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"Every genre has its films that serve as the gold standard of the style, and that goes doubly true for horror movies. The best horror movies convey the best things about the genre while still being excellently made films on the technical side in their own right. It's safe to say that some of them are even near perfect, with little to no flaws that hold them back no matter how many years it may have been since they first debuted on cinema screens.

There are several aspects that horror movies have to succeed in to be considered near-perfect. For one, they must be sufficiently scary, able to summon genuine dread and terror without the use of cheap jump scares or fake-outs. They also have to be proficient films as a whole, avoiding the usual pitfalls of bad movies like poor acting, shoddy writing, low-quality production design or cinematography, and lackluster editing or sound design. When a horror film is able to succeed in all of these categories while also adding something new to the formula, it creates a truly legendary experience..."

"EXCLUSIVE: The L.A.-based Screamfest Horror Film Festival has unveiled the first wave lineup for its 24th edition, taking place at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood from October 8-17.

Among the films to look out for at this year’s festival are two produced for Hulu by WorthenBrooks (formerly 20th Digital Studio), on which we were first to report: Screamfest alum Brandon Espy’s Mr. Crocket and Justin Harding’s Carved, both of which will premiere on Hulu later this year.

A supernatural horror film starring Jerrika Hinton and Elvis Nolasco, Mr. Crocket follows Summer Beverly (Hinton) as she embarks on a chilling journey to rescue her son from a sinister children’s show host with otherworldly powers. Starring Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Carved is a fun romp centered on a group of survivors trapped in a Halloween village battle with a sentient, vengeful pumpkin.

In addition to Carved, world premieres at this year’s fest will include Drained, from filmmakers Sean Patrick Cronin and Peter Stylianous, and Dario Germani’s ALO – Antropophagus Legacy. Among other films to see is Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy’s SXSW title Dead Mail, in which an ominous help note finds its way to a 1980s post office, connecting a dead letter investigator to a kidnapped keyboard technician.

Highlights from this year’s shorts program include filmmaker Felipe Vargas’s Hive starring Xochitl Gomez; Dakota Daulby and Harrison Houde’s Adjoining starring Brenna D’Amico; Jake Bradbury and Toni Blando’s Disfigura, featuring Hellboy‘s Doug Jones; Fresh Blood starring Clara Mcgregor (American Horror Story) and directed by Emma Westenberg; and The Underground from director Rachel Talalay. Tickets will be on sale soon at the link.

Stated Rachel Belofsky, who founded Screamfest in 2001, “We’re excited to offer horror fans a diverse selection of terrifying films from across the globe.”

For Screamfest’s full feature line-up, read on..."

"Key Takeaways

For as long as humans have been looking up, we’ve seen objects or phenomena that have defied our conventional explanations for what we’ve known is scientifically possible.

Many have attributed these sightings to extraterrestrial or even supernatural activity, although no conclusive proof or incontrovertible evidence supporting these claims has ever survived scrutiny.

What scientific steps could we take to evaluate the activity of an unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) or an unidentified flying object (UFO) to determine if they’re actually “beyond” present Earthly knowledge? Here’s how to do it..."

"Robert Smith is convinced the aliens have won. "The invasion has happened—it's all over," says the University of Alberta space historian who teaches a course on the history of extraterrestrials.

It's not so much that Smith believes in their literal existence, only that aliens have staked their claim in the human imagination..."

"Area 51 isn’t the only weird thing in the Nevada desert, as our writer discovered when he drove the Extraterrestrial Highway to see if the truth really is out there.

‘That’s where they probe you,” the shop assistant said when I asked her what really goes on at Area 51. She followed this up with a raising of the eyebrows and a waggle of her extended finger. I got the message.

I was at the Alien Center, my first stop on a 600-mile road trip in rural southern Nevada, making a loop around the huge slab of desert that’s home to a US air force base shrouded in mystery. Built in the Fifties, the base has become a beacon for conspiracy theorists who believe the government uses it to store broken-down spaceships and little green men (with their apparently invasive interrogation techniques). The official line is that Area 51 is a training facility for military aircraft … but they would say that, wouldn’t they.

The Alien Center is really just a petrol station with your standard diner, gift shop and brothel attached. But since I’d been on Route 95 for a couple of hours after leaving Las Vegas, it seemed a good place to take a breather..."

"The Daemon had its world premiere at FrightFest and won the crowd over with its Lovecraftian trappings. The debut was extra special for co-director David Michael Yohe, as the premiere happened to fall on his birthday. Thankfully he got the gift that he wanted – a well received response to his debut – and was in high spirits when he attended the media wall alongside his co-director Matt Devino and cast members Tyler Q. Rosen and Sara Fletcher.

THN spoke to the team about the prevailing power of H. P. Lovecraft, haunted houses, and gooey practical effects..."

"This game was released in 2019 and was well-received for its depiction of a “Black Day” in which the world is engulfed in cosmic terror.「Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones」Although it is a sequel, chronologically this work comes before it, so it is a so-called prequel.

The developer is Misterial Games. The game is a departure from the previous game, which was a top-down 2D game, and instead uses first-person 3D graphics to create a world filled with madness. The drawings are based on this concept..."

"A month ago, we covered Forgive Me Father 2, a Lovecraft-inspired FPS with a unique art style and a sequel to Byte Barrel's 2022 Forgive Me Father. Currently in Early Access, FMF2 is set to receive a massive content update later this month introducing a variety of new locations, enemies, and weapons for players to enjoy.

Arguably the most unique weapon coming with the update is Obelisk, a powerful artifact described by the developers as an "eldritch railgun" – a description as precise as the weapon itself. Recently, in response to the community's excitement over Obelisk, the team shared a new gameplay demo focusing exclusively on this magical WMD:

Showcasing Obelisk in action, the latest demo fully captures the weapon's destructive power, showing the protagonist reducing demons to gibs and performing a ritual to reload the railgun. "Channeling the power of the cosmos through your enemies! Shoots a perfectly accurate, piercing beam of instant death that only the toughest of foes can survive! This one is an easy grab, though its elaborate 'reloading' procedure is not for the faint of heart," reads the team's description of Obelisk..."

"First impressions are everything. Whether it be a first date, a job interview, or meeting your significant other’s rogues gallery of eccentric family members, first impressions tell people who you are and what you are about. The same is true with films. In an age where moviegoers have one eye on their phone and one eye on the silver screen, movies need to quickly inform audiences why their particular tale is worth an audience’s time and (in the case of horror) sanity. Before we know a narrative’s particulars, those opening scenes—or a film’s cold open—inform the audience of what is to come. This could be traditional terror or, even more importantly, evoke the tonal direction a creative is striving for with their work.

Here are five of the most compelling contemporary cold opens in horror..."

"A Gloucestershire council has declared a major incident and is working with GCHQ to assess the full extent of a cyber attack by “hostile actors”. Tewkesbury Borough Council shut down all of the services they provide online yesterday (Wednesday, September 4) after they identified “hostile actors” within their IT systems.

Council leaders say the full extent of the cyber security breach and the motive of the attack is currently unknown. But they are redeploying staff to towns and large villages across the Borough to ensure the most vulnerable have access to the services they rely on.

Chief Executive Alistair Cunningham said: “With all our systems shut down, our main focus is around the vulnerable people we serve in this community.

"We are currently dealing with an IT incident. Our systems have been compromised.

“We were alerted to unknown user accounts accessing our systems yesterday afternoon. We are clearly at an early stage of our investigation but as of today we are saying there is no evidence of data exfiltration from the organisation.

“Yesterday we thought data had been removed from the organisation which would be of serious concern to our residents. We have been analysing the movement of data in and out. The data leaving the system was through bonafide user accounts.”

“The accounts we have identified have not been taking data out of the organisation. That is the situation which is reassuring to ourselves and partners and clearly the public in terms of the data we hold.”

He said the authority has taken the necessary cyber response steps including informing the National Cyber Security Centre who are supporting them with their investigation..."

"A mass grave containing more than 300 bodies, including babies and children, has been uncovered.

An unmarked burial site at Royton Cemetery in Oldham contained 145 stillborn children, 128 babies and young children and 29 adults, local councillors said..."

"Human activities, mostly the burning of fossil fuels, are changing the climate faster than ever. As the world gets hotter, scientists and policymakers have agreed to try everything they can to limit warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels. But even 2C of warming will greatly impact life on Earth. Earth.Org looks at what will happen when we hit this warming milestone, what changes we can expect in extreme weather events, climate patterns, sea levels and temperatures, and what it means for ecosystems and human activities..."