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This Week in Horror History | The Sixth Sense, Piranha & Bodies Bodies Bodies (Aug. 3–9)
Published 2 days, 13 hours ago
Description
The Sixth Sense, Piranha, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Antropophagus, Lady Killer, and The Bat headline this episode of This Week in Horror History, covering August 3 through August 9. As summer horror reaches its hottest, strangest stretch, we’re starting our early Halloween horror pregame with killer fish, emotional ghost stories, murderous housewives, hurricane-party paranoia, forbidden cult cinema, and Vincent Price lurking inside a classic old-dark-house mystery.
Inside this episode:
August 3, 1978 — Piranha releases in the United States
Joe Dante turns the post-Jaws killer-animal boom into a fast, funny, and surprisingly vicious summer creature feature. Genetically altered military piranha escape into the water system, transforming lakes, rivers, vacation spots, and summer-camp swimming holes into potential feeding grounds.
August 6, 1999 — The Sixth Sense releases in the United States
M. Night Shyamalan changes the modern ghost story with the haunting tale of Cole Sear, a frightened child surrounded by dead people no one else can see. Beneath the famous twist is a deeply emotional horror movie about grief, loneliness, empathy, and the things both the living and the dead are desperate to say.
August 3, 2016 — Lady Killer 2 #1 reaches comic shops
Joëlle Jones brings back Josie Schuller, a stylish midcentury homemaker, devoted mother, and highly efficient professional killer. The horror comic transforms domestic perfection into a bloodstained performance where violence is already inside the home, wearing gloves, preparing dinner, and cleaning up after itself.
August 5, 2022 — Bodies Bodies Bodies releases theatrically in the United States
A24 traps a group of wealthy, deeply dysfunctional friends inside a mansion during a hurricane. When a party game becomes a possible murder investigation, slasher tension collides with social-media anxiety, buried resentment, toxic friendships, accusations, and spectacularly bad decisions.
Deep-Cut Spotlight — Antropophagus
Joe D’Amato’s notorious Italian cult-horror film sends unsuspecting visitors to a beautiful but eerily abandoned Greek island where paradise has become a sun-bleached trap.
Also known as Anthropophagus and The Grim Reaper, the movie earned a reputation as one of those forbidden video-store horrors whispered about by genre fans because its most extreme moments supposedly had to be seen to be believed. It is grimy, excessive, mean-spirited, and inseparable from the dangerous mystique created by its alternate titles, shocking cover art, and cult-cinema notoriety.
Horror Birthdays This Week: John Landis, M. Night Shyamalan, Vera Farmiga, and Tobin Bell enter the birthday roll, bringing connections to An American Werewolf in London, The Sixth Sense, The Conjuring, Bates Motel, Orphan, Saw, and some of modern horror’s most recognizable filmmakers, paranormal investigators, and moralizing masterminds.
Weekly Recommendation — The Bat
Vincent Price enters an old-dark-house mystery filled with locked rooms, hidden money, suspicious residents, secret passageways, clawed gloves, and a masked killer known only as the Bat.
Released in 1959, The Bat delivers classic black-and-white comfort horror with thunderstorms, creaking hallways, shadowy intruders, and the cozy feeling that someone could appear at the far end of the corridor at any moment. It is the perfect late-summer watch for horror fans already pregaming for Halloween and preparing for the arrival of spooky season.
From Piranha and The Sixth Sense to Lady Killer, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Antropophagus, and The Bat, this week in horror history proves that terror can swim beneath s
Inside this episode:
August 3, 1978 — Piranha releases in the United States
Joe Dante turns the post-Jaws killer-animal boom into a fast, funny, and surprisingly vicious summer creature feature. Genetically altered military piranha escape into the water system, transforming lakes, rivers, vacation spots, and summer-camp swimming holes into potential feeding grounds.
August 6, 1999 — The Sixth Sense releases in the United States
M. Night Shyamalan changes the modern ghost story with the haunting tale of Cole Sear, a frightened child surrounded by dead people no one else can see. Beneath the famous twist is a deeply emotional horror movie about grief, loneliness, empathy, and the things both the living and the dead are desperate to say.
August 3, 2016 — Lady Killer 2 #1 reaches comic shops
Joëlle Jones brings back Josie Schuller, a stylish midcentury homemaker, devoted mother, and highly efficient professional killer. The horror comic transforms domestic perfection into a bloodstained performance where violence is already inside the home, wearing gloves, preparing dinner, and cleaning up after itself.
August 5, 2022 — Bodies Bodies Bodies releases theatrically in the United States
A24 traps a group of wealthy, deeply dysfunctional friends inside a mansion during a hurricane. When a party game becomes a possible murder investigation, slasher tension collides with social-media anxiety, buried resentment, toxic friendships, accusations, and spectacularly bad decisions.
Deep-Cut Spotlight — Antropophagus
Joe D’Amato’s notorious Italian cult-horror film sends unsuspecting visitors to a beautiful but eerily abandoned Greek island where paradise has become a sun-bleached trap.
Also known as Anthropophagus and The Grim Reaper, the movie earned a reputation as one of those forbidden video-store horrors whispered about by genre fans because its most extreme moments supposedly had to be seen to be believed. It is grimy, excessive, mean-spirited, and inseparable from the dangerous mystique created by its alternate titles, shocking cover art, and cult-cinema notoriety.
Horror Birthdays This Week: John Landis, M. Night Shyamalan, Vera Farmiga, and Tobin Bell enter the birthday roll, bringing connections to An American Werewolf in London, The Sixth Sense, The Conjuring, Bates Motel, Orphan, Saw, and some of modern horror’s most recognizable filmmakers, paranormal investigators, and moralizing masterminds.
Weekly Recommendation — The Bat
Vincent Price enters an old-dark-house mystery filled with locked rooms, hidden money, suspicious residents, secret passageways, clawed gloves, and a masked killer known only as the Bat.
Released in 1959, The Bat delivers classic black-and-white comfort horror with thunderstorms, creaking hallways, shadowy intruders, and the cozy feeling that someone could appear at the far end of the corridor at any moment. It is the perfect late-summer watch for horror fans already pregaming for Halloween and preparing for the arrival of spooky season.
From Piranha and The Sixth Sense to Lady Killer, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Antropophagus, and The Bat, this week in horror history proves that terror can swim beneath s