John Kenneth Muir - Horror Films of the 1990s

To resurrect an ad-line from the 1990s slasher sequel Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995): "Terror never rests in peace."

In that spirit of restlessness, I return to you with this volume, my third "horror decade survey." Quite naturally, the book you now hold in your hands, Horror Films of the 1990s, follows the award-winning Horror Films of the 1970s (2002) and Horror Films of the 1980s (2007).

The reader will discover approximately three hundred scary movies from the Clinton Decade discussed within these pages, as well as a history section that considers the various trends in the genre. As was the case in the two previous books, the films included herein are dated by the year of the American theatrical or direct-to-video release, not necessarily the year of copyright or production.

This organization differentiates these books from the useful and immensely popular Internet Movie Database, which lists films by their copyright date. Why take such a tack? Simply, the initial movie-going experience forges indelible memories, and audience members tend to remember the occasion, date and season during which they first experience a film. They recall a summer movie in the summer ... not six or nine months previous to their first encounter with it. For instance, Warlock was made in 1989 but not released until 1991. Those who saw the film theatrically thus associate it with the 1990s, even though it was made earlier.

Horror Films of the 1990s highlights horror films released theatrically and "direct-to-video" (on the secondary market of VHS, then, ultimately DVD) from the year 1990 through the year 1999. Right up to Y2K.

Representative films from Italy, New Zealand, Japan and other nations are included throughout the text too. But as before, the book focuses primarily on American movies. Madefor-TV films or so-called TV movies such as Quicksilver Highway (1997), John Carpenter Presents Body Bags (1993) or Full Eclipse (1993) are not within the purview of this text, alas, and are not included.

The films are organized by alphabetical order within each year, and all entries follow the same formula pioneered by Horror Films of the 1970s, so that all three books may be viewed as companion pieces; pieces of a larger whole, which provide a sweeping history of horror films in the last, intriguing decades of the 20th century.

The "critical reception" of each horror film is given through a sampling of reviews, or "blurbs." Some come from the era of release; some are modern re-assessments. To grant a fuller sense of how a movie is perceived and rated overall, I have again invited a number of distinguished guest reviewers to submit short, capsule reviews for the horror films of the age. My guest reviews for