Certified Forgotten
Only the forgotten are truly dead.
In 1980, Roger Ebert posted a review of the “sick, reprehensible” rape-revenge flick I Spit on Your Grave. His evaluation reads like many of his horror movie reviews do—full of an innate disdain for the genre alongside harsh judgment upon those who willingly engage with it. “There is no reason to see this movie,” he claimed, “except to be entertained […]
In a genre typically considered “for the guys,” it’s time to give a nod to the ladies. Uterus Horror is a subgenre of horror films that focuses on the uniquely female experience of puberty and the act of coming into your sexuality, using horror elements to emphasize and/or act as a metaphor for that experience. These films are often ignored in theaters […]
The rape-revenge genre is known for its sexual violence and exploitation of the female body. Women are brutalized by groups of strange men, who rape and beat victims during excruciatingly long sequences. Importantly, these female protagonists are often shown fully nude, letting viewers take in their entire bodies, ogling their bare breasts and pubic hair. What there isn’t is naked […]
Cults, rituals, and paganism are well-known in the world of horror, especially in the folk horror subgenre which includes films such as The Wicker Man, Midsommar, and The VVitch. With a combination of bewitching visuals and a violently unwavering dedication to Pagan gods, these films are aesthetically and narratively rich. But there is a piece of folk horror that doesn’t […]
One of my favorite childhood photographs is taken on my terrace, my hair open and sulking at the camera. Frozen in that frame is the memory of my grandmother. Moments after the photo was taken, she dragged me away to beat the setting sun. “Girls do not roam with their hair untied after dark,” she would tell me, “then the […]
In a genre typically considered “for the guys,” it’s time to give a nod to the ladies. Uterus Horror is a subgenre of horror films that focuses on the uniquely female experience of puberty and coming into their sexuality, using horror elements to emphasize and/or act as a metaphor for that experience. These films are often ignored in theaters, but […]
Turn back the clock, my child, to a time when new movies released on premium subscription services were a thing of wonder. When second-tier leading men and up-and-coming Hollywood stars would work together to tantalize and amaze adolescent movie fans everywhere. Welcome to the era of HBO Originals. READ MORE: Cast a Deadly Spell Captures a Bygone Era of HBO […]
In 1980, Roger Ebert posted a review of the “sick, reprehensible” rape-revenge flick I Spit on Your Grave. His evaluation reads like many of his horror movie reviews do—full of an innate disdain for the genre alongside harsh judgment upon those who willingly engage with it. “There is no reason to see this movie,” he claimed, “except to be entertained […]
Every self-respecting geek knows that something special happens when separate fandoms intersect. Like vinyl collecting and horror fans. Or wrestling and horror fans. Or t-shirt design and horror fans. Really, maybe the message here is that everything goes better than horror fans. Even accounting for all of the above, there is no greater marriage in popular culture than horror fans […]
In a genre typically considered “for the guys,” it’s time to give a nod to the ladies. Uterus Horror is a subgenre of horror films that focuses on the uniquely female experience of puberty and the act of coming into your sexuality, using horror elements to emphasize and/or act as a metaphor for that experience. These films are often ignored in theaters […]
The rape-revenge genre is known for its sexual violence and exploitation of the female body. Women are brutalized by groups of strange men, who rape and beat victims during excruciatingly long sequences. Importantly, these female protagonists are often shown fully nude, letting viewers take in their entire bodies, ogling their bare breasts and pubic hair. What there isn’t is naked […]
In the years since The Blair Witch Project, the found footage horror film has gone through every possible permutation. But like any other subgenre, nothing livens up a well-worn premise quite like the introduction of another Big Idea™. This explains the unexpected brilliance of Webcast, the 2018 feature from writer-director Paul McGhie that adds a heavy dash of folk horror […]
Cults, rituals, and paganism are well-known in the world of horror, especially in the folk horror subgenre which includes films such as The Wicker Man, Midsommar, and The VVitch. With a combination of bewitching visuals and a violently unwavering dedication to Pagan gods, these films are aesthetically and narratively rich. But there is a piece of folk horror that doesn’t […]
One of my favorite childhood photographs is taken on my terrace, my hair open and sulking at the camera. Frozen in that frame is the memory of my grandmother. Moments after the photo was taken, she dragged me away to beat the setting sun. “Girls do not roam with their hair untied after dark,” she would tell me, “then the […]
In a genre typically considered “for the guys,” it’s time to give a nod to the ladies. Uterus Horror is a subgenre of horror films that focuses on the uniquely female experience of puberty and coming into their sexuality, using horror elements to emphasize and/or act as a metaphor for that experience. These films are often ignored in theaters, but […]
Turn back the clock, my child, to a time when new movies released on premium subscription services were a thing of wonder. When second-tier leading men and up-and-coming Hollywood stars would work together to tantalize and amaze adolescent movie fans everywhere. Welcome to the era of HBO Originals. READ MORE: Cast a Deadly Spell Captures a Bygone Era of HBO […]
As a kid, nothing was better than begging my father to stay up late so I could watch the latest HBO Original film. I adored my countless trips to my local theater and regularly took advantage of my video store’s Five Movies, Five Days, Five Bucks promotion, but watching HBO originals was my adolescent film school. Throwing TV clichés out […]
The horror begins within. A sense of the other. A lurking fear. A strange feeling that grows and grows until it finally explodes. And suddenly you’re a mother. Pregnancy has been a mainstay in horror films since at least Village of the Damned, when a town of English ladies all birthed spooky children with platinum hair. Rosemary’s Baby added Satanism to […]
When I was still in middle school, my school had a tradition during the days before an end of the term. Each of the classrooms would have a television and a movie; during the final two hours of classes, you could go to any one of the classrooms and watch whatever was playing there. Typically, for us to engage with […]
Behold, the untapped potential of the 2000s direct-to-video market. Like the current landscape of streaming releases, the direct-to-video market of old offered viewers a potential goldmine of underseen and underappreciated releases. You may have to dig – and dig, and dig, and dig – but true horror fans know that any amount of dumpster-diving is worth that one unearthed gem. […]
A haggard prisoner looks up from the journal he holds. His free hand plunges into the open wound of a fellow prisoner lying on the floor, next to the other cellmate’s charred remains. With his victim’s blood, the first prisoner scrawls runes on the wall before returning to his book and reciting a Latin incantation. At first, nothing happens. But […]
For as long as movies have existed, a vast majority have been dominated by the vision of a very particular brand of human. The existence of the male gaze is not the problem, rather the lack of diverse gazes available to the masses. Despite a recent and overwhelming push for moviemakers to offer films that appeal to those outside the dominant […]
Here at Certified Forgotten, we’ve been known to cast a pretty wide net when it comes to the definition of horror. Not all films that deal with dread or terror fit neatly into the horror carousel on a Netflix page. Sometimes, some of the movies that hit the hardest are the ones that sidestep most genre conventions entirely. READ MORE: […]