As we bow our heads during the 20th anniversary of producer/mogul Milton Subotsky’s death (he passed away June 27, 1991), FANGORIA celebrates the legacy of one of the most important imprints in horror, Amicus Productions…

In 1968, the world’s conception of zombies was changed forever when George A. Romero unleashed NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Its premise of the deceased rising from their tombs to devour the living was revolutionary, and deviated radically from previous ideas of Haitian voodoo and mysticism, of men devoid of will, puppet-mastered by ebony-skinned figures with white skulls painted on their faces. After Romero, we had humanity’s worst imagining (death itself) rising up and reducing us all to food.

Picture the pantheon of so-called Masters of Horror in your mind, all seated together in their alabaster temple. John Landis is making wisecracks, Takashi Miike tucks into a sashimi platter, Dario Argento is looking sharp in his toga and black leather gloves. We adore them all, these genre deities—and as much as we hesitate to play favorites, most fans would admit there’s something about John Carpenter that makes his throne seem to be perched higher than those of his colleagues. Is it the wealth of concrete classics on his résumé? His catchy, minimalist musical scores? Perhaps it’s his divine sheath of cascading white locks…?

Trolls—oversized, ugly and often not especially friendly humanoid beings—have been a staple of Scandinavian mythology and folklore for centuries. Yet these creatures have rarely been represented in the countries’ cinema—a situation that Norwegian writer/director André Øvredal’s THE TROLL HUNTER rectifies in a, ahem, big way.