Cinefantastique Online

This category includes interviews, profiles, retrospectives, and articles that take you behind the scenes.

The mastermind behind THE TOXIC AVENGER, TROMEO AND JULIET, and POULTRYGEIST reflects on his passion for pushing the envelope.
A somewhat tamer (ahem) version of this piece shot to the top of the leader board at Current TV, but for numerous reasons never made it to air. Here, for the first time, is the original, uncut [...]

The Zombie Auteur Explains HIs Approach to Creating Believable Horror.
George Romero shot to cult stardom in 1968 when he directed NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, from a screenplay he co-wrote with John Russo. The film’s reputation is perhaps based mostly on its documentary style (black-and-white photograph, hand-held camera work), but in truth the script is [...]

Here’s SPLINTER’s back-to-basics approach to freaking out an audience: Get a bunch of people — in this case, a vacationing couple (Jill Wagner and Paulo Costanzo) and a hardened criminal and his main squeeze (Shea Whigham and Rachel Kerbs) — trapped inside a gas station, and have a Big Nasty try to get at ‘em. [...]

What started with a small core of avid viewers equipped with the first home VCRs continues now on the web through the work of fan-subbers. A brief look at the birth and evolution of anime fandom in the United States.
This was originally created for the Independent Film Channel to promote the broadcast debut of the [...]

On the one hand, you have the Russian director; on the other, you have Japanese animators who, out of necessity and by either accident or design, find themselves resorting to his theories to create a unique genre of film. A brief look into how a cinematic pioneer helped form what’s come to be known as [...]

Put down that Junior Entomologist kit, son, you don’t know what you’re fucking with. In celebrated comics artist Charles Burns’ contribution to the exquisitely unsettling, animated horror antho, FEAR(S) OF THE DARK, a young boy’s discovery of an unusual, bug-like creature will ultimately lead to a romantic encounter that, in fine Burns fashion, mixes social [...]

Christopher Lee is featured in two of his Hammer Horror classics at SHOCK IT TO ME! San Francisco’s annual horror film festival, this Saturday afternoon, October 19, when a double-bill of Terence Fisher’s HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) and CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) will be presented at the historic (and haunted) Castro Theatre.
Get full details on [...]

The Writer-Director recalls the origins of Freddy Kruger.
Despite directing non-genre films like 50 VIOLINS, an Oscar-nominated effort starring Meryl Streep, Wes Craven is most renowned among his fans as a writer and director of scary movies, a reputation that extends all the way back to his feature debut, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972). That [...]

In this film, the Evil Dead are back, but now their ranks have swelled to become an ARMY OF DARKNESS. After the un-rated cult horror hits THE EVIL DEAD and EVIL DEAD 2, director Sam Raimi turned the third film in the series into an R-rated fantasy-adventure. When last we left Ash (Bruce Campbell), at [...]

Decades later, a trio of teens look back on their home movie remake of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.
It’s amazing to realize that it took Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford 19 years to conjure up a fourth Indiana Jones adventure, one they called INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, which was [...]