Chloe (Lexy Kolker) isn’t allowed to play outside. Her front door is barricaded and sealed; every window is covered and she is under strict instructions not to ever, ever attempt to go outside. The world is a terrifying place, her paranoid father (Emile Hirsch) keeps on telling her. But Chloe has no sense of this […]
In recent years we’ve had no shortage of tongue-in-cheek exploitationers presenting themselves as lost movies from decades gone by, but Top Knot Detective takes this same jumping off point from a different angle. This Australian indie comedy from writer-director duo Aaron McCann and Dominic Pearce (making their feature debut here) posits itself not as rediscovered […]
Ask me to name a reality TV-related horror movie from the turn of the century, and my first responses would be My Little Eye and, after a moment of head scratching, Series 7: The Contenders, whilst doing my best to black out Halloween: Resurrection. One title which, before now, would never have come to mind […]
It’s been close to six years since I reviewed director Lawrie Brewster’s second feature film, the cryptozoological horror Lord of Tears; at the time, I was impressed with the film’s imagination and its sense of a reverence for classic horror fare, but found it a sometimes muddled film in which certain sequences should have been […]
As I type these words it’s International Women’s Day, and audiences worldwide are eagerly flocking to the multiplexes to see Captain Marvel, so I guess it’s as good a time as any to remind ourselves that bad ass female action stars are not a 21st century invention. In the annals of Japanese exploitation cinema, Etsuko […]
Horror films have often invoked different kinds of physical media as conduits or access points for dark forces, and given the significance of music in our culture, it’s little wonder that records have figured fairly highly over the years, particularly in decades gone past. There have been some great stories which feature records, or other […]
As I remarked the last time we got a Blu-ray edition of Re-Animator (it wouldn’t surprise me if there have been more since), there are times when the task of reviewing a ‘new release’ of an old genre favourite feels arbitrary in the extreme. For anyone who knows their movies, there are some titles that […]
Have you ever sat through one of those Old Dark House style movies, where everyone speaks in RP and smokes continuously through ornate cigarette holders, and thought to yourself – this is fun, but wouldn’t it be glorious if the social niceties and subtly barbed comments gave way to something else entirely? We’ve had a […]
Of late, there seem to have been a fair few films which focus on what happens to the human body in the interim period between death and burial – in particular, the inner workings of the morgue and the postmortem examiners who are employed there. More and more, too, horror audiences are interested in looking […]
Even on first glance, something seems to be terribly wrong with the Vestalis Academy. Its premises are falling down and in disarray, save for the state-of-the-art CCTV everywhere, and although it’s ostensibly a boarding school for girls, the education they receive is all about feminine propriety; their treatment is clinical and brutal. Unless the girls […]
Love them as we may, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are perplexing figures at times. Given their obvious, long-proven skill as both performers and writers, it’s hard not to be struck by how often they lend their talents to projects that are clearly beneath them; this is especially true of Pegg, who may have carved […]
