I’m as guilty as anyone for bemoaning the ‘same-old shit’ of certain subgenres of horror films. In fact, I’m fairly sure I’ve bemoaned such a thing on this very website (or at least in its previous, Brutal as Hell, guise). I’ve come to realise, however, that if there’s one thing more tiresome than yet another […]
The other day, I had what I feel I can best describe as a uniquely millennial moment. I was watching Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo & Juliet for the first time in many years, and it reached the scene in which Dash Mihok’s Benvolio quizzes Leonardo DiCaprio’s Romeo about the sadness that lengthens his hours. Romeo remarks […]
As most readers are no doubt aware by now, Jonathan Demme has died. Taken from us aged 73 from a reported combination of heart disease and cancer, the director, writer, producer and documentarian leaves behind a remarkably varied and illustrious body of work. As can often be the case on these occasions, I come to […]
Back in our Brutal As Hell days, co-editor Keri O’Shea and myself would from time to time forego the conventional review approach in favour of a one-on-one discussion. This is an approach we’ve often favoured when the film in question was already the subject of widespread debate, which it seems fair to say has been […]
By Ben Bussey and Keri O’Shea Sheffield horror festival Celluloid Screams hosted a screening of Kevin Smith’s (how to put this generously) somewhat divisive latest movie Yoga Hosers, starring the writer-director’s daughter Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, who also co-star) in a reprise of their roles from […]
By Keri O’Shea & Nia Edwards-Behi Keri: It’s no great surprise that Herschell Gordon Lewis, pioneer of so many infamous gore and exploitation movies, sustained another life as an advertising guru both before and after the 1960s heyday of his filmmaking career. In a number of ways, his films probably had a similar impact to […]
A lot of the films we cover on the site relate to the great ‘what if?’, the playing out of fantastical scenarios, some more realistic, many supernatural and many fairly impossible if not utterly so – but a genre we rarely get asked to cover is the disaster movie. It’s strange that so very few […]
By Karolina Gruschka Going by the artwork and the trailer for VFX artist Torey Haas‘ (V/H/S Viral, Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie) first attempt at directing a feature, I had high hopes for The Neon Dead. I was expecting to see a serious horror film interlaced with comedic elements and a camp sensibility; the […]
By Ben Bussey I’ve reviewed more than my fair share of no-budget horror movies over the years, and it often proves a challenging business. The same complaints come up time and again; horrendous production values frequently render the action almost impossible to follow, and more often than not the subpar writing and acting mean that […]
By Keri O’Shea Well, here’s a blast from the past: if I remember correctly, and that’s a big ‘if’, Return of the Killer Tomatoes was one of the ragtag assemblage of films which seemed to play regularly on my dad’s illegal cable film channel back in the mid-to-late eighties. Between this film, Adventures in Babysitting, […]
By Tristan Bishop “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence” – as first lines go, it’s one of the best. Delivered by a disembodied voice over an image of a pulsing soundwave, the opening narration goes on to warn us about “…this dangerously evil creation, this new breed encased and contained within the supple skin of […]