A fairly solid point about Rawhead Rex is made in the accompanying press release for Arrow’s new Blu-ray edition. It’s long been said that Clive Barker, who wrote the screenplay from his own short story for director George Pavlou, was so appalled with the resulting film – not to mention their earlier collaboration, Underworld (AKA […]
The 1990s may have been a boom period for the psychological thriller, but it’s debatable as to just how fitting a description that is to many of the films classed as such. In Hollywood, the bulk of them tended to be half-baked Silence of the Lambs knock-offs or sensationalised Hitchcock updates; in either case, the […]
Like most of us who were born into the late days of the 20th century, I grew up convinced that by the time I was an adult there’d be robots everywhere, either serving menial jobs and/or enforcing the law, or overthrowing mankind as the dominant life form on the planet. As with so many lost […]
Qian (Zitong Wu) and Aimo (Zhu Lin) are two Chinese students studying in London. In order to make some extra money, they take a weekend job at a country estate transcribing and translating old film footage of famed singer Susu (Junjie Mao). When the friends find things uncomfortable with their strange hosts, Shirley (Steve Edwin), […]
I know I’m far from the only one delighted to see that giant monsters have at last come back to the forefront of blockbuster cinema – and it’s intriguing to note how much of this is the handiwork of studio Warner Bros. They might still be finding their feet when it comes to their superhero […]
How times change. A decade ago, it might not have come as a surprise to see a horror film which opens on the Platinum Dunes logo top the box office on its opening weekend; but we certainly wouldn’t have expected it to be an all-new original work, much less – gasp – a good film. […]
Old Dark Houses are a horror cinema staple, bequeathed to the genre by Gothic literature, penny dreadfuls and all manner of other earlier terrors in print. Perhaps surprisingly, then, this particular Old Dark House (1932) is based on a J. B. Priestley novel, Benighted, written just five years previously. Priestley is better known for social […]
“Where do the ideas come from?” It’s a standard question which, for many people working in the creative industries, there’s probably never a standard answer; however, in the new indie movie A Brilliant Monster, the trials and tribulations of continually coming up with workable new projects is given a dark, original twist. It’s an original […]
It may star an actress widely regarded as one of today’s predominant scream queens, and its central character may visit a creepy old house in the woods within the first five minutes, but don’t be fooled: Ayla is pretty far removed from your standard ultra-low budget indie horror movie. Written, produced and directed by Elias, mononymous […]
The contemporary straight to DVD action movie is a fairly odd breed. For the best part of two decades now, the ageing action superstars who previously reigned supreme at the box office have for the most part been ushered to the back of the bus, and with the exception of Schwarzenegger and Stallone, the bulk […]
As I’ve discussed at length in the past, we really can’t overstate the impact of The Silence of the Lambs; a bona fide game changer, it blurred the lines between police procedural and horror story (not to suggest this hadn’t been done before: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, anyone?), setting the stage for the psychological […]