Cursed Films: Season 1

Starring - Phil Nobile Jr. (Halloween: The Inside Story, Killer Profile), Mitch Horowitz (Ancient Aliens, Apocalypse Island), and Ryan Turek (Ma, Halloween)
Release Date - 2020
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "A Shudder ORIGINAL series"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Horror has always been shrouded in mystery and when something strange, unusual, or heinous occurs on a movie set it only adds to the film's legacy.  Many film sets have been home to grave occurrences over the years and those films has earned the claim that they are haunted.  Shudder recently released a series called Cursed Films that takes fans behind the scenes of horror's greatest films ranging from The Exorcist to The Crow.  I want to thank RJLE Films for sending me a review copy of season 1 on blu!

     The series takes a look at some of the popular legends, and not so known facts, behind The Exoricst, The Omen, Poltergeist, The Crow and Twilight Zone: The Movie.

     I've been a horror fan for over 20 years.  I grew up renting horror tapes from the local video store and when I got my first computer freshman year I quickly joined various horror forums.  Over the years I've heard a lot about the myths, legends, and rumors behind some of horrors most iconic films.  Cursed Films explores the heinous and horrible accident and deaths of cast and crew around these famous films.  However, most, but not all, of the occurrences discussed are common knowledge among horror fans.  It was nice hearing those involved talk about them but a good portion of the series if general knowledge and part of cinema history.  The interviews in this series are very insightful, descriptive, and, at times, extremely intense.  I adds a lot more context to the stories most of us have heard.  However, the first episode on The Exorcist gets a little goofy little segment featuring an exorcist performing an exorcism.  It took a serious episode and made it very laughable.  Aside from this, I really enjoyed the information provided and even learned a few things.  My biggest complaint and how a few of the episodes were set up.  Each episode is a little less than 30 minutes but the information contained in each episode runs for about 15 or 20 minutes depending on the episode.  As filler they use interviews and archival footage from movies with similar scenes pertaining to what is being discussed.  It works when used sparingly but it does become distracting as much as they used it.  In the Twilight Zone: The Movie episode the Lloyd Kaufman interviews are out of place and ruins the atmosphere of the episode.  People that know me knows how much I love Troma and Kaufman but he is very out of place here.  Overall, Cursed Films is a dark look into horror history.  It's well put together and very informative but anyone with a love for horror and access to the internet has heard most of the incidents described in the film.  Most are almost as popular as the films themselves.  It's still a fantastic watch.  I highly recommend it.