Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula has always proven a particularly rich seam for filmmakers hoping to develop their own interpretation of his story. Thus, Dracula has been a rat-like creature, a suave nobleman, an aged warlord, and all manner of subtle variants of same. By no means is every interpretation going to please all of […]
For the first part of Keri’s article, please click here. ‘Keep Filming…’ It would be borderline impossible to write about the horror of the first two decades of this century without mentioning a phenomenon which, like ‘torture porn’ cinema, has been rather divisive. I’m talking about the found footage craze – and I think ‘craze’ […]
It’s hard to believe that two decades of the new millennium have already passed. It seems like only yesterday that we were complaining about ticket prices for Millennium Eve, whilst simultaneously fearing a computer glitch which would potentially mean the end of the world as we know it. Well, it didn’t quite happen that way […]
At the risk of an extreme case of deja-vu – here we are again, then, with another year (and a decade) done. Business as usual, in many respects – but if I was to identify anything particularly significant about 2019, it’d be to say that the distance between mainstream cinema and independent cinema never seems […]
By Matt Harries If ever there was a horror franchise that elicited an equal sense of both joy and frustration, it is surely the Hellraiser franchise. How many films have managed to nail (sorry) such a heady blend of slasher flick and (to paraphrase Doug Bradley) ‘Gothic Ibsen’? The first film, Hellraiser, established a template […]
As this is a detailed examination of the film, it contains spoilers. Seldom has the sole creation of one person travelled so far and changed so many times as the story of Frankenstein (1818). Sure, horror is populated with multiple vampires, mummies and zombies, but even the best-known stories have often been woven out of […]
By Matt Harries We often exclaim, or hear others exclaim, ‘They don’t make ‘em like that any more!’ Call it sentimentality, rose-tinted spectacles, or plain old nostalgia; whatever you call it, the audience for stories refracted through the lens of retro-appreciation is huge these days. Listing various works of the small or big screen that […]
By Matt Harries Nowadays there is a kind of movement or at least prevailing school of thought that seems to be infusing through certain echelons of horror filmmaking. A school of thought that would prefer to see the genre transcend its lowly place as a parade of predictable distractions, to instead be regarded as the […]
Hill House and Beyond By Guest Contributor Matt Harries For the first part of Matt’s special feature on Mike Flanagan, click here. For Keri’s feature on The Haunting of Hill House, click here. ‘What struck me the most is that I think grief is such a universal experience that when we were in the writers’ […]
By Matt Harries Roky Erickson’s passing on May 31st rightly saw a wave of recognition from those touched by his life and works. Musicians especially have been quick to acknowledge the influence of his band, The 13th Floor Elevators, as progenitors of psychedelic and garage rock, as well as Erickson himself as a shining example […]
These days, the horror genre can only be rendered palatable to select members of society by suggesting that the horror they enjoy is, in some hard to define ways, ‘elevated’ beyond the confines of mere horror cinema. It’s a curious impulse, but it speaks to the way in which the horror genre still has the […]