The Cherry Hill Chainsaw Massacre

Bullying is one of the most toxic, irrevocably damaging problems prevalent in society. It is a social ill that has existed probably since the beginning of time, and has shown absolutely no signs of slowing down or reaching anything in the way of a legitimate, tangible resolution. In a way, it's been almost accepted and written off as a natural -- but no less toxic -- aspect of the human condition. Like the old saying goes, hurt people hurt people, and there will always be someone who desires to take their pain and fury out on someone else in a futile attempt to alleviate their own internal suffering. Children bully their fellow classmates in school, usually middle and high, and there are even grown-ups who validate the concept that just because you're older doesn't necessarily mean you're wiser.  Look at incidents like Columbine. Two high school seniors were presumably bullied to such an extent that they felt the only way they could vent those building feelings of anger...

Even though it's never necessarily been said out loud, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences harbors a near complete aversion to the horror genre. As of the date of this writing, February 6th, 2024, only five horror films have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Five. (Okay, six if you include Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan , which I personally consider to be a psychological drama, hardly even a thriller, but that's a debate for a different time.) The last entry in the genre to receive its fair share of award nominations was M. Night Shyamalan's ghost story masterpiece, The Sixth Sense , in 1999, breaking into the 2000 award ceremony with six nominations, including movie of the year. It may have gone home with no wins, but it's the consideration that matters above all else. 18 years later, sketch comedian-turned-master of modern suspense Jordan Peele overturned the stubborn academy's genre prejudice with the arrival of his groundbreaking, sociall...

Any seasoned horror fan will attest that the 1980s represented the golden age of what Roger Ebert declared the "Mad Slasher" film. You know the type: a group of young, attractive, sexually active (some might even say promiscuous) teenagers or young adults gather together at a secluded location, away from their parents and out of sight of almost any form of adult supervision, to enjoy and celebrate their youth, whether by way of getting high, drinking prior to reaching the age of twenty-one, expressing their sexual attraction to members of the opposite sex, or a combination of all three -- only to be stalked and picked off one by one by a masked, knife-wielding psychopath lurking in the darkness. The movie that most have agreed initiated this genre formula is Bob Clark's holiday horror classic, Black Christmas , in 1974. However, two months prior, Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel unleashed their macabre creation on the world that centered around a cannibalistic inbred family of ...