horror – The Cultural Gutter

The Casebook of Dr. Louis Judd, Terrible Psychiatrist

By Carol on October 23, 2025 • ( 3 Comments )

thought that I was done writing about terrible people for the year. But I need to ponder just one more, Dr. Louis Judd. Judd is a supporting character played by Tom Conway in two RKO horror movies: Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People (USA, 1942) and Mark Robson’s The Seventh Victim (USA, 1943). Dr. Judd while suave, sophisticated, sardonic and lightly mustachioed is a remarkably bad psychiatrist. He drifts into and out of Manhattan’s occult and supernatural demimonde. Like many a tourist, he is not careful and he leaves more than memories.

It’s Gonna Be May (2002)

By Sachin Hingoo (he|him|his) on October 16, 2025 • ( 2 Comments )

Lucky McKee’s ‘May’ (2002) is one of my perennial favourites and a Spooky Season mainstay.

From the Archives: All Hail the Pumpkin King

By Angela Englert on October 9, 2025 • ( Leave a comment )

Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat (2007) is less a movie and more being shoved into a Party City in late September. It is a haunted hayride where you’re not entirely sure all the people on the trail are actors. It is lighting a three-wick candle that has a […]

The Gutter’s Own Carol Borden Goes To Fantastic Fest 2025!

By Carol on September 25, 2025 • ( 1 Comment )

At Fantastic Fest this year, I was not only fortunate enough to receive accreditation so I could see movies and report back, but I was also lucky enough to see four very different films that I might not see otherwise. I am back now, my fedora with the […]

Exhuma: Demons of the Past

By Carol on August 28, 2025 • ( 1 Comment )

The past is very present in writer/director Jang Jae-hyun’s Exhuma (South Korea, 2024). There is familial and imperial history reaching back to World War II and even further. And if there are not precisely demons in the film, well, there are things that are close enough.