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By Ben Bussey

I’ve already taken a swipe at the posters and DVD covers of the last 12 months that got it wrong. Now it’s time to celebrate those that got it right, and I’ll admit that’s actually a thornier prospect. Pointing out flaws and mocking them isn’t too challenging, as countless billions of school bullies will profess. Acknowledging strengths and applauding them takes a bit more humility, dignity and – gulp – a degree of taste. So, if I go and praise some posters and others come forward and say they suck, why… people might think I have bad taste! I, who spoke favourably of Sorority Row, Erotibot and A Night in the Woods!

Well, lest I start overthinking shit, I’ll just get right to it. Whilst as we’ve established this has been a bad year in a bad decade for crappy Photoshop posters, this has also been a good year for good ol’ fashioned hand painted posters too. Whilst the neo-grindhouse movement (if we can call it a movement) has resulted in movies of variable quality, most of which are positively doggy-paddling in knowing irony and artifice, it has also resulted in some very nice poster art in the vein of the 70s/80s greats, more than a couple of them down to The Dude Designs. To cite but a few:

Happily, this sentiment has stretched beyond the low-budget indie field:

Okay, some of my affection for these images may be down to nostalgia, but… oh alright, cards on the table, most of it is down to nostalgia. These all look like the VHS covers that caught the eye of so many a fledgling horror fan in video stores worldwide back in the 80s, and indeed still in the 90s. The fact that they’re hand drawn is only part of what makes such film art great. It’s also the framing, the heroic poses, the little hint dropped as to the variety of delights the film may offer: take the images in the centre on Almost Human, and those around the peripheries on Father’s Day, depicting scenes from the films (or so I would assume; of the two I’ve only seen Father’s Day, and was a little on the drunk side at the time, so my recollection is a wee bit hazy. I do clearly recall someone getting their dick bitten off, though I’m not surprised they left that one off the poster). These are images that build a palpable excitement as soon as you lay eyes on them; to look upon them is to taste the popcorn, feel the leather stretch under your backside, feel the surge of anticipation as the lights go down. Whether the films themselves necessarily measure up is secondary – and, to our purposes here, not really that important. Indeed, to date I’ve seen only two of the films above – and of course Frankenstein Created Bikers hasn’t even been made yet – but I’m still anxious to see them all on the strength of this artwork.

Also from the hand-drawn/would-look-great-on-my-wall files (but in promotion of a film which I know for sure is awesome), this lovely little number for John Dies at the End:

Now, these next two might not really count as they weren’t used as official artwork, but they’re hand-drawn, very pretty and brilliantly evoke the spirit of the movies concerned nonetheless: a sweet, Escher-esque take on The Cabin in the Woods and a cool comic-style alternative poster for [REC]3 by Walking Dead illustrator Tony Moore (not that I had a problem with the official artwork used for either film):

But it would be remiss of me to fill this column with nothing but hand-painted efforts. I might badmouth Photoshop, but I still have every confidence that great work can be done through the use of good ol’ fashioned cameras and oh-so modern computers, as these next ones will demonstrate. The methods used are of secondary concern at best so long as they are utilised well, and the concept and image composition are up to scratch.

Case in point: still haven’t seen The ABCs of Death or Dead Shadows, but these posters sure do make them look badass:

Didn’t care much for The Theatre Bizarre, but this is nice and creepy/sexy poster nonetheless:

As I gave Metrodome a hard time over their efforts for Juan of the Dead and The Innkeepers, seems only sporting to note that they can get it right, as they did with The Devil’s Business. While the digital trickery on display is immediately apparent, this time it’s utilised to craft a handsome, enigmatic image which provides a good reflection of the mysterious, atmospheric film therein. (All I object to is that ‘one for fans of Kill List’ bit. Pah.)

Another one that’s clearly done a bit of time in a computerland but come out looking good is this cover for Lovely Molly. Again, it may have quotes and star ratings up the arse, but the central image is arresting enough to make up for it.

And finally – I rather like this Nurse 3D poster. Don’t think I need to elaborate on that.

Agree/disagree with my top picks? Got any others that you think deserve applause/evisceration? Once again, feel free to let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

By Ben Bussey

As we’re getting close to the end of 2012 – and, depending on who you talk to, the end of all life on Earth as we know it – now’s about the right time to reflect on what kind of year it’s been for the horror/cult/trash/insert preferred term here movies that we hold so dear. I don’t know about everyone else, but all things considered I think 2012 has been pretty damn good, with no shortage of films to get excited about, and all of us at Brutal As Hell are looking forward to revisiting the highs and lows in the weeks between now and Christmas/Hannukah/the holidays/Armageddon/insert preferred term here.

To kick things off though, here’s part one of my look back at the film artwork of 2012. Now, I daresay this is one of the most contentious elements of contemporary cinema overall. Most of us agree that standards have dropped significantly in recent times, with Photoshopped floating heads taking over where once gorgeous handpainted efforts were the norm. Most perplexing and frustrating, though, are the many recent instances of DVD distributors opting to go with ugly, lazy Photoshop jobs even when great posters already exist. Okay, maybe there are rights issues involved, but even so, surely they can do better than some of these. To start with…

The Innkeepers

An above-average haunted house movie, that had inspired not one but two above-average posters:

Pretty, eh? Yet for the Region 2 DVD release, Metrodome opted to go with… this?

Really? A disembodied, zombie-looking hand hanging over an old hotel bell, against a plain white backdrop? I suppose it sort of relates to the theme of the film, but good grief it’s unsightly. Clearly the design is more interested in highlighting the review quotes than providing an accuarate and attractive representation of the film itself. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with review quotes on a poster or DVD cover, but they shouldn’t detract from the central image, let alone be the focus themselves. And if they must be there, surely they could be in a nicer font.

Juan of the Dead

A character-based film, as the title would suggest. Therefore, we definitely need the character to be the focal point, yes? Hence this reasonably handsome poster:

So what did they come up with for the DVD…?

U!G!L!Y! You ain’t got no alibi! You ugly, ugly DVD cover! Just what substances does one need to be under the influence of for those heads to start looking like they belong on those bodies? How exactly is Juan’s small head casting that massive shadow over his torso? And when have you ever seen anyone hold up a gun in two hands whilst also clutching a machete? Where’s the machete’s handle? Just how big are that lady’s hands? And what’s with the strangely unfazed random chick crowdsurfing the wave of zombie hands in the bottom right? In fact, I’m not even convinced those are zombie hands. I think it’s that tunnel of helping hands from Labyrinth. They’ve broken free, and have made it their mission to ruin as many horror DVD covers as possible. And all because of their shame over groping an underage Jennifer Connolly. But I digress.

We Are The Night

This is an awkward one. Momentum had no shortage of existing posters to draw from, though admittedly none of them were too great in the first place; yet their curious decision was to take these two images…

… and combine them to create this.

What the hell were they thinking? I get it, they want to emphasise the vampirism, which might not be immediately evident from the first image. But to solve that with a trickle of blood under Nina Hoss’s mouth, and to superimpose alternate heads over the other two, tranforming Jennifer Ulrich into Anna Fischer in the process… just wrong.

Cockneys vs. Zombies

Now, in this instance the original theatrical release poster might not have been to all tastes, but it was at least making an effort to do something different and interesting, and play on the film’s London setting in a less than obvious way:

Given that it was a slightly abstract way of selling a pretty straightfoward comedy horror, it’s not surprising Studiocanal opted for a more conventional DVD cover:

Okay, not the worst ever – I certainly don’t object to the emphasis on gun-toting geriatrics Alan Ford and Honor Blackman – but it’s another one suffering from a bad case of superimposed head syndrome. Just look at the visible outline around Harry Treadaway. And what the hell is he meant to be doing with his leg? Resting it on his grandad’s shoulder? It’s so clearly a scene staged within a computer, it lacks any sense of real drama. The framing doesn’t sit right with me, either – and again we’ve got those disembodied Labyrinth hands peeping around the corner, which it seems is now the fallback method of suggesting zombie attack. Hmmph. Not the worst cover art concept, but it went a bit Pete Tong.

And the last bad Photoshop job for now:

Truth or Dare (AKA Truth or Die)

Now, as much as I dislike Photoshopping, I can appreciate there are times when it’s the most convienient option; say, when trying to show a small group of people facing the zombie apocalypse. But really, how hard is it to get four actors tied to chairs in a single room? It’s not bloody hard at all, hence so many films have played on that set-up in recent years, including this one of course. So why the hell couldn’t an actual photo of this ensemble be used? Why, once again, the bleeding obvious superimposed heads that clearly don’t match the lighting in the room? And look at Jennie Jacques in the bottom left: is it just me, or is that a rather unnatural angle she’s holding her head at? Can you comfortably hold your head that far to the left and look ahead of you like she’s meant to be doing there? I mean, it’s not quite contortionism of Society-ish proportions, but still. And that whole ‘spin the bottle’ tagline doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense given their hands are tied behind their backs. Are they meant to use their feet?

EDIT: Just remembered one more shitty hack job I can’t let off the hook; and not for the last time in our look back on 2012…

Okay, well that’s enough of the crap for now. Catch up with me shortly for a look at some of the better movie art 2012 has had to offer – and if you have any particular favourite/least favourite posters and covers you’d like to share, feel free to let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

By Kit Rathenar

There can’t be a horror fan alive who doesn’t know the legend of Dracula. The vampire Count with his black cape, his crumbling castle, his numerous brides and his insatiable thirst for the blood of the living may be the single most iconic figure in all of Western horror. Even people who’ve never read or heard of the book recognise his name and image, and he’s been riffed on, pastiched, and reinterpreted in every direction imaginable. He’s the original, the one and only. It’s probably fair to say that every vampire you’ll ever meet in popular culture is, at one remove or another, indeed a child of Dracula.

And yet, despite the fact that typing “Dracula” into IMDb search gets you well over two hundred exact or partial title hits, it would be hard to claim that there’s ever been a truly definitive film of Bram Stoker’s original novel. While the Cliff Notes version of the plot is engraved on every fan’s memory, each new version takes away or adds something, shifts characters around, reinterprets the dynamics or changes the ending. It’s even more true to say that there’s never been a truly definitive portrayal of Dracula himself – after all, for everyone who hails Bela Lugosi, there’s a Christopher Lee fan waiting in the alley with a stake. Certainly to play Dracula as Stoker wrote him would be a hugely demanding role for any actor. The necessary combination of aristocratic grace, bestial ferocity, old-world eccentricity and dominating charisma is so complex that most attempts have been skewed in favour of one aspect or the other of the Count’s personality, or just descended into outright ham. Indeed, the best portrayals are often found in the looser adaptations – Frank Langella’s beautifully understated rendering in John Badham’s 1979 Dracula is my own favourite, but that’s a version that takes considerable liberties with the plot. To cast the perfect Dracula in a truly faithful presentation of the original novel seems, on the face of it, like an impossible challenge.

Which is why, despite the fact that I was only twelve at the time, I can still remember the excitement when rumours started to leak out about Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. The word went round in a whisper that this was going to be the greatest Dracula ever. The most extravagant, dramatic, spectacular and faithful adaptation the world had ever seen. I wasn’t going to be able to watch it for a few years, of course, but the 18 rating hanging over it just made it more scarily exciting to anticipate. What could Coppola possibly have done to make the classic Victorian tale – that I’d already read when I was barely into double digits – merit a full-on “adults only” sticker?

Well, twenty years down the line, we all know the answer to that one. Contentions that this was going to be a truly book-accurate adaptation turned out to be less than truthful, as Coppola took a repressed and neurotic horror story and turned it into an overcharged, fantastical, and shamelessly bloodsoaked erotic romance. He certainly succeeded in reinventing Dracula for a new generation, however, and the influence of his version can readily be traced all the way through the last twenty years – from the long line of sexualised, visually sumptuous vampire flicks that came out through the nineties and early 2000s, through to blockbusters like Van Helsing with its obvious visual and design nods, even to the surfacing of lines from the movie in metal lyrics and tabletop wargames borrowing the armour designs. For better or worse, Coppola’s Dracula got everywhere.

Much of the credit for the iconic quality of this adaptation has to rest of course with Gary Oldman, who does an extraordinary job of playing one of the most demanding anti-heroes in cinematic history. Coppola’s Vlad Dracula as written is a strangely damaged creature, his emotions and motivations jarringly skipping tracks from one scene to another. In Transylvania, ancient and withered by time, he’s a fawning, almost senile figure enlivened by occasional flashes of deranged fury; in London with Mina, he’s torn between the roles of courtly lover and the affronted prince fighting the desire to simply cut through the emotional red tape and take what he already considers to be his by right. With Lucy, he’s the beast of her secret dreams; when he confronts Van Helsing and his stooges, he’s an out-and-out monster. Faced with this chaotic character to make sense of, Oldman, while he does ham it up at some points, makes a sterling effort and, importantly, manages to retain his dignity when it counts the most. His romance with Winona Ryder’s reserved yet passionate Mina is, character-wise at least, the finest thing about this film by far. Their scenes are unfailingly intense, beautiful and eloquently romantic, arguably the only times when this film manages to be truly profound in its drama. If Twilight is supposed to be the perfect vampire wish-fulfilment fantasy for the modern age, Coppola’s Dracula is a grander, nobler, older version by far. And the plot twist that makes Mina into Dracula’s own beloved Elisabeta reborn only adds to its magic, after the glimpse we’ve seen of the fifteenth-century original – I’ve actually often wished that Coppola would go back and make a prequel based on the events that we see briefly in the movie’s opening flashback. Short though it is, it’s breathtakingly evocative, and hugely adds to the sense of scale and scope that the narrative possesses.

Indeed, truth be told, the leading couple are set off so magnificently against the backdrop of the supporting cast that I almost suspect Coppola of deliberately directing everyone else so as to peel our sympathies away from them all. For Dracula and Mina stand alone, as the only characters who haven’t been sabotaged by either the script or their own performances. Anthony Hopkins’s scenery-chewing Van Helsing takes the novel’s eccentric but compassionate professor and turns him into a cheerful sociopath who seems to have no awareness at all of the distress he causes with his outrageous words and actions. Seward, Morris and Holmwood, three men who in the novel all carry themselves with an almost painful level of dignity, spend their first few appearances falling figuratively (and literally in Seward’s case) over their own feet; and the less said about Keanu Reeves’s wet-behind-the-ears, damn near castrated rendition of Jonathan Harker the better, since a great deal has been said already by others. Sadie Frost’s Lucy is portrayed as a nymphomaniac nymphet whose scandalous demeanour ruins any sense that this is set in the real Victorian era, though I fault the script for that rather than her performance; Frost, despite a sometimes glassy-eyed demeanour, does her absolute best with what must have been a role as embarrassing to play as it is to watch.

And yet, despite all of this actorial shambling, Dracula somehow remains a glorious film. Aside from Oldman and Ryder’s show-saving joint performance, the cinematography and visual direction alone set this movie head and shoulders above the common herd. It hasn’t dated for the very simple reason that it’s put together out of techniques stolen from across almost a hundred years of filmmaking; practically all the effects are done in-camera, making Dracula effectively the Viking funeral of vintage special effects before the example of Jurassic Park sent everyone off down the CGI rabbithole. It was a daring decision on Coppola’s part to take the cutting edge of filmmaking and shove it up the studio’s arse (ouch) but it was absolutely the right one. The lush, dreamy, gothic visuals of this film would almost certainly have been spoiled, not to mention instantly dated, by the CGI of the time, but shooting them in the old style ties this film smoothly back into the atmosphere of its predecessors all the way back to the days of Bela Lugosi, making this a visual treat for fans of classic horror rather than a betrayal of their traditions. It’s a film I find endlessly inspirational, filling my head up with swirling images and half-captured ideas every time I watch it. No matter how cynical I can be when I’m sitting down and commenting on it after the fact, when I’m there in the moment I’m enchanted every time.

Indeed, it’s arguably more impressive for a film to be so flawed and yet so magical, than it would be for it to be merely perfect. Happy birthday Dracula – many, MANY happy returns.

By Ben Bussey

Gather round young ‘uns, and I shall spin ye a tale of Halloween night some twenty years past… yes, it’s another one of those retrospectives based in childhood reminiscence. What can I say? Writing this shit down and posting it on the internet is considerably cheaper and more convenient than psychotherapy. Anyway, given that I seem to have been one of the few original viewers of this notorious bit of TV history that did not require therapy afterwards – even though I was considerably younger and as such obviously so much more impressionable and susceptible than the many adult viewers who were so appalled by what they saw – I daresay my perspective on this matter might be worth something.

Halloween 1992 fell on a Saturday. I was 12 years old, clad in a hastily assembled zombie costume of sorts with streaks of my mum’s reddest lipstick crusting on my cheeks, and was hosting what I would optimistically class as a Halloween party; after all, what says ‘party’ like six or seven 12 year olds sitting in a living room drinking cola, eating crisps and playing Atmosfear? But not long after 9pm, all gameplay and tomfoolery was called to a halt as we flicked to BBC1 to watch what I told my friends was a drama about ghosthunting. Within moments they were telling me I was wrong, and that this was a real, live programme. It was cutting between a TV studio set and what appeared to be a real suburban house, and it had familiar TV presenters in it: long-established BBC stalwart Michael Parkinson, real-life couple Sarah Greene and Mike Smith, and Craig Charles, still our hero back in the days when Red Dwarf was good. They were all referred to by their real names, and were speaking directly to camera. The sound and camera crew often stumbled into shot. Perhaps most significantly for us at the time, the BBC phone number 081 811 8181, instantly recognisable to any child of the 90s from Saturday morning show Going Live (on which Greene was a host), was frequently being flashed up on screen inviting viewers to call in. It had to be real, my friends insisted. I proceeded to pick up that week’s Radio Times, in which Ghostwatch was the cover story, and flicked to the feature within the magazine which made it clear that the programme was scripted, pre-shot and 100% fictitious. No doubt I also proceeded to lambast my peers for not having the common sense and decency to read the Radio Times. Yep, I was a master of social graces even then.

However, perhaps I wasn’t vocal enough. Maybe I should have gone out into the streets and shouted out, “cool it everybody, Ghostwatch is just pretend; now take it easy and enjoy it!” Unfortunately, a few too many people did precisely the opposite. They believed that what they were watching was actually happening – not necessarily a problem for the first forty-five minutes or so, in which not a great deal of note happens. But then, in the parlance of our times, shit gets real. (Or not, as the case may be.) Weird noises from nowhere. Pictures flying off the walls. Scratches showing up all over the faces of the kids, and unnerving, unnatural voices coming from the kids’ mouths. Fleeting glimpses of someone or something who shouldn’t have been there; the sinister presence known only as Pipes.

Once the batshit finale gave way to a simple end credits sequence and BBC1 continued their evening’s programming as if nothing had happened, one can only imagine the split reactions. Many, like myself, were left exhilarated by 90 minutes of highly effective supernatural entertainment, and proceeded to flick over to BBC2 where a whole night of horror movies was lined up; ah, what a great night of TV that was. Alas, thousands more viewers were left feeling somewhat less cheery. On realising Ghostwatch had been scripted after all, many felt betrayed and humiliated. Others apparently went on believing it actually had been for real. And – of course – a buttload of the most uppity and self-righteous ones called the BBC and any/all media outlets at their disposal, and complained as loudly as possible.

What a lot of absolute pillocks we have in Britain. (Well, I shouldn’t be surprised really; they’d just voted John Major back in earlier that same year.)

Revisting Ghostwatch in 2012 is a curious experience. On the one hand it’s a time capsule of early 90s Britain, still caught in an 80s hangover a few years before that whole Cool Britainnia nonsense swept the nation, with countless relics of the era scattered here and there: shoulder pads under Sarah Greene’s T-shirt, Jason Donovan and MC Hammer posters on the girls’ bedroom wall, and what I think is a Commodore Amiga hooked up to the TV. On the other hand, it’s also a piece of drama that’s rather ahead of its time given the form and content. It was broadcast seven years before The Blair Witch Project hit cinemas, and well over fifteen years before the term ‘found footage’ became part of the venacular (and not long thereafter a dirty word for many). Subsequently it might not have aged all that well, but at the time it was truly unlike anything many viewers, myself included, had experienced before. Knowing it was not ‘real’ did not, and indeed does not diminish its power in any way.

In any case, it’s not like Ghostwatch adds up to 90 minutes of utterly naturalistic drama. Some of the performances are pretty stagey, not least those of the two children; I mean, who’d be sitting around reading a magazine or changing into their pyjamas when there are TV cameras right in front of you? More to the point, since when was being enthralled by a horror movie or a ghost story contingent on believing it was real, anyway? That extra dash of verisimilitude just gives the action a bit of an edge, making the viewer that bit more receptive; lulling us to play along as though we really do believe what we’re seeing, much as how we might enter a ghost train or haunted house show knowing full well that it’s all staged but on some level allowing ourselves to make believe that it’s for real. And let’s face it: no one has ever picked up a copy of, say, Dracula, Carrie or World War Z – all of which take an epistolary form not entirely dissimilar to that of Ghostwatch – and mistaken them for actual historical memoirs, have they? And even if they did, have we ever heard them demanding such books be banned (for that reason at least)?

Unfortunately, a few too many pompous, miserable bastards did not take Ghostwatch in the spirit it was intended. For a taste of how hostile the reaction was (whipped up, as ever, by our beloved tabloid media), look no further than this panel show in which producers Ruth Baumgarten and Richard Brooke defend the programme against an audience of uptight fuckwits who are out to crucify them. If the attitudes on display there don’t make your blood boil, I don’t know what will. It should pretty much tell you all you need to know that these people knowingly allowed their children to watch a show that was broadcast after 9pm without bothering to read up about it first, yet feel no culpability whatsoever for how their children subsequently reacted. Well, once again, I was 12 years old at the time, I knew it wasn’t real, and I enjoyed it. Does that count for anything?

Unfortunately, the British news media can’t sell something if it doesn’t have an air of quasi-apocalyptic despair to it, hence Ghostwatch was written up as huge, cruel and irresponsible joke on the part of the BBC. Most heinously it was cited as the reason behind a young man’s suicide – despite the fact that, as writer Stephen Volk has long since emphasised, “the coroner at the inquest did not even mention the drama.” (Incidentally, his look back at the furore at the link above is well worth a read for detailing the length and breadth of Ghostwatch’s legacy.) Subsequently, although it is available on DVD it has never been repeated on British television, and apparently remains to this day something of a no-go area for the BBC. Still, I should think they’ve got rather bigger worries hanging on their shoulders at this moment in time…

20 years on, the landscape of television and the horror genre are somewhat different. Ghosthunting shows are now many, their veracity scarcely being an issue in their popularity, as Annie recently discussed. The content of TV in general is now a lot less restricted, and the concept of the 9pm watershed more commonly accepted; these days we’re well used to late night TV shows filled with blood, guts, tits, cocks, drugs, and people calling each other fucking cunts, and as such we can be forgiven for finding Ghostwatch a wee bit tame by comparison. On top of which, I find it highly unlikely such a programme could inspire quite the same reaction now, given that so many of us are prone to live-tweeting our thoughts on TV shows as they happen and Googling anything we see that raises a question the very moment that question comes to mind.

If we can disregard the question of whether Ghostwatch duped viewers and instead simply consider the programme as a piece of TV drama, there is much to appreciate. It’s certainly not short of flaws; as previously stated, the acting is variable, it’s sometimes a little overreliant on obvious jump scares, and not all of the key players are given much to do, with Mike Smith and especially Craig Charles generally feeling like fifth wheels. But in the midst of this, Ghostwatch does also raise some interesting questions on the subject of parapsychology, conveying points from both the side of the sceptic, embodied by the stoic Parkie and the blasé Charles, and that of the believer embodied by Greene and Gillian Bevane’s parapsychologist; which, knowingly or unknowingly, gives proceedings a perhaps somewhat cliched gender-based divide, particularly given the inhabitants of the haunted house are all female, abandoned by a similarly sceptical husband/father. There are also some intriuging suggestions as to what form the supernatural might take in the information age, particularly in the wonderfully outlandish ‘ghost in the machine’ climax.

Perhaps above all else for the devoted horror fan, Ghostwatch reminds us of the importance of being open to different and potentially interesting modes of storytelling. Yes, a great many of us (myself included) have long since fallen out of love with found footage, and not without justification; but in the right hands, a pseudo-documentary approach can prove highly effective for cooking up scares, as Ghostwatch demonstrates. The trick isn’t that the makers are deceiving the audience; it’s that the audience is ready and willing to be deceived, and within a fantastical context confront those tantalising and/or terrifying “what if?” questions, for 90 minutes or so at least. And what better time is there for that than the night of October 31st?

So, Happy Halloween to all, and to all a good night. Listen out for any strange noises in the witching hour; and be sure to keep a close eye on the cupboard under the stairs…

by Stephanie Scaife

1987 was a good year to be a vampire. In October, just a few months after the release of The Lost Boys, Kathryn Bigelow’s vampire western hybrid Near Dark was unleashed on cinema screens across the US. Although initially doing poorly at the box office, Near Dark was well received by critics and has gone on to become a cult classic and a film that is often heralded as the first non-gothic vampire picture. Gone are the crucifixes, holy water and stakes; here instead we have an ancient RV and an endless desert landscape with not a castle or cave in sight. Our disparate band of vampires rely more on weapons, ammo and straight-up brawling than any sort of supernatural powers or fangs, and the word “vampire” is actually never used in the film,; but the one ever constant threat that remains true to the roots of the mythology is the threat of the sun, hence the title Near Dark. Bigelow even took the actors away for a vampire boot camp before they started shooting where she would time them blacking out a room, using anything from tinfoil to duct tape (apparently with them getting down from 5 minutes to 30 seconds), which is a useful skill if you’re supposed to be a vampire living in the sun bleached Arizona desert.

I have endless amounts of respect for Kathryn Bigelow, as not only is she a woman working in a very male dominated industry but she is also making genre films (Near Dark, Strange Days), a war film (Hurt Locker), not to mention a homoerotic foray into action movies (Point Break); something that you don’t often, if ever, see from female filmmakers. In fact Bigelow has said that she had real trouble securing financing for Near Dark due to that fact that the studio wasn’t sure a woman could make a horror film. She was given the task to prep the film and shoot for the first 3 days and if she wasn’t up to scratch then the producers going to take her off the project and replace her with a more bankable director. Luckily for us, she more than stepped up to the mark and as a result we have one of the best vampire films ever made.

It wasn’t until a friend recommended Strange Days to me, a fantastically dark dystopian film that has been criminally overlooked and underappreciated, that I started to seek out Bigelow’s other films. Near Dark was her first solo outing as a director, having previously co-directed The Loveless with Monty Montgomery, and it remains her best work in my opinion. Aided in great part by the cinematography of Adam Greenberg (The Terminator), creating a noir-ish aesthetic that ensures that almost every shot looks like a work of art; not an easy task when shooting almost entirely at night and whilst capturing Bigelow’s desire to make a western perfectly, right down to the tumbleweeds and a final showdown. The combining of the two genres, that of the western and the horror film, creates a fantastic opportunity as a filmmaker to be visually and thematically striking. The vampire subtext in itself is almost seen as a complication in what is at its roots the age old love story where two young people are unable to be together due to familial complications.

Near Dark is about Caleb (Adrian Pasdar), a naive Midwestern farm boy who comes across the beautiful Mae (Jenny Wright) and is instantly smitten with this apparent ingénue, although appearances can be deceiving, as Caleb soon finds out. As it would happen Mae doesn’t take too kindly to sunlight and needs to consume human blood to survive, and after giving Caleb a little love bite, he too starts to turn. Confused, injured and literally about to be burned alive, Caleb stumbles home across the fields towards his family farm only to be swept up into the RV along with Mae and her extended family led by Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein) and Jesse (Lance Henricksen). Along with Mae this gang of vamps also includes the psychopathic Severn (Bill Paxton, in perhaps a career defining performance) and Homer (Joshua Miller), a 40 year old vampire trapped in the body of a child.

Mae is the youngest having been turned by Homer, and clearly he feels that he has some sort of ownership of her, meaning that the arrival of Caleb instantly causes some rifts within the previously solid family unit, especially as he is so reluctant to make his first kill and fully turn: a common theme throughout the genre, that is in this instance firmly grounded in the ultra realism of the film and hinges on a pivotal scene, the now famous bar brawl. This scene is 10 minutes of almost entirely flawless filmmaking and if there were ever any doubts that Bigelow could do this movie then they are completely quashed here. In fact a lot of filmmakers could learn a thing or two from Bigelow, there is nothing in this scene that isn’t needed. It’s tight, the dialogue is sharp (although heavily improvised by Bill Paxton after he got sick and was given B12 injections – which perhaps aided Severn’s manic persona) and don’t let it ever be said that female filmmakers can’t do horror because it’s about as visceral and violent as you’re likely to see. It is pure bravura that pays off exponentially, guaranteeing Near Dark’s place within the cult canon, not to mention the excellent use of Fever by The Cramps.

This scene is also pivotal for Caleb and it’s a turning point for his character. His Faustian pact becomes increasingly appealing and although horrified by the actions of himself and those around him he starts to relish in the violence and imagine the possibilities of eternal life. A shot to the gut being nothing more than a minor inconvenience for him and it becomes, for all intents and purposes, his indoctrination into the family. This scene also perfectly sets up our characters for their own individual downfalls: Severn in all his reckless glory as he lives solely for the fulfilment of what it means to be a vampire, Diamondback with her assumed maternal role is just as dangerous as the others, Jesse is the clear leader and alpha male who ensures that nothing harms his pack at any cost, Mae is the beautiful seductress, and Homer is the wildcard, infinitely frustrated at forever being a child and treated as such. You know things aren’t going to end well, but for the duration of this scene you are rooting for these anti-heroes and relishing in the chaos along with them.

One of the strongest aspects of Near Dark, and a smart move in terms of writing is that it takes itself very seriously. There is no self-awareness, it’s played entirely straight, and although often funny at times, the lack of in-jokes, nods and winks etc. really pays off and you believe the unbelievable. It invents its own mythology, although borrows from both Bram Stoker and Anne Rice, and as it’s played more like a straight up western the supernatural element, the vampirism is more of a subtext, and like many vampire films of the 80s it’s often paralleled with addiction. These vamps are outcasts, living on the fringes and feeding, literally, from society. At its core Near Dark is a Western, and what Bigelow does is take this particular ideology, which is oftentimes very consistent and instantly recognisable, and she turns it on its head by introducing the vampire element, creating a transgressive reconfiguration of the genre. The traditional Western is characterised by its celebration of the American dream, and here it is transformed into something that is full of death and decay.

Released to cash in on the October Halloween market, Near Dark was like the indie cousin to The Lost Boys’ widespread release. Perhaps it was just a little ahead of its time. But looking back it still holds up today and its subsequent influence on the genre is widespread. There has been a massive resurgence in the vampire genre in recent years, what with the popularity of True Blood and Twilight, but 1987 is where it’s truly at if you really want to experience the best contemporary interpretations of the vampire mythology.

by Dustin Hall

“What is blood for, if not for shedding?”

This year saw not only the 25th anniversary of Hellraiser, but also the 20th anniversary of another Clive Barker creation, Candyman. The two are not, by any means, on equal footing, and it is daunting, in some ways, to do a retrospective on the pair so close to each other, when Pinhead became such a transcendent, timeless force, and Candyman has drifted into such a humble holding pattern in pop-culture.

However, to say Candyman is without any impact would be to do it a disservice. Based upon the short story The Forbidden, it was released back in 1992 to some critical acclaim, gained two sequels, and has continued to earn the respect of film fans across the decades.

At this point, the film is loaded with nostalgia, and film connections missed in the original watching. The opening features the old Tri-Star Pegasus logo, and some awkward practical effects of bees swarming over an entire city. Ted Raimi makes an appearance as a hopelessly miscast motorcycle riding bad boy, come to use his beguiling charms on the flattest starlet in recent memory (surely, what separates a 90’s film from an 80’s one). The score is fantastically Carpenter-esque, full of chanting choirs and organs piping, and there are even a couple instances of people yelling ‘psych!’ to punctuate their jokes. Ahh, so 90’s.

But, despite the foibles of the era and the turning of time, Candyman still holds its own as a story. It features Virginia Madsen (Dune) as a college graduate who is studying the lasting nature of folklore and superstition on modern society. In particular, she has a fascination with the Candyman, a legend much like Bloody Mary, an urban myth which has a particular power amongst the local population. Her investigations lead her to find that the myth has a connection to the notorious Cabrini-Green, an actual slum that, until 2011, was actually located in the North of Chicago, and was known for gang violence and terrible living conditions. Virginia finds that the Candyman, a figure with a terrible past and a fearful, vengeful spirit, may really inhabit Cabrini-Green, and her meddling has set his attentions upon her.

The best horror films tend to reflect certain personal truths and real-world terrors in their otherwise fantastical settings. The ghettos, in this case, hold as much threat and terror as the Candyman himself, and many of the characters are lucky that the only pains suffered from the gangs they encounter are black eyes and bruised egos. Likewise, Clive Barker has always been good at making stories that are relatable and analogous to some much more cerebral concept. Candyman is no exception, tying in with the familiar concept of urban myths. Candyman’s mirror transport powers are much like Bloody Mary’s and his deformed hand is much like the hook-handed man of so many tales. The power of those stories comes, typically, from some sort of truthful occurrence, or gains power from an association with a real place. The filmmakers, by using the real Cabrini-Green as an inspiration for Candyman’s origins, have given him an enduring life in the real world, with chat boards and forums speculating that the urban legend is a real, centuries old legend, rather than something from one of Barker’s short stories. The Candyman has left the film, and become a real legend after all.

And why not? The Candyman, though a simple villain in appearance, is hauntingly portrayed by Tony Todd (Hatchet), and with nothing more than a pimpin’ coat, a metal hook, and a bit of voice modulation, he leaves a lasting impression. Well, maybe a bit more than that. I mean, he’s got bees in his mouth. BEES! IN HIS MOUTH! All those bees don’t stop Candyman from dropping some extremely poetic one liners, though, or from letting out some downright sexual grunts and he hooks people from groin to grin.

With all of this quality up on the screen, its hard to believe that Candyman never became as potent of a franchise as Hellraiser, or so many other slashers out there. But unlike Freddy and Pinhead, Candyman never had a sequel that was up to snuff. His returns simply diminished too quickly. Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh moved the legend to Louisiana, and was a serviceable but mediocre sequel. The less said about Candyman 3, the better. For most, his tale remains a one-shot, isolated in time, and without its anchor, now that Cabrini-Green no longer stands to give credence to the legend. But Clive Barker has mentioned that he has interest in reacquiring the rights to Candyman for a revival. Maybe in 25 years time, we’ll be celebrating that landmark with a comparison between the first and fourth films. Maybe the Candyman’s legend is not yet done.

by Dustin Hall

It’s been spoken about in hushed, excited whispers. For months, Las Vegas visitors and residents have been watching black sheets and saw blades perched along the top of the Planet Hollywood Casino, waiting for The Goretorium to open its doors. All that anticipation is finally ready to be met, as Eli Roth’s pet project, a high-end, year round haunted house, opens its doors to horror hounds and their relentless thirst for frights and gory fun. “Slaughter on the Strip,” its ads proclaim; “You’re Fucked.”

I was lucky enough to get into the preview night of this event last weekend. How lucky? Well, over 1,000 people were waiting in a line extending outside of Planet Hollywood to get into the place. Only a couple hundred of us were able to get in to see Roth chainsaw open the doors for the first time, literally, and see the sights. Since then, a good number of reporters and celebrities have made their way through the malicious maze, but the common folk remain in the dark. This week will see the venue open proper, with anyone able to take a tour.

At $40 a pop, $60 VIP, the Goretorium is a bit more expensive than your typical haunted house, though not ridiculously so. Yeah, the cheap crap places are about $20, but the better houses are $30 or more already, so it seems reasonable. And what’s it like inside? Well, I can’t give away all the surprises, but I can say that what you’re really paying for is production value. The Goretorium doesn’t have a lot of things, in principle, that other houses don’t have. They’re not reinventing the wheel. You’ll still find a lot of people screaming, air guns, dark halls, rotating tunnels and tight spaces. It’s the usual fare. But what the Goretorium offers is production value. Your slightly inflated ticket fee pays for quality make-up job on the cast members, richly detailed sets with custom construction, and a large cast of characters, running madly through the maze.

What’s the big deal about the production value? Well, compare the Goretorium to Vegas’s other big horror attraction, the Fright Dome. The dome happens every Halloween, when Circus Circus transforms the Adventuredome amusement park into a massive haunted house, with rides going all night, and five-ish mazes spread throughout. It may sound amazing, but the mazes offer little. Each is a series of isolated rooms, each connected by walls covered in black trash bags, each sparsely decorated, each with one guy hiding in a corner, ready to pop out and say BOO! or whatever. And all of them have a chainsaw guy at the end. All of them. I know the sound is scary guys, but come on, its predictable. Overall, its a lame experience, it feels really cheap. In past years, the reason to go has been to find the one celebrity sponsored maze and enjoy that, like when Saw took over a couple years ago.

So, by comparison, the Goretorium has a fully realized set, with a narrative about the hellish Delmont Hotel to back it. There are no sparse rooms to be found, and indeed the room at the finale is full of crazed character, an orgy of blood that was quite impressive. Its worth it just to go in and see what kind of scares can be drudged up with such deep pockets, instead of having to rely on Wal-mart make-up kits, strobe lights, and thrift store furniture.

That said, I currently wouldn’t go through the Goretorium more than once or twice. The maze is cool, but not any longer than any other house, and while the beginning and end of the experience were really interesting and unique, most of the real meat of the experience is pretty typical to haunted houses, just with prettier trappings. Also, while the house has a narrative, it’s actually executed fairly weakly. All the sets follow the theme pretty well, but the characters we’re introduced to in the hallways were unseen during my walkthrough, and all the crazies running about inside seem unrelated to Roth’s vision of the story. So, for a place set to run year round, that seems like a problem.

Happily, the plan at the moment seems to be for Roth to continually find new ideas, and make seasonal changes to the maze, in order to find new and more impressive scares. If that’s true, then I’ll certainly find reasons to go back, just to see the new additions, and hope that the innovations that open and close the experience eventually spread throughout, bringing new surprises and shocks found nowhere else.

So, there it is, a new Vegas highlight for the tourists, but now one that caters specifically to horror fans, starving in this city for a few more attractions. Maybe nothing new to the haunted house genre, but just for the effort, the sheer visual, visceral quality in the venue, a worthy attraction, and one I’m happy to recommend.

Update: here are some stills from opening week, courtesy of the official Goretorium Facebook page.

by Nia Edwards-Behi

CAUTION: Contains spoilers.

Independently made on a tiny budget, Carnival of Souls is the sole feature film directed by educational and industrial filmmaker Herk Harvey. A weird little film, it was instantly forgotten on its B-release in 1962. However, it has since rightfully gained a cult appeal, playing festivals and having received several home entertainment releases. Although admittedly rough around the edges, it predates Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead by six years as a masterclass in suspense, shocks and genuine terror. 50 years on, why is Carnival of Souls still so incredibly frightening?

Music plays a key role in the film. Carnival of Souls’ lead character, Mary, is an organist. The film is scored by Gene Moore, and organ music pervades the entire film. Indeed, by the end of the film’s slim running time the instrument has been so incessant that it’s easy to dismiss it as irritating. The organ music, however, is central to not only the story, but to what makes it so damn creepy. Organ music is inherently quite creepy, and has a rich horror movie history, associated with characters like the Phantom of the Opera and Dr. Phibes. There’s a duality to the way the music is used in Carnival of Souls. On the one hand, the music is associated with religion, as Mary gets work as a church organist. Almost conversely, the music is also entertainment, as the organ is so readily associated with the pier its amusements. Importantly, we only ever see these places as empty – Mary rehearses to an empty church, and the pier is wholly abandoned, aside from its ghosts…

Carnival of Souls doesn’t really have a ‘villain’ per se, but if it has a monster, for much of the film it might be The Man. Played by the director himself, The Man appears to Mary throughout the film, scaring her senseless, and seeming to lead her along an unseen path that leads to her fate. He’s creepy because he’s unknown – who is he? What is he? Why is he appearing to Mary? What does he want? He is only threatening because he is unknown – it’s never wholly clear if he means to harm Mary. The look of him is so simple: pale, pale skin, dark piercing eyes, anonymous suit. He’s so clearly human, and yet…clearly not. He’s really quite uncanny, which is far more frightening than a more obviously monstrous monster. If The Man is creepy because he is unknowable, then the Ghouls who accompany him are somehow even creepier. They are free of intent, drifting in whatever plane of existence they inhabit.

If The Man and the Ghouls are uncanny, then Mary herself is uncannier still. Carnival of Souls is not a simple ‘she was dead all along!’ story. She begins the film in a should-have-been-fatal car accident, then she interacts with people and leaves traces of herself before being dredged up as a corpse when the car is eventually found. Throughout the film she encounters people who cannot see or hear her, and has whole episodes in a state of unbeing. A sequence toward the film’s end reveals itself to have been a dream, but it’s probably the film’s most terrifying, and, regardless of its position as a dream sequence, still entirely accurate to Mary’s experience. Ultimately, it’s the notion of being invisible to the world that’s most terrifying in the film, not the ghouls or strange men that lurk around Mary. More ultimately still, the film is simply about death, or rather, the fear of it. As Mary in the end literally disappears, and is pulled from the river she crashed into at the film’s opening a corpse, we see the whole film has been about her desperate, futile attempt to cling to life.

The film is currently in the public domain, so if you haven’t seen it, get to the Internet Archive, download it, and feast your eyes and ears on one of horror’s creepiest gems.

Alternatively – watch it right here! Crank up the sound, hit full screen and dim the lights…

by Ben Bussey

It’s no accident that the words ‘cheap’ and ‘nasty’ so often go hand in hand. Horror is perhaps the one film genre which can be done on an ultra-low budget without damaging its chances of reaching a wide audience (well, there’s also porn, but let’s not get into that now). Indeed, it can be argued that the roots of most modern independent cinema are in horror, with the likes of Night of the Living Dead, The Evil Dead and more recently The Blair Witch Project providing not only a creative template but also a business model for generations of cash-strapped filmmakers. However, this has long proved to be something of a double-edged sword. Many inexperienced filmmakers do not approach the genre as fans, but simply as an access point into the film industry. Certainly, there are instances when this approach has paid off – by all accounts Sam Raimi didn’t like horror at all before making The Evil Dead – but more often than not it results in tedious, formulaic dross, the likes of which so often threatens to drown the marketplace. Too many filmmakers and distributors seem to view horror as nothing more than a licence to sell crap, and by extension view genre fans as uncultured, undiscerning numbskulls who’ll happily snap up anything with a bit of sadism in it. (And that perception extends into the popular consciousness, as demonstrated recently by a jawdroppingly awful excuse for journalism at a supposedly upmarket website, which I will not deign to link to here…)

As much as I hate to say it, I can’t help feeling things have only gotten worse this past decade. The digital age has of course brought many tremendous advantages, allowing fledgling filmmakers to massively reduce their budgets and production time, and Blair Witch, 28 Days Later and Paranormal Activity proved that films shot that way can make crazy money. But – and this a big but – the aesthetics of DV leave so much to be desired. The debate rages on as to whether shooting on film will soon be a thing of the past, and I’m sure it will continue to rage on for some time; I look forward to seeing Keanu Reeves’ new documentary on the subject. I’m nowhere near technically knowledgeable enough to contribute to that debate, but so far as I’m concerned one simple fact remains: unless you’re using the absolute top of the range stuff, digital simply does not look anywhere near as good as film, and I get the feeling that’s not going to change.

Then, of course, there’s that key underlying problem with how DV enables anyone with access to a camcorder and a PC to create their own films: the fact that a great many so-called filmmakers don’t have the first clue what they’re doing. I don’t wish to seem elitist or undemocratic, but seriously – a lot of the people out there making films today are simply not cut out for it. I think I can speak for just about everyone in the horror critic community when I say there are few moments I dread more than when the latest no-budget screener lands on my doorstep. Nine times out of ten it’ll have some mindnumbingly prosaic title, and a logline cut-and-pasted from Chain Saw/Dawn of the Dead/I Spit On Your Grave/Blair Witch/delete as applicable. Before you’ve even hit play every fibre of your being is warning you that it’s going to be beyond awful, and very rarely does that feeling prove wrong. A small part of me is tempted to name and shame every bargain basement abomination I’ve had to endure in my tenure at Brutal As Hell, but I’m not sure I have the emotional strength to undertake such a task. And anyway, believe it or not, I don’t write about films because I want to bitch about how terrible everything is; I do it to share with others my own excitement when I happen upon something cool.

And this is the problem with modern microbudget horror: once we’ve endured more than a few of the aforementioned festering piles of elephant shit, it can result in a knee-jerk reaction when approaching other digitally-shot films. It can become hard to see past the wobbly camerawork and flat sound mix, and to appreciate those comparatively rare occassions on which a microbudget horror film actually brings real skill, passion, intelligence and wit to the table. Every once in a while, if you look hard enough, you might even find they’re doing something genuinely new and different. Isn’t that what we look for in independent film overall: a unique perspective and aesthetic that we don’t get from the glossy, overpriced mainstream?

With this in mind, here are what I consider to be some of the best digitally shot microbudget horror films of the past five years, listed in descending order of production cost. They stand as proof that even in the cut-price section we can find real filmmaking craft and ingenuity. None of them are flawless, and certainly none of them will be to all tastes (as if any horror film ever has been); but all of them are different, and anyone looking to pick up a DV camcorder and get to work on their own macabre masterpiece would do well to take note of them all. 

Absentia (Mike Flanagan, 2011)
Production budget: $70,000

This one was a really pleasant surprise earlier this year. Funded through Kickstarter, Mike Flanagan’s low-key supernatural chiller works for the simple fact that it has good actors, good writing and good direction. The premise may be reminscent of J-horror, but the film is wise enough not to ape that style, doing its own thing in a simple and understated fashion. Low on special effects and obvious scare tactics, Absentia’s most powerful attributes are Katie Parker and Courtney Bell, whose brilliant performances drive the film. And Flanagan clearly knew the film needed these actresses above all else, as he rejigged the script to work in the fact that Bell was heavily pregnant at the time of shooting; a wise move indeed.

Read my full review here.

Blood Car (Alex Orr, 2007)
Production budget: $25,000

Proof positive that it is possible for a modern horror film to be largely based around environmental and political concerns without being all preachy, po-faced and humourless about it. In fact, it’s possible to do that and still deliver all the schlock, gore and gratuitous nudity that genre fans know and love. Yes, Alex Orr’s film has its cake and eats it too. It’s helped considerably by above average performances from Mike Brune, Katie Rowlett and Anna Chlumsky, but the wit of the direction and writing really lifts it above the pack. The practical gore ain’t bad either.

Read my full review here.

Small Town Folk (Peter Stanley-Ward, 2007)
Production budget: £4,000 (approx US$6,500)

At a glance, Small Town Folk seems like nothing more than another backwoods hillbilly horror, but it takes the concept in a really quite unexpected direction, giving that time-honoured Hills Have Eyes set-up a surprisingly upbeat, action-adventure flavour. And on a microbudget, no less. Peter Stanley-Ward’s film is also particularly noteworthy for making a real virtue of its lo-fi aesthetics; much of it is shot in the Sin City style on blue screen with digitally imposed backdrops, which lends a suitably otherwordly, cartoonish feel to proceedings.

Read my full review at B Through Z.

Dead Hooker in a Trunk (Jen & Sylvia Soska, 2009)
Production budget: $2,500

I rather doubt this film or its writer-directors require any introduction at this point. However, I’ll be the first to admit that on seeing the film at its world premiere over two years ago, I was initially dismissive of it, owing largely to that knee-jerk reaction to DV that I spoke of earlier. It was only when I took a step back that I realised just how much Dead Hooker In A Trunk breaks with conventional wisdom. Where so many first-time filmmakers restrict their action to a single location and a minimal cast, the Soskas keep things moving at all times, hopping locations as gleefully as they cross genre boundaries. Once again, good writing and acting really saves the day, but it certainly doesn’t hurt that there are stunts and special effects which are significantly above average for films made at this budgetary level, not to mention how good CJ Wallis’ soundtrack is.

Read my full review here.

Cockhammer (Kevin Strange, 2009)
Production budget: $500

Given that the very first shot of this film is a woman’s naked breasts, and within two minutes said woman is being bloodily beaten to death, you’d be forgiven for thinking Cockhammer was just another sick, juvenile piece of trash. Well… actually, Cockhammer is another sick, juvenile piece of trash, but it also sports some of the sharpest, funniest and most mind-bogglingly verbose writing I’ve come across in recent years. It’s no mean feat to get an amateur cast to deliver this kind of ridiculously overloaded, expletive-ridden dialogue at a machine gun pace, without faltering or corpsing – sample line: “I swear to God Gert, I don’t know what’s worse, sitting here in this cold damp room waiting to be butchered on film by a fucking lunatic, or the fact that I haven’t had a hard dick in my ass, mouth or vag in hours!” – but Kevin Strange and his ensemble manage to make it seem effortless. Even if you don’t care for the ultra-low brow mish-mash of weed, dick and fart jokes, you have to acknowledge the skill with which it is executed.

Read my full review at B Through Z.

Colin (Marc Price, 2008)
Production budget: £45 (approx US$70)

Few films of recent years have surprised me as much as this one. First of all, it’s hard to believe there haven’t been more zombie films in which the central protagonist is a zombie; secondly, when you hear a film was made for such a pittance, you certainly don’t expect something as intense, atmospheric and artful as Marc Price’s film proves to be. Colin is another film which makes a virtue of its lo-fi production value, boosting the sense of intimacy, and demonstrating that you don’t need to go the found footage route to justify shooting on DV (a lesson that should not go unheeded). And the most vital thing Colin can teach any would-be filmmakers: if you’re going to cast your friends, try to have friends who are as good at acting as Alistair Kirton. Great performances, great scripts: the cheapest special effects of all.

Read my full review here.