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Making a feature-length film is so unbelievably complicated, it's amazing that anybody manages to do it at all, let alone well.

Rather than jump straight in at the deep end, most directors begin their careers with short films. Ranging anywhere in length between five and 40 minutes and made on a significantly smaller budget than a full-length movie, these petite pictures are a great way to learn the fundamentals of filmmaking without descending into a full-on stress spiral.

Some really famous movies started out life as shorter projects, including the likes of District 9, Fatal Attraction, Napoleon Dynamite, and Whiplash. The horror genre is also full of examples like this, with some making the transition to feature-length pictures more capably than others.

These short films (which are usually always made by the eventual directors of the feature) were the perfect proof of concept - a short extract that could prove their work was destined for something bigger.

While not every short film is guaranteed to translate to a longer running time, the following 10 examples all proved that great horror films can have small beginnings...

• When A Stranger Calls
• Willy’s Wonderland
• Trick 'R Treat
• Lights Out
• What We Do In The Shadows
• Smile
• The Babadook
• Terrifier
• Saw
• The Evil Dead

EXCLUSIVE: After scoring the big deal at the Toronto Film Festival with Neon for TIFF’s People’s Choice Award winner The Life of Chuck, director Mike Flanagan and Stephen King are right back at it. The Dish hears their next collaboration will be Carrie, this time in an eight-episode series for Amazon. Flanagan will be the showrunner...

... This would be the second recent deal in which one of King’s treasures would be given a longer storytelling road. A24 has Paul Greegrass and JH Wyman adapting King’s Fairy Tale into a series, after an earlier attempt to mount it as a movie at Universal made them realize there was just too much story to pack into one feature. The Gary Dauberman-directed Salem’s Lot was just released for Halloween...

... They’re opening a writers room, so this one’s happening quickly.

Many academically minded types have written at great length and with fascinating eloquence on the connection between sex and death in horror movies. We'll cut right to the chase, offering up some of the best and most potent examples of sexuality in the horror-movie genre.

But first, a disclaimer: These are horror movies, spanning decades, and, thus, don't always, or often, offer up the healthiest representations of human sexuality. Whether it's vampire eroticism or horny teen campers, sex in movies is complicated, and not always sex-positive, even as we're being invited to be aroused.

Some of these movies have deep and complex, if often uncomfortable, things to say about the links between sex and death; others are pure titillation—movies that throw in some nude bodies and sweaty, writhing flesh in order to get more butts in seats. We're not here to make a distinction between high-minded horniness and baser sexual impulses—if it's sexy, it's under consideration...

• Don't Look Now (1973)
• Knife + Heart (2018)
• Mulholland Drive (2001)
• The Hunger (1983)
• Def by Temptation (1990)
• Species (1995)
• Society (1989)
• Cat People (1982)
• Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
• Knock Knock (2015)
• Stranger by the Lake (2013)
• Daughters of Darkness (1971)
• Interview With the Vampire (1994)
• Titane (2021)
• Hatchet II (2010)
• Nadja (1994)
• Swallowed (2022)
• Thirst (2009)
• Possession (1981)
• An American Werewolf in London (1981)
• Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort (2014)

The childhood home of the late Queen Mother, Glamis Castle, has been declared one of the most haunted places to visit in the UK this Halloween.

Located in Angus, Scotland, Glamis Castle has royal connections that go back over a thousand years, and grisly spot where Malcolm II of Scotland was murdered in 1034.

Even before the castle was built, there were warnings that the land was cursed, and its original location was changed from a nearby hill after workers claimed to hear a voice say: “Build not on this enchanted spot, where man hath neither part nor lot, but build down in yonder bog, where it will neither shake nor shog!”

Ghosts claimed to haunt the walls of Glamis Castle include the Tongueless Woman – a maid said to have been murdered after discovering a secret of the Earl. She is rumoured to appear with blood spilling from her mouth...

Occasionally, an indie film slips through the mainstream and becomes a hit. It's easiest to do in the horror genre, where a low budget doesn't keep fans away (the recent Terrifier franchise is a great example of this, but it goes back to Night of the Living Dead, Carnival of Souls, and many earlier films). In 2023, Older Gods became one of the crossover hits, a microbudget horror movie with a trailer that garnered over 500 thousand views on YouTube (watch the trailer below). Using thick layers of atmosphere and drawing on the terrifying lore from H.P. Lovecraft's body of work, Older Gods managed to create a spellbinding horror mystery with very little money. Now it's streaming for free...

"Older Gods is filled with enough passion to not only look past its small budget, but to offer a more personal horror film with a surprisingly large scale. Older Gods is perhaps one of the best horror movies so far this year, certainly in the Lovecraftian horror genre. It offers a deeply compelling mystery, an undeniably tense atmosphere, satisfying jump scares, and plenty of creepy visuals. If you're a fan of horror and Lovecraft in particular, Only Gods is the movie for you."

"One of Older Gods' major achievements is its haunting atmosphere," continues MovieWeb's review. "From the location, music, cinematography, and pacing, Older Gods is a tense and haunting movie the whole way through. It never eases up; thank God it was only 80 minutes, because it'd almost become oppressive if it was any longer. Filmmaker David A. Roberts does a wonderful job at expressing isolation and anxiety throughout"...

Several end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) cloud storage platforms are vulnerable to a set of security issues that could expose user data to malicious actors.

Cryptographic analysis from ETH Zurich researchers Jonas Hofmann and Kien Tuong Turong revealed issue with Sync, pCloud, Icedrive, Seafile, and Tresorit services, collectively used by more than 22 million people.

The analysis was based on the threat model of an attacker controlling a malicious server that can read, modify, and inject data at will, which is realistic for nation-state actors and sophisticated hackers.

The team comments that many of the discovered flaws directly oppose the marketing promises of the platforms, which create a deceptive and false premise for customers...

Despite rarely gaining accolades and praise from contemporary and mainstream film critics, Lucio Fulci is a name that needs little introduction among horror fans and aficionados of cult European cinema. Known for creating images of excessive violence that earned him the nickname the "godfather of gore," Lucio Fulci spent much of his career pushing the envelope and, in many cases, tearing it completely to shreds.

Among the best-known contributions from the director is his Gates of Hell trilogy, consisting of The Beyond, City of the Living Dead, and The House by the Cemetery. All three took place in the United States and explored some of the horror traditions associated with their accompanying areas. Set in New Orleans, The Beyond embraces the Southern gothic horror tradition, and the City of the Living Dead contains a subtle nod to H.P. Lovecraft, with the film taking place in the town of Dunwich.

The House by the Cemetery, with its exterior shots being filmed in Scituate, Massachusetts, and the film taking place in and around Boston, makes full use of its location to weave a New England horror story influenced by H.P. Lovecraft's writings. The House by the Cemetery, while featuring many of Fulci’s trademarks that fans of his films instantly recognize, such as quick camera zooms, close-ups of eyes, and depictions of unrestrained violence, is a tale of Victorian evil that exists within the landscapes of New England...

Horror films have been terrifying moviegoers for over a century now. Nothing is quite as eerie as watching something spooky in a dark theater — whether it's demon-possessed children or sinister creatures from beyond. However, some horror movies were just as (if not more) terrifying offscreen as they were onscreen.

Sometimes, a film set — or even the cast — seems "cursed." From unexplained natural events such as fires and strange gusts of wind to tragic occurrences such as unexpected deaths and fatal accidents, making a horror movie is not to be taken lightly. Without further ado, here are 11 classic horror movies that had strangely sinister events occur during or after production...

• Psycho (1960)
• The Amityville Horror (2005)
• Annabelle
• The Conjuring
• The Possession (2012)
• Twilight Zone: The Movie
• The Omen
• Rosemary’s Baby
• The Exorcist
• The Crow
• Poltergeist

Lionsgate’s franchise reboot The Strangers: Chapter 1 kicked off a new trilogy of tales, and the company has finally released the official teaser trailer for The Strangers: Chapter 2.

At this time, Chapter 2 is “coming soon,” with no official release date.

Watch the official teaser trailer for The Strangers: Chapter 2 below, which continues the story of Madelaine Petsch’s character, who survived the events of The Strangers: Chapter 1...

Have you ever heard of the Hexham Heads or Wolf of Allendale?

Now that Halloween is approaching you might want to clue yourself up because, well there's no easy way of saying this, a werewolf may be out there.

On 10 December 1904, we, the Hexham Courant, published a story with the title "Wolf at Large in Allendale".

The wolf committed a "great slaughter of sheep" on the moors above Hexham in the winter of 1904 and was believed to be an escapee from the private zoo of Captain Bain in County Durham.

A hunt quickly ensued among petrified locals thinking the wolf may move on from sheep and start attacking children.

After many weeks the drama soon came to a grisly end when the wolf was cut in twain by a Midland Railway express near Cumwhinton station on the Settle-Carlisle railway.

Too badly mutilated to be preserved, the wolf was beheaded and sent to the Midland Railway's headquarters at Derby.

For a week, the head of the Allendale wolf was displayed in the window of a taxidermist's shop in Derby before being mounted outside the Midland Railway's boardroom.

In 1936, the head was still there, but it has now vanished, and subsequent searches for it have been unsuccessful.

Now let's fast forward to the 1970s, when things start to get even creepier...

The Folk Horror genre has become one of the most popular forms of horror in recent years, with the rise of cult and ancestral narratives pervasive throughout all horror films. Folk horror's best films are known for using elements of folklore, rituals, and ancient traditions to provide the backdrop for the thrilling and horrifying stories told that reveal the darker sides of our nature and humanity. It has become so popular as it mixes the realistic with the spiritually sinister and creates a crossover that has a feel all too real of 'this could happen to me'.

The most impactful of the folk genre throughout cinema history and into recent years have focused on cults, voodoo, paganism, and superstition. Films like the critically acclaimed Hereditary with surprise endings, which puts a legitimately terrifying, modern spin on the occult, or Midsommar, that brings violent cults and the psychological forces within to the fore. Every film places the onus on the viewer that what they are watching isn't something too far outside the realm of possibility, and that realization is what makes this genre one of the most fear-inducing horror themes and why the films themselves are so haunting...

• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• The Blood On Satan’s Claw (1971)
• Apostle (2018)
• La Llorona (2019)
• Kill List (2011)
• Midsommar (2019)
• The Wailing (2016)
• The Wicker Man (1973)
• The Witch (2015)
• Hereditary (2018)