In the history of Ghost Stories for Christmas – at least of the most familiar, British and televised variety – M R James is the author who has tended to be most strongly represented. Which is fine, and fitting; Jamesian horror, with its subtleties and horrors intruding onto the ordered lives of (almost invariably) British […]
Mickey (Stephen Reilly) is a labourer who wants much more out of life. When he meets Kenny (Johnny Wilson) in a bar, he finds himself with a sideline gig of peddling drugs for gang boss Luther (Peter Hirst) but Mickey wants much more than that and, if he’s going to take risks, he’d like to […]
There’s a serial killer on the loose in LA. As a shock jock-type DJ jokes about it being someone with ‘mommy issues’, your thoughts turn pretty quickly to the standard: a man who loathes women. Which, to be fair, it usually is, but not today: the killer we see dispatching a terrified woman on the […]
Tattoo artist Tales (Lorn McDonald) is living in his place of work after being kicked out by his girlfriend. In the middle of the night, he’s awoken by a phone call from a guy called Truth (Michael Akinsulire) who represents a well-known figure who needs some new ink right now and has heard Tales is […]
After the death of her father, Charlotte (Kelsey Cooke) faces a mountain of debt and the prospect of losing the fabulous holiday villa she currently resides in. Via social media, she hooks up with Danni (Sophie Ablett) who joins her in sunny Spain and the two concoct a plan to stream – and charge for […]
Having knocked it out of the park twice in a row with 1976’s Assault On Precinct 13 and 1978’s Halloween (three times if you count 1974’s Dark Star, which I do), it’s safe to say that John Carpenter had folks clamouring for his next project. For some, it was a surprise that, after the nigh […]
In 1988, paranormal investigators Mick Sutherland (Myles McEwen) and Archie Charlesworth (Ripley Stevens) are called to the home of one Elizabeth Blair in order to confront a series of unexplained phenomena unlike any they’ve seen in their burgeoning careers as detectives of the supernatural. Over the course of seven days, the pair will uncover the […]
Elvira (Lea Myren) is a young girl in love with the idea of being in love. More specifically, she’s in love with the idea of one Prince Julian, an eligible royal who just so happens to be a published poet: she pores over his verse incessantly. Briefly back in the real world, she, her younger […]
It’s all going on in the opening scenes of Scurry (2024) as a calamitous event tears a literal hole in the fabric of an American city. At the bottom of a sinkhole which has opened up, an unfortunate man regains consciousness. He’s injured, but he has phone signal, and daylight is auspiciously close. Never mind […]
The Severed Sun (2024) opens in a remote religious community, just prior to a calamitous event. A young woman named Magpie (Emma Appleton) has, presumably with the tacit approval of her bruised and battered elder stepson David (Lewis Gribben), concocted a plan to poison her monstrous husband. Husbands tend to be monstrous, by the by, […]
By guest contributor Anna Pease I began watching The Man in the White Van (2023) with high hopes that it might be a grimy 70s exploitation style ode to true crime – specifically something akin to Chuck Parello’s 2004 film The Hillside Strangler, which faithfully portrayed the crimes of cousins Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi […]