Shameless have been spoiling us lately with Blu-ray releases of gialli in their catalogue, previously released as DVD only. The latest is another of Sergio Martino’s distinctive gialli, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, which not only marks his first foray into the giallo, but his first collaboration with the iconic Edwige Fenech. While Bava […]
Whilst it’s over ten years since director Park Chan-wook began stepping back from the beautiful, but brutal revenge sagas which first brought him to our attention, it’s nonetheless fair to say that I was surprised by The Handmaiden, his most recent feature. Although in some ways you can see commonality – deceptive appearances, surveillance, sexuality […]
I do claim to be quite the fan of silent German cinema, but truth be told I’ve barely scratched the surface, even when it comes to real masters of the time. Even so, I was very excited when Eureka announced their restoration and release of Der Müde Tod, also known as Destiny, an early outing […]
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m woefully ignorant of the diverse cinema of the former Soviet Union; this goes even for those filmmakers who bridged that East/West divide, such as the best-known of the bunch, I’d say, Andrei Tarkovsky. Stalker (1979) is the first of his films that I’ve ever seen and, yep, […]
Should we ever ask, “what did we do before we had the internet?” I daresay Felicity might be as good an example as any to address the implicit underlying question. Now that footage of just about any form of sexual activity can be found at the push of button, and mainstream TV is filled with […]
For someone not given to supernatural beliefs, I have a fascination with supernatural horror, and there are few supernatural horrors more famous than The Amityville Horror; close to forty years after it first appeared, there are still films getting made which carry the Amityville moniker. One of the key reasons for the success of the […]
Microbudget indie film company Bandit Motion Pictures are very much following their own path. The partnership between filmmakers Scott Schirmer and Brian K Williams produced two of the most unique and impressive horror movies of 2016: the erotically-charged Harvest Lake and backwoods nightmare Plank Face, both directed by Schirmer. However, as should be apparent from the […]
Pardon me for opening on what will sound like a splurge of smug self-congratulation, but… as a lifelong film enthusiast with a master’s degree in cult film and television, and almost a decade’s experience publishing horror reviews online, some part of me will occasionally feel I warrant being classed as a genre expert of some […]
Tackling films dubbed cinematic landmarks can sometimes feel a bit of a minefield. There are any number of worthy, ‘important’ films which can be argued to have demonstrably changed the face of cinema, but in many instances this doesn’t necessarily equate to the film in question still being enjoyable to watch in the 21st century. […]
By Keri O’Shea Imagine a sequence of films, emanating from Japan over forty years ago, which melded – literally – riotously strong female characters with insurrection, violence, sexuality and even the odd dash of social commentary. ‘Women in prison’ films (for the most part) like no other, the Female Convict movies (or ‘Female Prisoner’, in […]
The Ninth Configuration is a film which, at a glance, appears to offer something radically different from what you actually get. Look at the cover art below: above the title we have the name of William Peter Blatty, writer of legendary horror movie The Exorcist; the title itself seems arcane and almost inscrutable; and we […]