Tag: Horror

Screenshot from the trailer for Night has A Thousand Eyes, featuring the main character in a suit walking back from an attic window looking over a city at night

The Stars Can’t Hurt You: Fighting the Future in Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)

By Orrin Grey • August 24th, 2023

Even if you’re pretty sure you know going in – it is difficult, after all, to not have been spoiled at least a little bit on a movie that is three-quarters of a century old – the unspooling of the film does a good job of keeping you on your toes,

Screenshot from Talk to Me, featuring the mummified medium's hand gracefully reaching out as if to be shaken with a lone candle in the background

I Don’t Get Nightmares: Scaring Yourself with Talk to Me (2023)

By Orrin Grey • July 31st, 2023

Talk to Me may be the most credible supernatural teen horror movie ever made, simply by dint of the way that the kids in the film turn the medium-istic hand into a party game, heedless of the larger questions it raises, or the possible consequences of their actions.

A still from the trailer of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, where the three young adults are dressed in their 70s weirdo finest, in front of some wood paneled walls, caressing a corpse and laughing at their hijinks

It’s a Boneyard: Revisiting Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972) on 4K

By Orrin Grey • January 19th, 2023

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things is a fairly accurate portrait of what macabre weirdos like us got up to – or imagined ourselves getting up to – in the days before we had the internet to distract us.

Brain Scratch

The title screen for Apocryphauna, featuring the text of the game's title in a pulsating, off-putting font

Lonely Heart of the Cards Club

By Steven Nguyen Scaife • December 14th, 2022

The one Lord apparently has better things to do than stop the scavenger hunt for a forbidden trading card collection.

Rookie of the Year

A still Gerald's Game shows a woman crying on the floor of a bedroom. The bedclothes are bloodied and she is handcuffed to the body of her dead husband.

Your Post-Halloween Horror Movie Questions Answered!

By Matt Marrone • December 9th, 2022

Streaming random horror movies, especially without checking Rotten Tomatoes before you start them, can lead to a lot of unanswered questions concerning plot holes or peculiar character motivations.

Letter from the Editor

Two skeletal soldiers, one with a sword and shield and the other with a spear.

Unwinnable Monthly – October 2022

By David Shimomura • October 17th, 2022

Let the spoopy season begin!

The title screen for La Llorona, with the name of the movie opaquely set over a glowering sculpture of a skull

Strange Things Happen There: Two Early Mexican Horrors

By Orrin Grey • May 17th, 2022

A piece of history – not merely Mexican cinematic history, not merely horror history, but a broader snapshot of a period in time, and the changes that were happening around it.

Rookie of the Year

Dark’s Last Supper

By Matt Marrone • August 11th, 2020

The show’s final scene is a world unto itself, which is why Matt’s assembled a timestamped breakdown of whatever the hell that was.

Try Reading...

It’s Just a Game

By Harry Rabinowitz • March 11th, 2020

DIE Volume 1 asks: if your game becomes real, can you still treat it like a game?

Pacesetter’s Chill, and an interview with Nathan D. Paoletta

By Stu Horvath and John McGuire • October 14th, 2019

This week, we look at the 1984 horror RPG Chill, from Pacesetter Games. We also chat with Nathan D. Paoletta about his games Worldwide Wrestling and Imp of the Perverse.

Exploits Feature

Skeletons in the Closet

By Sara Clemens • October 1st, 2019

“There’s always a chance to win in horror; there’s always light on the horizon, however distant. We hang in; we keep fighting.”

The Ritual Fails to Close the Circle

By David Shimomura • March 6th, 2018

You can probably turn The Ritual off at the 66-minute mark.

Red lips in a white face with a ruffle behind, a red balloon partially consider the face. This is a still of Pennywise from It.

2017’s It Isn’t Scary, It’s Frightening

By David Shimomura • September 11th, 2017

It’s strangest quality as a film is that it’s a horror movie that is simply not very scary. While the line between scary and not is porous, subjective, and obtuse, it’s up to a movie to either define its terms or define itself in relation to existing ones.

Spilled Ink

Happiness Volume 2, “A Lovely Monstrosity”

By Austin Price • December 14th, 2016

“The horrors in Happiness accumulate slowly…”

The Cinematography of Horror Games

By Matthew Byrd • November 17th, 2016

“The fact that no one clear camera solution exists means that the horror genre serves as a playground for video game cinematography.”

They Could be Monsters, For All You Know

By Livia Llewellyn • October 25th, 2016

Scores of neighborhood children circle an object on their bikes in the late afternoon sun, chanting as they pelt it with rocks and sticks. When they scatter and dart past you, their grins seem impossibly thin and wide. Were those extra teeth?

If You’re Not Watching Ash vs Evil Dead, You’re Doing It Wrong

By Dominic Preston • October 5th, 2016

Ash is still a doofus, still has a boomstick and a chainsaw hand, and there’s still enough blood to make Carrie blush. And it still rules.

The Slow Rise Of The Video Game Slasher

By Matthew Byrd • September 29th, 2016

You would never guess that it would take a little maturation for the slasher genre to come back.

Blair Witch is the Embodiment of Cinema in 2016

By Dominic Preston • September 15th, 2016

Blair Witch is a mission statement for horror to come, but it fails to write the new blueprint like its predecessor.

Hate Issue – Recap

By Team Unwinnable • September 2nd, 2016

Excerpts from the Unwinnable Monthly Hate issue.

A Pen In The Dark: The Case For Text Adventure Horror Games

By Matthew Byrd • September 1st, 2016

A lot of horror hounds have maintained that your imagination is scarier than what you see, so let’s jumpstart text adventure horror!

Werewolves These Days

By Michael Edwards • August 23rd, 2016

From Lon Chaney to furry fiends knocking back cold ones, we’re talking all things werewolves.

The Japan Issue – Thoughts Recap

By Team Unwinnable • February 22nd, 2016

Our regular columnists remains as eclectic as ever in the February issue, covering everything from The Muppets to the 2016 presidential campaign trail.

Regression: A Scene from a Career in Decline

By Declan Taggart • November 6th, 2015

Regression is so much like a TV movie. Every time I look at the cinema screen, I’m surprised. I think: Wow. Why’s this TV so big? And how did it get into our living room?

Good-Bad Movies for the Season

By James Murff • October 30th, 2015

“There’s very little tension and all of the horror elements are funny, rather than frightening. Maybe that’s the point, though.”

October, Shmoctober – UW66

By Stu Horvath • October 23rd, 2015

Stu Horvath is soooooo over October.

Fearing Fear Itself

By Rob Rich • October 14th, 2015

“Jump scares and monsters are nothing compared to SOMA’s true horrors.” Rob Rich dives deep with Frictional Games’ newest horror title.

The Horror of Being Human

By Kaitlin Tremblay • October 8th, 2015

“Both Resident Evil and Silent Hill represent the ultimate fear of losing whatever it is that makes us human.”

Cassilda’s Songs

By Bill Coberly • September 17th, 2015

“…the keys of the piano, now transformed from their pedestrian black-and-white into a dozen nameless colors, spinning and dancing and laughing with me…”

Senses All Turned Up: An Interview with Stephen Graham Jones

By Stu Horvath • August 31st, 2015

“It’s not just being scary on the page, it’s being scary in a way that plugs into the psyche of the audience.” Stu interviews horror writer Stephen Graham Jones

The Woods are Dark and Deep: An Interview with John Langan

By Stu Horvath • May 14th, 2015

Stu Horvath talks to horror writer John Langan about werewolves, narrative and horror’s place in culture.

Unwinnable Weekly Issue Thirty-One

By Stu Horvath • February 6th, 2015

Stu Horvath encourages you to check out Darkest Dungeon, reveals an Important Life Event and introduces the latest issue of Unwinnable Weekly.

Unwinnable Weekly Issue Twenty-One

By Stu Horvath • October 31st, 2014

It’s Halloween, so naturally this issue of Unwinnable Weekly is filled with ghosts, costumes and candy!

Unwinnable Presents: Unlistenable Episode 51

By Team Unwinnable • October 24th, 2012

Boo! Join the crew for Unwinnable’s Halloween Podcast!

Cold Comfort

By Stu Horvath • October 4th, 2012

If Stu Horvath were surrounded by demons and ghosts, he wouldn’t be scared – he’d be relieved.

The Ring Finally Rewatched

By Gia Grillo • November 21st, 2011

At the behest of her readers, Gia Grillo dares to watch The Ring for the first time since it nearly killed her.

A Guided Horror

By Tim Mucci • September 13th, 2011

Unwinnable’s Tim Mucci relives a harrowing, guided trip through Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More.