terror Mask to return to West Mansion and revive Jennifer’s soul. 1993 followed with Splatterhouse 3 on Sega, with the disruption of happily ever after. Rick and Jennifer are now married with a child as Dr. West’s horrors once again invade their lives. 2010’s Splatterhouse is a retelling of the original story for X360 and PS3. Updating the 16-bit world to a modern-day bloodbath that is packed with horror reference easter eggs. Following in the arcade cabinet’s footsteps of valuing blood n’ guts over gameplay, the reboot is incredibly entertaining for a gore-hound. In fact, the entire franchise is highly recommended to fans of retro horror gaming, if for nothing else than the nods to hack n’ slash cinema throughout each installment.  

A Putrid Pioneer of Horror Gaming

It may not have been the first horror game, but the Splatterhouse arcade game reshaped the genre. Giving the player the opportunity to be a Jason Voorhees knock-off that punches bats and chops levitating heads with a medieval axe. Namco reached new audiences with gruesomely detailed carnage and solid Eldritch elements; a formula still prevalent in modern horror games. Without Splatterhouse we may have never gotten Friday the 13th: The Game for PS4 and Xbox One.

“If coin-ops could give out smells, this one would reek of an abattoir.”

In a 1989 Splatterhouse review in Computers and Video Games magazine

Further Reading

Splatterhouse fan-site “The West Mansion” 

Splatterhouse arcade emulator (in browser)

Oven Fresh Hell: The Relationship Between Pizza and Horror

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February 9th is National Pizza Day and to celebrate, let’s get delivery and a rental. Little compares to the combination of pizza and a horror movie. Whether a Friday night-in or a Saturday sleepover, every weekend begs the addition of ‘za and a fright flick. A throwback to unsupervised youth on a Blockbuster night, staying up too late, and consuming junk food. The resulting nightmares would traumatize adolescents and influence horror media forever. Reminding the audience that nothing is sacred in scary movies, not even your slice.

Sometimes You Eat the Pizza, Sometimes the Pizza Eats You

Rivalries of regional styles rage on to this day. But whether you favor Chicago or New York, even bad pizza is still pizza. The worst pizza in the universe is Pizza The Hutt. Intergalactic mobster that drives the entire plot of Space Balls. Disgusting and delicious, he directly inspired the animated villain Pizza Face from the 2012 TMNT series. Hypnotizing the hungry into his parlor to eat as calzones. Simultaneously unveiling the vulnerability of the voracious. The original Ninja Turtle animated series gave us Pizza Monsters from Dimension X. Almost gremlin-like, they hatch from meatball shaped eggs when heated up. Just add water to grow into yellow Xenomorphs that rearrange positions in the food chain. The cannibal slasher, Offerings, has an escaped psycho courting a teen with body parts. Beginning with a stack of “sausage” pizzas on her doorstep, nobody notices the missing family dog. Freddy Krueger has an appetite for soul food in Nightmare on Elm Street 4. On a dream date in a diner, the meatball toppings resemble victims screaming for mercy. Every time Freddy eats a soul, he gains another slimy mole. The moment in the franchise when fans notice how much Krueger’s skin resembles pizza. You are what you eat in House IV, where Kane Hodder makes an uncredited cameo as The Human Pizza. Singing delivery has everyone humming until they open the box to a grinning pie. Ruining dinner by spewing gory marinara and attacking with cheese tentacles. But if the food doesn’t kill ya, the service will.

Little Pizza Shop of Horrors 

Urban legends of haunted red sauce joints exist all over. Possibly as continuations of the old trope of fronts for the mob. In the Killer Pizza horror novel series by Greg Taylor, the titular business is a front for a monster hunting organization. It’s like the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense was slinging slices on the side. Not necessarily needing a cover to bring the paranormal into your personal pan, some restaurants simply make unfortunate decisions regarding location. The pizza horror comedy Slice is centered around Perfect Pizza Place, an eatery built on top of a portal to Hell. Inciting more than bad Yelp reviews, a coven of witches wreak havoc to gain access. But a fate much worse than bad service is having an in-house monstrosity dining on you. Namely, the horrific animatronics of pizza chain restaurants. Any nostalgic attendee of family fun in its heyday were captivated and terrorized by the robots. Popular horror game series Five Nights at Freddy’s brought these childhood fears to life with machines moving freely at night. Possessed by vengeful spirits that punish all trespassers. In the same vein, 2018’s Huluween film festival featured the pizza horror short, The Hug. Pandory the Panda is a lone robot in his restaurant and needs to feed between performances. Also being a demon, Pandory prefers children. This short would give way to the 2021 Nicholas Cage pizza horror film, Willy’s Wonderland. A serial killer cult inhabits the animatronic characters and demands human sacrifice. This redefines the notion of businesses struggling to keep customers. However, ordering to-go isn’t always the safer bet, especially if you’re making the deliveries.

Pizza is Gonna Send Out For You 

Slinging pizza is a respectable hustle but with considerable risk involved. These liminal laborers walk between worlds and enter unknown situations repeatedly in a single night. Adventurous drivers might take a chance outside of their delivery zone like in Satanic Panic. A pizza horror film featuring a delivery girl served up as a sacrifice to Baphomet at the hands of Satanist glitterati. In Slumber Party Massacre, the delivery boy is dead on arrival at a slashing in progress. Awaiting help, the teens help themselves to the cold pizza lying next to his corpse. The perfect comfort food to stress eat when stalked by a homicidal maniac. In the Indian horror movie, Pizza, the supernatural orders out for the pizza guy, Michael. Trapped in a haunted bungalow looping its trauma, this pie is extra bloody with ketchup and murder. The pizza profession requires grit as behind each door lies a potential occupational hazard. A single order could be a family of zombies craving deep dish brains, like in Dance of The Dead. Jimmy makes his last delivery of the night and realizes he’s on the menu. 

Pizza Horror as a Subtrope 

What makes pizza horror truly terrifying is that it’s too real. Whether you’re an employee or a customer, pizza is a bullseye for the weird. We lower our defenses when taking in sustenance. Fueling that long run from the chainsaw man wanting to eat you. Consider how you invite chaos into your life every time you grab a slice.

And always remember to tip. 

Further Reading 

Tales From The Crust: An Anthology of Pizza Horror by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing 

Horror Movie Screams Photoshopped With Hot Pizza 

The Strange Role of Food in Horror

The Maddest Story Ever Told: An Examination of Spider Baby

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Merrye Maladies

The Merrye Syndrome is a rare disease known only to afflict descendants of Ebenezer Merrye. An unfortunate condition developed from generations of inbreeding. Causing a mental regression and deformity, beginning in late childhood. It is believed the victim of Merrye Syndrome will de-evolve to a pre-human state of savagery and cannibalism. This ailment cast a shadow of shame over the wealthy family for many years, prompting them to live in seclusion as the bloodline dried up. The patriarch, Titus W. Merrye, dedicated his life to hiding the family curse from the world. This included his brother Nedrick, their two sisters, and his 3 children. Devoted servant, Bruno, gave a solemn oath upon Titus’ death to protect the skeletons in the Merrye closet.

Elizabeth, Ralph, and Virginia Merrye with Bruno

Emily Howe and her brother Peter are distant cousins and the only other known living heirs. Emily, hungry for the family fortune, intends to become the legal guardian of the Merrye children. They arrive at the unkempt mansion on short notice with her lawyer, Mr. Schlockier, and his secretary, Anne. Catching Bruno off guard, just as he was cleaning up another unfortunate mess created by the “kids”.

Children, We’ve Got To Keep Some Secrets Today

The Merrye siblings are actually young adults with the mental faculties of unpredictable children. Ralph is the nonverbal oldest child. With gangly limbs and brute strength, he crawls through the dumbwaiter shafts of the dilapidated house. Elizabeth is more put together, often called upon by Bruno to look after her brother and sister. The youngest, Virginia, is especially peculiar with an obsession with bugs and spiders. Often playing dangerous games with butcher knives and keeping pet tarantulas in a roll top desk.

When the unwelcome guests insist on spending the night, Bruno quickly hatches a plan in hopes of deterring them from seizing control of the estate. Plotting to host an unsavory dinner party for the outsiders and spare the Merrye children from becoming the object of public scrutiny. Hanging over Emily and her lawyer, he divulges the intimate details of the children’s austere lifestyle. Serving up a roasted cat Ralph had caught, toadstools and weeds foraged by Virginia, and pickled insects. Anne and Peter are unfortunate victims of circumstance and seem to pick up on Bruno’s subtle cues. Peter teases his sister, hoping she’d change her mind about staying the night. Sparking a self-referential conversation with Anne about horror movies. The pair coquettishly gush about their favorite monsters, but when she mentions the Wolfman, all the color drains from Bruno’s face. Dripping with sweat, he gravely warns them, “There’s going to be a full moon tonight.” The pair sheepishly glance around the room, making eye contact with each Merrye child. Devious grins cross their faces, like mocking portents to the dangers that lie ahead.

Bruno & Ralph

Just Because Something Isn’t Good Doesn’t Mean It’s Bad

Spider Baby was the feature film debut of the celebrated cult-film director, Jack Hill. Best known for exploitation films like The Big Dollhouse, Switchblade Sisters, and Foxy Brown. Hill shot the movie in the summer of 1964 with the original title “Cannibal Orgy or The Maddest Story Ever Told” as a joke. Due to bad press, the producers cut the film up in a panic. Halting the release for 3 years, as they were involved in real estate development and went bankrupt. Independent producer, David L. Hewitt, saved the movie from being lost forever by acquiring a theatrical print for distribution in 1967. Changing the title to “Spider Baby”, though it was alternatively billed as “The Liver Eaters” in drive-in double features. Jack Hill admits to writing a script for a sequel called “Vampire Orgy,” which followed surviving characters, Peter and Anne, on their honeymoon. 

Sig Haig plays the mute Ralph Merrye. Though he had no dialog throughout the film, his wild facial expressions made the monstrous man-child a loveable character. Haig appeared in many of Jack Hill’s films, including his debut in Hill’s UCLA student film, The Host. Haig is most beloved by younger fans as Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. Beverly Washburn plays the oldest Merrye daughter, Elizabeth. Washburn had also appeared alongside Sid Haig in Jack Hill’s Pit Stop. But the biggest star of the Spider Baby movie is Lon Chaney Jr. as the family chauffeur, Bruno. Veteran of several Universal horror films, Chaney appeared as the Mummy in three pictures, the monster in Ghost of Frankenstein, and the titular Son of Dracula. However, he is best remembered as the cursed Larry Talbot who would transform into The Wolf Man.

Many horror fans are quick to notice the similarities between Spider Baby and House of 1000 Corpses, beyond the casting of Sid Haig. The Firefly clan are presented as a more perverse version of the Merrye family. Residing in a decaying house filled with trap doors, taxidermy specimens, and crucified ragdolls. 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was also influenced by Spider Baby. Mirroring cannibalistic themes and relatives mentally unravelling while trying to cover up sins of family. Even the oldest of the Sawyers met a fate similar to Titus W. Merrye. Finally, The People Under The Stairs also takes direct inspiration from Jack Hill’s film. A rich and incestuous family reside in a big creepy house with a basement of mutants. Even the character Roach eats up every scene, in spite of being completely nonverbal just like Ralph Merrye.   

Virginia & Elizabeth

Well Beyond The Boundaries of Prudence and Good Taste

Murder and mayhem running rampant through the night, the Merrye children have stirred a chaos that is no longer capable of being kept secret. Bruno has prepared for this moment for some time but never expected it to arrive so soon. He sets out to retrieve a “toy” that will put an end to the madness and protect the Merrye legacy. Peter and Anne manage to escape as a menacing version of “Itsy-bitsy Spider” plays in the background. The pair marry, inherit the family fortune, and have a daughter of their own, named Jessica. She looks nothing like either of her parents with big dark eyes, wiry limbs, and a long face that lights up when she spies a spider outside. Not too unlike her presumably distant cousins; Elizabeth, Ralph, and Virginia. Perhaps the rare Merrye Syndrome, though believed to be extinguished from humanity, lives on in the next generation.

The Rise of the Drive-In Mutants

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“We are drive-in mutants; we are not like other people.”

In a small hotel conference room that stank of weed, a sea of right hands were raised in pledge. Some hands were parted as Vulcan greetings and others posed as devil horns. The audience was being sworn in by taking the drive-in oath.

“As long as one drive-in remains on the planet Earth
We will party like jungle animals
We will boogie ’til we puke
The drive-in will never die”

Long before I was ever thought of or before the term was invented, my father was a drive-in mutant. A rock n’ roll hippie of the 70’s, that regularly took in the creature features at the local drive-in each weekend. I didn’t know until later in life how much he loved the spook shows and Midnight movies. The very same cult films that I too would come to love in my life. In the mid-90s there was no greater bond between us than to make popcorn on a Saturday night and watch TNT’s Monster Vision. This was my introduction to Joe Bob Briggs, the premier drive-in film critic. Joe Bob would host the double feature and offer obscure trivia and cheap jokes. Usually, my dad would fall asleep before the second movie and I’d be left with my own prepubescent fears in the darkness of our living room. These Saturday nights are some of the happiest memories I have with my old man.

Monster Vision was officially cancelled in 2000 but the man behind Joe Bob, John Bloom, maintained an official website dedicated to his alter ego. His own work had inspired me over the years to continue to pursue writing and film making. Naturally, I did my best to follow his career with mailing lists to stay on top of his columns and events.

A few years back, John Bloom met horror enthusiast, Diana Prince when she attended one of his signings. The two became friends right about the time he was approached for the umpteenth time about a new show. Admittedly going along with it for a free lunch, he was introduced to AMC’s new horror streaming platform, Shudder. The idea was to resurrect the character and continue to host horror films. Unsure at first, Diana Prince encouraged Bloom to accept the offer. Convincing him that the fans were numerous and hungry for a return. When the funding fell through at the last minute, Prince helped secure resources to make the show happen. So as Bloom prepared to get back in the saddle, he asked Prince to be the new mail girl, “Darcy”.

Joe Bob Briggs officially returned in the summer of 2018 with a 24-hour marathon called The Last Drive-In. The response was larger than anticipated, with thousands overloading and ultimately crashing Shudder and AMC servers. Fans were tuning-in to the loading screen of doom, unable to watch the marathon. The few that could log-on got to witness Joe Bob give an emotional sign off at the end. Expressing gratitude to all the fans over the years, as he hung up his spurs. But breaking the internet was good news for Joe Bob, as it prompted Shudder to bring him back with 2 holiday specials and a regular series.

March of 2019 a reoccurring Friday night double feature with Darcy the mail girl. While the first season was airing, Joe Bob hit the road with his one man show, How Rednecks Saved Hollywood. A 2-hour cinematic lecture about the true identity of rednecks and their impact on film, from low budget to mainstream. I caught Rednecks in Milwaukee that spring, learning history of the films my dad loved of hillbillies and moonshiners.

The line to meet Joe Bob was wrapped around the block on that frigid Wisconsin evening. He arrived in a hearse from a local funeral home to a roar of applause from the crowd. When the line finally rotated through, I stood star struck before the man I grew up watching on Saturday nights. He shook my hand and signed my book: To Krystle, a drive-in kind of gal.

2020 ended up being the revival year of the drive-in with Corona virus closing theaters across the country. Reaffirming what Joe Bob has been insisting all along, the drive-in will never die. The Shudder network was generous to everyone on lock down with a second season of The Last Drive-In. Citing more viewers than ever before, fanfare flooded social media with official and unofficial merchandise. 4 more holiday specials were released and promise of a 3rd season.

February of this year, an invitation was broadcast to fans on all platforms. The first ever Joe Bob Drive-In Jamboree, a 3-day event at the Mahoning Theater in Lehighton, Pennsylvania. Scheduled for later this summer, the Jamboree includes an indie festival for guerrilla filmmakers called “Mutant Fest”. The underfunded and DIY directors were encouraged to submit their horror films. All submissions from low-budget to no-budget welcome.

When Joe Bob and Darcy were announced as guests for the fan convention, Days of the Dead, I decided to attend myself. I was curious what such a gathering would be like for fans and celebrities during Covid. If local numbers stayed low and vaccinations continued to roll out smoothly, this would be the first horror convention in Chicago since the pandemic started.

At the Crown Plaza Hotel in Rosemont, employees were cased in plastic at the front desk. Hand sanitizing dispensers lingered in a few corners but there was minimal direction for convention attendees. The main requirement was wearing a mask properly at all times. An unquestioned rule that very few broke. After ping-ponging back and forth between will-call and volunteers, I found my way to the main room. For a few hours, I chatted up strangers and vendors, waiting for my scheduled photo op with Joe Bob and Darcy.

Considering it had been a while since the last convention, everyone was a little rusty on opening night. The photographers had given me the incorrect time slot but were determined to make it right. Runners and organizers would zip back and forth, reassuring me, “Don’t worry kid, we’ll get you a photo with Joe Bob.”

“And Darcy.” I would add every time.

There would be no Last Drive-In without Darcy.

Thankfully, both guests agreed to reshoot before their scheduled panel. Down to the last minute, here came Joe Bob Briggs, ten miles tall in his bolo and boots. Darcy glided beside him in an ethereal evening dress. Both kept their distance and masks remained on at all times through the convention. As part of convention rules, every guest had the right to set their own boundaries for contact with fans. Joe Bob had previously admitted on Diana Prince’s own podcast, Geek Tawk that he had contracted Covid in the beginning of 2020. An experience I’m sure neither wanted to repeat. They said little if anything during our reshoot before quickly moving on to their panel. I thanked everyone nervously, and followed behind them from a distance, taking a seat in the far back.

Right out of the gate, Joe Bob shared that he and local horror host, Svengoolie had been plotting doing a show together at the Music Box Theater. In summer of 2019, both hosts were hinting on social media that they were working on a project. Plans were put on hold due to the pandemic and according to Joe Bob, “Svengoolie is not coming out of his house until Covid is over.”

Joe Bob goes on to announce he’s looking to produce films and has been reading different horror anthologies that come out each year. While admitting that most are not film material, he examines each “in a certain weird way” that could possibly change them into film material. His Mutant Festival this summer is a manifestation of that, as well as uplifting the underdog film makers.

A few days before the convention, Joe Bob had gone to social media reminding his followers of the upcoming deadline for Mutant Fest. Seeing this, I had considered a short film I had helped create in 2013. Friends and I were inspired by an email received from a Joe Bob mailing list. After years of forgetting, here he was in my inbox asking for screenplays and scripts from his fans. Our short was never finished and years later I am the sole owner of the remaining footage. With a run time of 6 minutes and 51 seconds, I updated the movie the best I could and submitted it to Mutant Fest.

I have no delusions about my humble no-budget horror short, but I’m optimistic for horror in general. During the end of his panel, he marveled at how horror has become mainstream in the last 20 years. Diana Prince is now a regular columnist for Fangoria and John Bloom is a man with a vision for avant-garde directors struggling to get their films made. The Last Drive-In has really helped Shudder take off, and the team behind it will likely do the same for the future of horror movies.

The 3rd season of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs airs Friday, April 16th only on Shudder.