CineNiche

ONLY ORIGINAL HORROR PLEASE As we all know, our beloved genre has been overrun by economically safe films. In the past two decades we were bombarded with remakes and sequels. Some were wins, while most were fails. It is up to us to champion the original ideas that fly under the radar and not give in to another Michael Bay / Platnium Dunes era of horror remakes produced for the lowest common denominator. I know I'm in the camp that after years of hating on Friday The 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Nightmare On Elm Street I look back now at them with a fondness that no one should have. Then I kick myself in the ass for developing some sort of nostalgia for these shit remakes. We understand that the studios dole out larger budgets to these “safe” films, while many horror filmmakers are able to scrap funds together and create something brilliant. Today, the 10 million dollar horror extravaganza and the 1 million dollar personal horror film, can each become ...

“Exploitation films are no different from any other kind of movie.  All appeal to some desire or fear that the audience may have.  Only because they do it more directly, with perhaps a bit less finesse, than a Hollywood product, they are branded as exploitation.” Mike Quarles, Down and Dirty: exploitation filmmakers and their movies   (xiii) Around the same year that The Last House on the Left was released another young documentary filmmaker was contemplating his own horror film.  He got the idea for his film while he was Christmas shopping.  He was in the middle of a large crowd of consumers all rushing to get their last minute gifts.  He couldn’t make his way down the main isles, so he went down a side isle and found himself in the power tools section.  He stared at a display of tools and thought about how easy it would be to clear the people out of his way if he only had a chainsaw.  Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ...

"I'm so scared my asshole is puckering... Spooky, Spooky." Cornered! is a study in low budget horror production.  We have a total of eight despicable characters with three locations to choose from.  Among the eight is the killer who gives us a medium amount of gore, decent jump scares, and creative murders.  Even though the production budget was tight Daniel Maze did a great job on his first feature.  He wrote and directed a story that may have cliches but overall the atmosphere he created with his characters and the location he tapped into something different. Mona is a phone sex operator addicted to ice cream, Jess is the chain smoking whore who's just trying to survive, Steven is the alcoholic owner of a run down liquor store, Donny is an obese employee with an addiction to doughnuts, and Jimmy (James Duval from The Doom Generation ) is Steven's nephew who has just quit heroin cold turkey.  Put these five together in an inescapable li...