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By Ben Bussey

Oh joy, time to play that oh-so painfully over-familiar tune once again. Seems like every damn time I dare to have a little faith and imagine that a newly released no-budget indie horror movie with a nicely trashy premise might actually deliver the goods, I give it a chance and – lo and behold – it turns out to be total, unmitigated shit. No, it doesn’t happen every time, but the occasions on which this doesn’t turn out to be the case are so few and far between that I, and I daresay most of my BAH colleagues, will fling my hands to the sky with gratitude to whatever benevolent forces might be at work in the universe when faced with a no-budget indie horror that’s actually engaging, daring, intelligent, witty, and well-made. But in no way, shape or form is this the case with Serial Kaller.

Worst part is, it’s obvious from the opening five minutes alone that nothing about Serial Kaller is going to work. We open on a TV phone sex model, who leaves work down one of those classically green neon lit corridors, and obviously doesn’t make it home. Crude, but to the point. Then all of a sudden we skip back to 30 years earlier, with a young rich kid being orphaned when his plastic surgery addicted mother dies after her latest procedure goes wrong. That ten-minute sojourn over with, we skip back to the present and meet the rest of the models and technicians at the phone sex channel, and spend an interminable amount of time getting to know them and their relationship dramas (including, for absolutely no discernible reason, regular cutaways to the father of one of the girls who’s a retired rock star). We also meet no-budget horror veteran Debbie Rochon as a local waitress who tries to get an audition for the channel but is turned down for being too old. After about 45 teeth-grindingly slow and uneventful minutes of this we finally settle in back at the station for a night of cavorting for the cameras – but, wouldn’t you know it, once they’re all securely locked in with the phones all very pointedly confiscated and locked away for the night, it turns out someone else is in there with them with an axe to grind. Well, a knife, but you get my meaning.

The station in question is called Babelicious. Now that’s a pretty plausible name for one of those late-night call-in channels. What’s rather less plausible is that these models literally sit around making no effort whatsoever to conceal the fact that they’re bored shitless, whilst – erm – never taking their bras off. Yes, it’s another of those curious 21st century movies in which professional strippers don’t actually strip, at any point. Literally two women appear topless in this movie, very briefly, in the dressing room rather than whilst working, and the actresses in question disappear immediately afterwards. Even during the film’s two sex scenes the participants remain clothed, one actress very clearly still wearing knickers whilst going cowgirl on a dude very clearly still wearing jeans. The mind boggles. I really just don’t know what is going on in the heads of either the people making these movies or the people acting in them. What is the fucking point of sexless sexploitation? If you’re selling a film on T&A, as is very clearly the case with Serial Kaller, then you’d better make damn sure you actually show the T&A, or why are you even bothering to make a film of this nature?

Okay, so maybe Serial Kaller can get around this complaint by presenting witty dialogue, interesting and relatable characters, strong central performances. But I should think at this point it will come as no surprise when I say Serial Kaller completely and utterly fails on those counts too. And as for the kills – yep, they’re also piss-weak, with joke shop gore FX and one or two instances of painfully bad CGI.

What makes it all particularly sad is that there are at least a couple of genuinely talented people involved here – most notably Debbie Rochon. Of course, she’s an old hand now at making the best of subpar material, and there a few brief moments in which she genuinely elevates Serial Kaller to a higher level. Alas, these all-too fleeting flashes of brilliance are nowhere near enough to keep this turd from the slipping down the u-bend where it belongs. And that is where you should leave it, believe me.

Serial Kaller comes to DVD and VOD in the US on January 28th, from Wild Eye Releasing.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

Anthony DiBlasi is a name I’ve often heard when people talk about decent indie horror filmmaking, but I’ve not managed to see any of his previous films (Dread, Cassadaga) before Last Shift. I had few expectations approaching the film then, either positive or negative, and it seems having watched the film, I still feel much the same.

Rookie cop Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) has drawn the short straw: her first shift is to stay keeping watch at an all but shut police station, in order to guard the hazardous materials which are due to be collected that night, while all the rest of the area’s police have already moved into their new station. Alone in the station, she soon starts to hear strange noises, and receives incessant phone calls from a distressed girl, even though emergency calls should already have been re-routed to the new station. Increasingly frightened but determined to impress on her first day – and do her dead-cop father proud – she doesn’t leave her post and instead faces a night with the king of hell, via a long-dead cult leader and his followers.

I think Last Shift is one of those films I wanted to like more. It’s a nice premise, Harkavy does a great job of getting us on-side with Loren, the special effects are great, I jumped a few times, the villain is fun, and certainly once the film reaches its final 15 minutes or so, it’s really excellent. Unfortunately for me the preceding 70 minutes didn’t really succeed in capturing my attention, despite the many strengths. DiBlasi is certainly a good director – he makes nice use of the police station location – and there is much skill on display. I think where the film is let down is simply in its structure. The first half an hour or so involves a lot of repetition. Loren hears something and investigates, but finds nothing. Loren thinks she sees something (or often we are shown something behind Loren that she doesn’t see) only for nothing to be there. She receives a phone call and can’t do anything about it. A bit too much time is spent on this sort of tension-building and as such it becomes quite ineffectual.

This weakness in the storytelling is exemplified by the character of Marigold (Natalie Victoria), an apparent prostitute taking a smoke break outside the station who Loren tells to get on her way. But wait, there’s more! She’s an exposition prostitute! Marigold fills us in on the history of the Manson-like cult whose murderous members killed themselves in the station. There’s nothing wrong with the dialogue in the scene, nor the performance, but it’s just so clumsy in the broader structure and narrative that it highlights the fact that if you’re not being scared by the repetitive and convoluted jump scares, then there’s not actually much else going on until a character appears to spell it out (later, there’s exposition cop-checking-on-the-rookie, too).

Having said that, I did say the last 15 minutes were excellent. They are. That’s when things really go crazy, and I would have liked if more of the film had been like that, rather than working on building tension that just doesn’t, for me, work. The make-up effects here are excellent, as are the rather demonic and abject designs of the things that Loren sees. The film’s very ending feels a little bit like an easy way out, but it’s not entirely unsatisfying, either.

In some ways I was reminded of Brian O’Malley’s Let Us Prey, a film which sees a demonic stranger in a remote police station slowly get inside the heads of everyone else there. Let Us Prey also has its faults, no doubt, but for me it’s a more successful film because it doesn’t rely on the same sort of ‘set-up, scare, nothing’ formula that takes up so much time in Last Shift, and countless other horror films. Had Last Shift made a bit more of its ‘king of hell’ premise, past it just looking cool and allowing for some Manson-esque craziness, then it could have been a much more interesting film. While Last Shift might have left me cold, I didn’t feel like watching it had been an entire waste of time. I’ll certainly keep an eye out for what DiBlasi does next.

Last Shift is out on DVD on 18th January, from Matchbox Films.

By Tristan Bishop

Director Massimo Dallamano is generally remembered as one of the also-rans of Italian genre cinema; one of the legion of hack directors who flitted from spaghetti westerns to gialli to police thrillers, to whatever else selling well abroad that particular week, but taking a look back over his filmography it’s obvious that he deserves a critical reappraisal. Dallamano started life as a cinematographer on costume dramas he eventually moved into directing in the late sixties, but not before he had photographed a couple of notable films for a young director known as Sergio Leone. These films were A Fistful Of Dollars, and For A Few Dollars More – indeed, the films that made people start to take Italian exploitation cinema seriously (and, not to mention, were mega-hits across the globe). Naturally, off the back of the success of the Dollars films, Dallamano was given his own directing gigs, and starting off with his own stab at the spaghetti western, the solid Bandidos (1967), he went on to bring his sure directorial hand to a variety of different films, from the giallo (A Black Veil For Lisa, 1969) to crime thrillers (Mafia Junction AKA Super Bitch, 1973) and even the erotic drama (Venus In Furs, 1969 – not to be confused with Jess Franco’s fever dream of the same year). However, his most enduring work would appear to be What Have You Done To Solange?, a 1972 production which has now been issued by Arrow in a 2K restoration from the original camera negative.

I won’t go into too much detail about the plot here, because that would ruin much of the enjoyment of the film for those who haven’t seen it, but the plot concerns one Professor Rosseni (action film mainstay Fabio Testi), who is having an illcit affair with Elisabeth (Cristina Galbo), who just happens to be a student at the girls school he teaches at. During a boat-based tryst Elisabeth thinks she witnesses a murder taking place, but the moment is over too quickly and she’s not entirely sure what she actually saw. Rosseni doesn’t really take much notice (other than to be slightly miffed that his wandering hands have been thwarted), but when he hears reports of an actual body having been found on the riverbank he goes back to investigate, but wants to stay as far out of the intrigue as he can, especially as his wife Herta (Karin Baal) also works at the school…

What Have You Done To Solange is a film that has a interesting history in the UK – originally banned on cinema release by the BBFC it was later heavily cut on home video (which is where I first encountered its charms) before later DVD releases restored the edits. This is now the third home viewing incarnation I have seen of the film, and what can I say? A tip of the hat to Arrow for the restoration on this (and a second tip for that gorgeous cover art – although the best art is on the flip of the reversible sleeve) – from the opening scene with Testi and Galbo in the boat, the picture is so sharp that you can pick out the detail on Galbo’s make-up in the close-ups. Occasionally with BD restorations they have the effect of making old films look a lot cheaper than before (witness the classic kung fu films where you can now see the joins in the wigs), but thankfully Dallamano’s film is crisply shot (by none other than future porn auteur and occasional horror bod Joe D’Amato, under his real name of Aristide Massacesi) and, for those of us who love retro location work, there are plenty of shots of 70’s Chelsea to get excited over – although the many countryside-set scenes will make you wonder just how green and leafy London was 40-something years ago (I imagine not very). But does it still deliver as a giallo? Well, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’ – although Solange isn’t as creepy as say, Argento’s 70’s work, it does the job as an effective whodunit with moments of shocking violence which equate sex and death in a way that will still make viewers shift uncomfortably in their seats.

Of course the whole ‘schoolgirl giallo’ theme means that there are plenty of scenes of sex and nudity added too – and it’s somewhat amusing to view the story of the teacher having an affair with his pupil (his biggest concern being that his wife doesn’t find out) through a modern day lens – even more so given a final third twist. In fact, if you’re a fan of chuckling at outdated sexual and societal mores you’ll have a field day here. Even the dub work (you can watch the film in Italian with subs, but as with all Italian films from the era, the Italian soundtrack is also dubbed, so it doesn’t really matter) is above average, and there are solid performances from the ever-watchable Testi and German star Joachim Fuchsberger as the main police detective investigating the murders – incidentally this film was sold in Germany as one of the Edgar Wallace ‘Krimi’ series (a series of lurid crime thrillers popular throughout the sixties but very much on the wane by the time this was released), which explains the casting of series mainstay Fuchsberger in what actually amounts to a minor role here. I Spit On Your Grave star Camille Keaton makes her film debut in this too, so keep an eye out for her eventual appearance.

So for fans of the giallo and 70’s cinema in general I can’t really recommend this release highly enough – bolstered by the addition of a fun (and pretty insightful) commentary from Alan Jones & Kim Newman, some archive interviews with Testi and producer Fulvio Lucisano and a brand new one from Karin Baal (who, spoiler, isn’t a fan), What Have You Done To Solange is a must-buy.

What Have You Done To Solange? is out now on dual format DVD & Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

By Ben Bussey

Please believe me when I say I wish the words ‘no-budget indie horror’ were not all but synonymous with the words ‘painfully bad filmmaking.’ Occasionally we see the odd pocket-change, DV-shot production from an unknown cast and crew which is well-written, well-directed, inventive, energetic, entertaining, and when we do you’d best believe we celebrate. But more often than not when a such a movie comes our way, it’s more along the lines of… this.

As prosaic a backwoods torture-slasher you could ever hope to not get stuck watching, The Blood Harvest is the eighth film from Belfast-based writer-director George Clarke, and while I haven’t seen any of his earlier work I have to wonder what if anything he learned from his previous experience. It’s that same depressingly over-familiar spectacle we so often get from the indies: this isn’t a so-bad-it’s-almost-good movie, it’s just flat-out bad on every level, and while its ineptitude might momentarily raise the odd smirk, it takes very little time to leave you utterly bored shitless.

The plot, so much as it bears repeating (well, in truth it doesn’t, at all, but I’ve got to pad this out somehow), centres on a series of murders in Belfast with a notable pattern: Achilles tendons slashed, one eyeball gouged out, bodies drained of blood. The local hard-boiled, bearded, pony-tailed detective Jack Chaplin (Robert Render) is on the case, but when he posits a bizarre theory on the matter – suggesting the killer might be something other than human – he promptly finds himself off the case and out of a job. Nonetheless, the murders continue. We get to see them, naturally, and they’re drawn out via lengthy, tension-free stalk sequences followed by lengthy, tension-free torture sequences in which we’re given the distinct impression that our maniacal killers may be somewhat mentally impaired. In the meantime, Chaplin continues his investigation in private, checking in on the matter with his old partner Hatcher (Jean-Paul Van Der Velde). But as he gets closer, he comes to uncover some disturbing facts… well, I guess the idea is they’re meant to be disturbing, only it’s impossible to give a shit given how boring it all is.

I think the key problem with The Blood Harvest – indeed, the problem with a lot of subpar no-budget horror of this sort – is that it’s taking itself far too seriously. Having a victim in waiting declare “this is so cliched, like a scene in a Hollywood horror movie” might have seemed witty and bold for about an hour and a half in 1996, but today it’s just lazy. Throwing in such a contrived hint of self-awareness early on is surely intended to suggest the movie is going to defy expectation elsewhere, but The Blood Harvest doesn’t even come close to achieving this. I’ll admit I may have found the plot hard to predict, but that’s primarily because I found it so hard to follow. Bland police procedural scenes (which were always going to struggle to convince with only three actors playing police, and none of them particularly looking the part) intersect with overlong torture scenes, in which people we don’t know and have no reason to care about are savaged by other people whose motivations are unknown – and while the idea may have been to build intrigue, leave us puzzling and puzzling as to just what is really going on, the only question it really leaves echoing in your head “when will this damn movie end?”

I’m almost as sick of seeing movies of this calibre as I am of having to write reviews like this. I go into every movie wanting to enjoy it, I really do; and despite all the masses of evidence to the contrary, I do believe it’s a good thing that filmmaking technology is so readily available nowadays, giving anyone who wants to make a movie the means to do so. But that sure as shit off a shovel doesn’t mean that all the resulting movies belong in the home entertainment market. Watching a movie like The Blood Harvest, I struggle to believe that anyone involved – either the filmmakers or the distributors – really, truly think they’ve made something that warrants being shared with the world. Come on now people, please, be honest with yourselves. Take a long, hard look at what you’ve made, and ask yourself honestly if it’s any good. Hand in hand with this, ask yourself whether it’s the best that you could do. If the answer to both is no, maybe just go back to the drawing board – or maybe, just maybe, consider doing something else.

Wow, this one really left me in a bad mood…

The Blood Harvest is out on Region 2 DVD on 25th January 2016, from Left Films.

By Ben Bussey

Any way you look at it, Blumhouse Productions are one of the most fascinating brand names working in horror today. While they represent the most mainstream end of horror with the vast majority of its output bound for the multiplexes, they also place a significant emphasis on developing new, original properties from up-and-coming filmmakers as opposed to endless remakes, reboots and/or spin-offs of existing franchises – and, most admirably considering they’re working in the mainstream, they also stick rigidly to a rule of never taking the budget beyond $5 million, a highly laudable maxim in an era when $200 million + blockbusters are alarmingly commonplace. For all this, producer Jason Blum and co are absolutely worthy of our respect and admiration, and I truly hope the years ahead see the company continue to go from strength to strength while maintaining its core principles.

But then, however, there’s the small matter of the quality of Blumhouse’s output. Let’s not beat around the bush, it’s been variable at best. Paranormal Activity may well have become a popular sensation, turning out a gargantuan profit margin and spawning a string of sequels which packed them in at cinemas worldwide, but I doubt I’m alone in saying the first movie left me cold and the sequels saw me progressively less interested. Insidious: the first one I quite enjoyed, the second one was basically the same movie all over again, and the third – again, I didn’t have the interest to check it out. We could go on. However, to give Blum and co some credit, I get the feeling they recognise this. Look at some of the films they’ve made, and the filmmakers they’ve supported: say, Rob Zombie on The Lords of Salem, Mike Flanagan on Oculus, and now Citadel director Ciaron Foy on this film, Sinister 2. These aren’t random music video and TV commercial guys taking on a horror movie because it seems like an easy gig, like, say, most of the directors who ever work with Platinum Dunes; these are filmmakers who are really serious about horror. Maybe they fire a little wide of the mark at times, but they are at least aiming for the bullseye with sincerity.

So it is with Sinister 2. It’s not a great modern horror masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but damned if it isn’t trying to be. (Of course, I’d say the same of the original Sinister, which a lot of people seemed to adore.)

Picking up at some unspecified point after the events of the first movie, Sinister 2 introduces us to Courtney (Shannyn Sossamon), a furniture restoration specialist living temporarily at a remote house on the grounds of the church she’s currently working on, whilst adjusting to life as a single mother with her twin sons. It’s apparent almost immediately that the break-up of her marriage was far from amicable, and her estranged husband – a man of significant wealth and influence in the community, as well as an abusive scumbag (funny how often those two go together) – is doing everything in his power to get her and the boys back with him. But of course, just when it seems they already have enough to be anxious about, the boys start having some strange experiences in the old house by night: visits from mysterious children, who introduce them to some old 8mm home movies which bear a striking resemblance to those Ethan Hawke’s crime writer found in the first Sinister. You don’t even need to have seen the first movie to know that things don’t look too great for this young family. Still, help may be at hand when a mild-mannered ex-cop turned private detective – James Ransome reprising the role of Deputy So-and-So (the end credits literally list him as ‘Ex-Deputy So-and-So’) – turns up with some understanding of what’s going on. But will that be enough to save them all from either the child-beating ex or the ghoulish Bughuul before it’s too late?

Through my day job at Yahoo Movies UK, I got to speak to Jason Blum recently (note: the interview will be published later this month), and he told me that the main impetus behind making a second Sinister was to further explore Bughuul, feeling they had the beginnings of a truly iconic monster in there. I find it slightly curious, then, that Bughuul doesn’t really come into play much in Sinister 2. I guess the problem is, if you think of any of the really great horror bad guys – from the classic Universal monsters to the Freddys and Jasons, and even Jigsaw – these are characters who really get their hands dirty, who are there in the thick of the action. I’m not sure that can really be said of Bughuul in either film, who’s seemingly more of a puppet master figure, and only appears briefly now and then. Honestly, given that the first Sinister didn’t make much impression on me, I struggled to recall quite what Bughuul was really all about, how he operates – and with the sequel’s additions of ghostly kids as go-between, his role in proceedings is even more minimal.  As such, if the hope had been to build Bughuul into a new horror icon, I’d have to say Sinister 2 unequivocally fails to do this – and given that Blum also told me there are no plans to make a third film, I guess Bughuul will never get to sit at the big boys’ table now.

This is not to say, however, that Sinister 2 fails in every regard. I don’t think it successfully builds a coherent mythology from what was established in the first movie, but as it’s still got plenty of tension, drama and moments of real despair. Ciaron Foy’s first film Citadel demonstrated his ability to balance supernatural thrills with more down-to-earth causes of fear and anguish, and while Sinister 2 doesn’t get quite so harsh in either respect, it comes close at times, with the ex-husband and the fall-out of his abuse – one son shrinking further into his shell, the other coming to imitate his father’s aggression – proving more disturbing than any of the murders and supernatural content.

James Ransome’s return is welcome, and it’s nice to see what might have started out as a bit of a comic relief character develop into the hero of the piece without losing his essential innocence, and Shannyn Sossamon does fine with what the script (from returning writers Scott Derrickson and C Robert Cargill) gives her to work with, but when all’s said and done Sinister 2 doesn’t really prove an especially memorable experience. Still, it’s nice to see Ciaron Foy getting his foot in the door stateside, and I certainly hope this will lead to greater things from him (again, Blum has suggested that it might) – and while it proves to be another Blumhouse production that’s ultimately less than satisfying, it does give me some hope that the company are at least leaning in the right direction.

Sinister 2 is available for digital download in the UK on 14th December, and DVD and Blu-ray on the 28th, from Entertainment One.

By Ben Bussey

Ask anyone to name a high-profile studio horror movie from the dawn of the 1980s with a big name cast based on a best selling novel, and odds are most of us will reply The Shining. However, when Warner Bros, Stanley Kubrick, Jack Nicholson and co were busy adapting Stephen King’s third book, they were not the only ones bringing a popular horror fiction of the day to the screen in a lavish manner. Roughly the same time over at Universal, producer Burt Weissbourd had enlisted director John Irvin, original Carrie screenwriter Lawrence D Cohen, esteemed cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and a quite remarkable cast of aged screen legends – Fred Astaire, John Houseman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal – along with a few younger, comparatively unknown actors to adapt Peter Straub’s 1979 novel Ghost Story. Neither Kubrick’s King adaptation nor Irwin’s Straub adaptation exactly set the world on fire on release, yet three-and-a-half decades on there’s no debate that Kubrick’s movie made the bigger mark, whilst Irwin’s movie, if it’s remembered at all, is typically noted only for being the final film made by almost all of its senior stars. But now, as Second Sight release Ghost Story in the UK (in an edition borrowing its content from the Scream Factory edition released in the US and Canada last month), we can see for ourselves whether there’s anything more to be said for this less-celebrated literary horror adaptation.

I should stress right away that I have never read Ghost Story, nor anything else by Peter Straub, so I came to this movie with very few preconceptions, aside perhaps from a curiosity as to what about it would warrant its 18 certificate (particularly given that the aforementioned The Shining has long since been downgraded to a 15). Strangely, the BBFC’s webpage on the film notes the approved version is uncut but does not explain their rating decision, which I can only assume is down to the brief but fairly explicit sex scene and the abundance of nudity – none of which, I should emphasise, involves any of those old dudes, just in case you’re getting creeped out already. But in a curious way, this information alone gives us a sense of the peculiar split personality on display in Ghost Story. On the one hand it harks back to a bygone era, where the actors took the spotlight over the effects, and the tension and atmosphere was built largely on what was implied; and on the other, it’s a product of the early 1980s, when the prevailing maxim for horror was to show everything in detail, and often. Factor in the twisty-turny, time-hopping nature of the narrative (which, I gather, jettisons a substantial portion of Straub’s novel), and it’s small wonder that the resulting film, while intriguing, is somewhat untidy.

Astaire, Douglas, Houseman, and Fairbanks Jr are the Chowder Society. You know they’re old fashioned, because a) they’re all really old, b) they call themselves ‘the Chowder Society,’ and c) they wear tuxedos to casual get-togethers at which they sit around smoking cigars, drinking brandy and swapping ghost stories by the firelight. However, it seems the most chilling story the four men really know is their own. Yes, in the time-honoured tradition the old friends share a dark secret from their younger days – and, just to follow that time-honoured tradition through to its logical conclusion, that secret now appears to be catching up with them as David Wanderley (Craig Wasson), the grown son of Edward (Fairbanks), dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances, falling from his plush New York apartment window. The authorities say it was suicide, but David’s twin brother Don (also Wasson, naturally) thinks otherwise, believing that it’s all the handiwork of a mysterious woman who entered their lives recently – and who, it seems, may not be a stranger to the Chowder Society either.

Screenwriter Lawrence D Cohen notes in the extras that the late 70s/early 80s was about the time that the TV mini-series format began to catch on, proving a more appropriate format for literary adaptions like Roots, Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, and further down the line other King novels like The Stand and It. As such, Cohen expresses some regret that Universal were insistent on making Ghost Story a movie, as the mini-series format might not only have allowed for more of Straub’s text to reach the screen, it would also have given the whole thing a bit more breathing space. Even as someone who hasn’t read Straub’s novel, I can see how this is probably true. The film is trying to squeeze a hell of a lot into a running time of 115 minutes, and as a result it feels bloated and hard to digest. And this is a shame, because when it’s on form, there’s some really damn good stuff in here – paramount to which is Alice Krige’s work in the dual roles (or not?) of Alma and Eva.

Never mind that this was only her third role, whilst also proving the swansong of four Hollywood icons – from the moment she first appears there’s no question that Alice Krige completely owns Ghost Story. There’s a bit of a Mathilda May in Lifeforce vibe about her, as she is simultaneously the ultimate object of both desire and terror – and, as would later be the case with Ms May, she spends a good portion of her screen time naked – but Krige brings a great deal more to the table than mere eye candy. Even when she’s at her most human, there’s a constant sense that there’s more to her than meets the eye, something implacable going on beneath the surface which at once makes her more alluring, yet also profoundly sinister. In their scenes together, Craig Wasson (best known for De Palma’s Body Double, and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3) comes off a bit feeble and nondescript by comparison, but that may be at least partially deliberate: he and Krige are quite literally from different worlds. All this being the case (and also taking into account how subjugated the women in the lives of the elder characters are, Patricia Neal included), it’s no doubt easy to read Ghost Story as a war of the sexes tale with misogynistic overtones – but at the same time, the film does show the fall-out of misogyny, and how it hurts not only the women that fall victim to it but also the men that act upon it.

Ghost Story is a curiosity for sure; a lavish blend of old and new horror, hugely out of step with the smaller-scale, down-and-dirty slasher and splatter films which tend to be mostly fondly remembered from the early 80s. It’s also largely uncharacteristic of its elder cast, none of whom, sad to say, give particularly striking performances; compare it to, say, Vincent Price’s iconic swansong in Edward Scissorhands, and there’s nothing too memorable about what Astaire, Fairbanks Jr and co bring to the screen here. And if we’re talking about early 80s horror movies which open on John Houseman telling a ghost story, make mine The Fog any day. Still, as a calling card for the jaw-dropping talents of Alice Krige, and a reminder that early 80s horror wasn’t always pure tits and gore, Ghost Story is certainly a film worth seeing and remembering, even if it isn’t necessarily one to cherish.

Ghost Story is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK from Second Sight.

By Quin

The internet has killed reference books. Who the heck would buy a dictionary or a thesaurus or an encyclopedia in 2015? If you have a question on anything factual all you have to do is google it or ask Siri; if you need more detailed information then you might just turn to Wikipedia. Oh, what I would have given to have Wikipedia when I was in high school. Even reference books on criticism are dwindling. As you could imagine, I love film review books. I love them! But now Roger Ebert is gone and Leonard Maltin announced his 2015 Movie Guide would be the last – and now that I think about it, we seem to be at about the second-to-last gasp of newspapers as we’ve always known them, so it looks like web reviews are going to be all we have pretty soon. Fortunately, for those still looking for a more current recourse that just so happens to focus squarely on the horror movies we live for, Scott Weinberg’s new eBook Modern Horrors: An A to Z of Horror Movie Reviews 2000-2015 will be a welcome addition to your digital book shelf. It’s also so comprehensive and often entertaining that you may even find yourself (swiping) reading it straight-through from binary cover to binary cover.

I must admit that for this review I didn’t do that. I figured the most useful way for me to review a film reference book would be to think of a title and look it up, read and repeat. But after doing this for hours, I am definitely going to go back and just start from the beginning and read every word. I certainly don’t agree with Scott Weinberg’s opinions all the time (or even most of the time) but he is a guy who has done his homework. He’s seen everything and his brain is full of all kinds of film knowledge and you can’t help but trust his opinion at least a little.

Just to give you an idea of how much area this book covers, there’s a review for both Jurassic Park 3 (2001) and Jurassic World (2015). Okay, maybe that’s an unimpressive example. How about Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) and The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence (2015)? Oh, you get the idea. But there are some great titles reviewed as well. He hits most of the important titles of the last fifteen years – you know what those are. Strangely missing are all three of the Ginger Snaps movies. He also missed some of my favorites of the last few years like the low-key, but eerily brilliant I Am A Ghost. Given that many of his reviews from his time with Fearnet are now nowhere to be found online since that site went kaput, it’s possible that some of the holes are probably lost forever. Which reminds me of something I used to hear constantly in the days of floppy discs, before we had the cloud – always back up your work.

Perhaps you are thinking to yourself, “But I follow Scott Weinberg on twitter and I don’t think I can handle a whole book of his opinions.” I had this same thought as well. I do follow @scottEweinberg and he tweets all the damn time. I don’t know if he even sleeps. But here’s how I reconcile with this thought – I am still following him. Sure, he can be smug and he comes off as a bit of a know-it-all, and I could always unfollow him. But I don’t. Why? Because I actually care to read what he thinks about these movies. Part of my own critiquing process quite often involves me wondering, “What does Scott Weinberg have to say about this movie?” Partly because I don’t want to regurgitate the same stuff. Perhaps that’s a bit too inside baseball; as a critic, it’s important to have your own, untainted opinions, but it’s also good to read what the other guys and gals are writing.

Scott Weinberg once had a Twitter conversation with Ti West over the term “slow burn.” West’s contention was that it’s a lazy way of describing his style of film making, but what West didn’t take into consideration is that film theory has its own set of terms and “slow burn” is a perfectly valid way of explaining how new indie horror films unfold. West and Weinberg seem to be on friendly terms, so this disagreement was actually a pretty level-headed conversation. Weinberg has reviewed Ti West’s most recent films, all positively. On the flip-side, Weinberg has a history of rubbing filmmakers the wrong way. This book of reviews is missing an infamous review of Weinberg’s for a low-budget movie called The Perfect House. To be fair, the film is terrible, but it’s an unfortunate example of how Scott Weinberg can be a bit of a troll feeder as well as a bit of a troll himself. Google it if you really want all of the juicy details.

But I’m not here to review Scott Weinberg as a person. I feel a film critic’s reviews should be what they’re known for. It’s best if they remain impartial without getting too chummy or too aggressively personal with filmmakers. I see Scott crossing this line a bit, but fortunately this book leaves all of that out. This book is all about the movies and one guy’s thoughts on these movies. Which was surprising and refreshing.

I am of the opinion that starting with the year 2000 and continuing through the foreseeable future we are in the midst of a horror renaissance. Weinberg’s book couldn’t have come at a better time. Throughout film history, horror has been cheap to make, but now it’s getting easier to make and it looks better than ever. It’s nice to have people like Scott Weinberg to point you in the right direction. I trust him and I think you should too.

Modern Horrors: An A to Z of Horror Movie Reviews 2000-2015 is available now.