From the moment we hear the first strains of the Scott Walker-esque English version of the original DJANGO theme song, lifted wholesale from Sergio Corbucci’s cult 1966 oater, set to images of a battered chain gang of soul-broken slaves, we know we are in the hands of a master. And make no mistake, Quentin Tarantino is a master.

Set in the mysterious Pine Gap, Australia—think Area 51 with a neater accent—CRAWLSPACE (coming to theaters and on demand January 4 from IFC Films) opens as an underground research facility has put out a distress call. Chaos has broken out all around; scientists scream for help, patients do their best to escape and bodies begin to pile up.

During a particularly fruitful creative period in the early 1970s, director Jess Franco was making somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 films a year all over Europe. There are those who consider these some of his most interesting years as a filmmaker, while others see this as a period of wild excess and slipshod directorial technique that was marred by a tragic misuse of the zoom lens.

The U.S. might not be familiar with him, but Richard Crouse has very much been the face of popular film criticism in Canada for at least the past decade. He’s been featured on radio, television and in newspapers across the country, and has written several books; his latest, RAISING HELL: KEN RUSSELL AND THE UNMAKING OF “THE DEVILS,” charts the history of the still-controversial 1971 film.

Author/filmmaker Gary D. Rhodes, a film scholar who has painstakingly documented every aspect of Bela Lugosi’s career, may be primarily responsible for the cult of Lugosi that exists today; his 1997 documentary LUGOSI: HOLLYWOOD’S DRACULA is an almost romantic homage to the late actor’s extraordinary talent. Rhodes joined forces with another noted Lugosi historian, Bill Kaffenberger, to fill in the blanks—the years between the collapse of the actor’s Hollywood career and his entry into Ed Wood’s world—with BearManor Media’s NO TRAVELER RETURNS—and their research is extraordinary.

Recently in Melbourne, horror film and music fans alike could hardly contain their excitement. In a world first, Italian prog-rock icons Goblin performed their intense, complex and mesmerising soundtrack to Dario Argento’s surrealistic nightmare SUSPIRIA while the legendary film played. It’s an interesting proposition having live musicians perform while watching a masterpiece like SUSPIRIA, especially when such a film combines striking visual language, dreamlike narrative and nail biting terror all masterfully commanding the full attention of the audience.

I think I’ve written something in this exact vein before, but whatever AMERICAN HORROR STORY is (and it’s plenty), it’s never subtle. “The Coat Hanger”—an episode that would put the titular object to the exact use its name causes folks to cringe—began with a returning Dylan McDylan expressing his inner struggle as the modern day Bloody Face to an unsuited therapist. Hint after hint is laid out, until in the clearest terms possible this rat-tailed Johnny offers, “I’m the son of Bloody Face.” In case you were still befuddled, ASYLUM returned from its title sequence to tell Lana Winters there’s a psychopathic baby in her womb.