Summer horror gets radioactive, gothic, mechanical, and undead in this episode of This Week in Horror History, covering the week of June 29 through July 5. This time, we’re crawling through giant insect mayhem, modern gothic literature, Japanese cyberpunk body horror, George A. Romero’s underground zombie apocalypse, and one deeply twisted Italian gothic shocker from the early 1960s.
Inside this episode:
June 29, 1977 — Empire of the Ants opens in New York
A radioactive drive-in creature feature turns Florida real estate, toxic waste, Joan Collins, and giant ants into pure summer horror chaos. J
une 30, 2020 — Mexican Gothic is published
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s modern gothic landmark sends Noemí Taboada into a poisonous mansion where family secrets, sickness, inheritance, and fungal horror take root.
July 1, 1989 — Tetsuo: The Iron Man releases in Japan
Shinya Tsukamoto’s black-and-white cyberpunk nightmare turns the human body into metal, noise, panic, rust, drills, and unforgettable industrial body horror.
July 3, 1985 — Day of the Dead receives its New York/limited release
George A. Romero traps the end of the world inside a military bunker, where zombies own the surface and the survivors may be more dangerous than the dead.
Deep-Cut Spotlight — The Horrible Dr. Hichcock
Barbara Steele stars in Riccardo Freda’s morbid Italian gothic horror film about obsession, death, forbidden desire, and a mansion where the past refuses to stay buried. Horror Birthdays This Week:
Dan Aykroyd, Larry David, Tom Cruise, and Gloria Stuart all land in this week’s horror-adjacent birthday roll, from paranormal comedy and classic Universal horror to vampire films, alien invasion, and anxiety comedy.
Weekly Recommendation — Tales of Terror
Roger Corman, Edgar Allan Poe, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone bring classic anthology horror, gothic dread, revenge, madness, and candlelit old-school atmosphere to this week’s recommendation.
From Empire of the Ants and Mexican Gothic to Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Day of the Dead, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, and Tales of Terror, this week in horror history proves that summer is never safe from monsters, machines, mansions, zombies, or the dead things waiting underground.
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