Chainsaw Terror

From the silent-film era to the blockbusters of today, Horror Unmasked is a fun-filled, highly illustrated dive into the past influences and present popularity of the horror film genre.

It has been called "grisly," "sick," and "perverse," as well as "raw," "unshakeable," and "the movie that redefined horror." It was attacked by churches, banned by governments, and acclaimed by only the bravest of critics. It stunned audiences worldwide and set a new standard in movie terror forever. In 1974, writer-producer-directorTobe Hooper unleashed this dark, visionary tale about a group of five young friends who face a nightmare of torment at the hands of a depraved Texas clan. Today it remains unequaled as a landmark of outlaw filmmaking and unparalleled in its impact as perhaps the most frightening motion picture ever made.

Life has been difficult for the recently crippled Yasu (Hirohito Honda from Battle Royale), he's been bound to a wheelchair, his mother has vanished, his father and brother think he's crazy, and his sister (Rumi from Tomie) shelters and coddles him. But, if Yasu thinks he knows what suffering is, he's in for a rude awakening. A very rude one! After a neighborhood family is violently murdered, two mysterious relatives - the mute Grandmother (Yoshiko Shiraishi) and her ghostly pale Granddaughter (Naoko Mori) - suddenly arrive at Yasu's doorstep and insinuate themselves in his home and life. It's not long before the wheelchair bound boy begins to suspect the two visitors are up to no good. And, of course, no one believes him when he tries to convince them that they're harboring some maniacal killer freaks in their home - until it's too late, and they all end up at the business end of some real sharp tools.

Wes Craven's first film was a crude but shocking horror opus that, like George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), became a grind house hit largely because it went much further than terror films before it had been willing to go. Often compared to Ingmar Bergman's stark medieval rape drama The Virgin Spring (1960) (though one wonders whether this was influence or just coincidence), Last House on the Left follows a group of teenage girls heading into the city when they hook up with a gang of drug-addled ne'er-do-wells and are brutally murdered. The killers find their way to the home of one of their victim's parents, where both father and mother exact a horrible revenge. Like Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre two years later, Last House on the Left was an unrelievedly dark vision of contemporary horror that inspired many future films which copied its effects without achieving its visceral impact.

Dead Rising 2 is set several years after the infamous zombie invasion of Willamette. Unfortunately, the zombie virus was not contained at the conclusion of Dead Rising, spreading unchecked throughout the United States and Dead Rising 2 depicts a country where zombie outbreaks continue to strike.