Movies
Mini Doc Explores the Bizarre Monstrosities of Brian Yuzna
Not all masters of horror get the recognition they deserve.
If you’re not familiar with the name Brian Yuzna, you should be. Yuzna got his start working as a producer on the Stuart Gordon-directed films Re-Animator, From Beyond and Dolls, but he quickly branched out on his own with a series of gems that I consider personal favorites. From the late ’80s into the ’90s, Yuzna directed Society, Bride of Re-Animator, the underrated Silent Night Deadly Night 4, Return of the Living Dead 3 and The Dentist, and he later returned to the franchise that gave him his start when he directed Beyond Re-Animator in 2003.
A twisted visionary who has more than earned the right to be called a master of horror, Yuzna’s work has over the years been home to some of the most insane and totally off the wall makeup effects in the entire history of the horror genre. The ’80s were a time of excess, and oh boy did Yuzna embrace that to the fullest extent of the law. His “bizarre monstrosities” are the subject of a new mini-doc we just found over on YouTube, which we wanted to bring to your attention. The video digs into Yuzna’s genre contributions, offering a brief summary of his awesome career.
We’re glad this video exists. Because Yuzna deserves the spotlight.
It’s been eight years since Ari Aster came onto the scene and helped usher in a new wave of horror with Hereditary, one of the rare horror movies from the past ten years that still seems to come up in conversation every single week. And it’s back in the conversation this week, with Ari Aster revealing at an event that he’s already written a prequel to Hereditary!
Ari Aster was on hand at the American Cinematheque for Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair last week, a Los Angeles festival that screened all of Aster’s movies to date. The website Gold Derby reports that Aster revealed the Hereditary prequel script during a Q&A at the event, and you can watch the full Q&A conversation below for confirmation on the website’s report.
“I wrote a prequel to this,” Aster told the crowd, referring to Hereditary. “It never feels like the right time to do it. It’s a prequel, not a sequel so I don’t know where this goes.”
Would a potential Hereditary prequel dig deeper into the mythology of demon king Paimon? Unfortunately, Aster provides no further details on his prequel approach at this time.
Aster said of Hereditary during the same Q&A, “I was just trying to make a really good horror movie.” I think most horror fans would agree that he more than accomplished that goal, and the past eight years have proven that Hereditary is an enduring classic of its generation.
We celebrated the fifth anniversary of Hereditary here on BD back in 2023.
Ron Breton wrote, “Hereditary offers a similar emotional resonance to this new generation of horror – my generation of horror– as movie-goers in the seventies when they first saw Exorcist. Much like Aster’s film, we see the incomprehensible evil wear the face of a young girl; the victim of a raw deal she had no say in, as it tears a family to its core. Sure, both films offer so many terrifying visuals that can make the hair stand up on anyone’s neck – but it also depicts intense relationships and emotions that are tangible. Real. Familiar.”
“In that familiarity lies the uncanny, ready to rear its ugly head and force us to confront thoughts and horrors laying dormant and clawing at our psyche,” Breton continued his 5th anniversary celebration of Hereditary. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s been five or fifty years. These horrors are always there, as we become pawns in its horrible, hopeless machine.”
Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Ann Dowd, and Milly Shapiro star in Hereditary. In the film, “A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.”
That’s putting it mildly, eh?!
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