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 […]
By Nia Edwards-Behi I’ve already had the pleasure of writing at length about one of my all-time favourite films for this website’s anniversary retrospective series, when in 2012 I wrote about The Last House on the Left’s 40th anniversary. Time goes on and now I’m very excited to have the pleasure of commemorating 45 years […]
By Keri O’Shea Crazed acolytes! That’s always a good start to a film, be in a golden oldie or a modern piece of cinema – and that’s just how we get going in Craze, a lesser-known horror movie from the oeuvre of British director Freddie Francis (a man with a distinguished filmography to his name, […]
By Nia Edwards-Behi I have no qualms in saying that Melanie Light is, to me, one of the most exciting people working in the British horror scene. Vastly experienced as a production designer and art director, Light has demonstrated with her short film work both dedication to the genre and growth in her own craft. […]
By Keri O’Shea Why did Nazisploitation movies enjoy such a brief, if lurid moment in the sun during the European cinema of the 1970s? Perhaps the old adage ‘history is written by the winners’ applies as much to the arts as it does to other aspects of society; certainly, there has never been any great […]
By Ben Bussey It’s strange for thirty-somethings like myself to realise that many of you reading this now might not remember a time before everyone had access to the internet. Now that we’re all online every hour of the day, able to uncover just about any nugget of film trivia as soon as it comes to mind, […]
By Keri O’Shea On her way to her shift at a dead-end diner populated by a host of lurid, colourful characters, waitress Betsy runs into a spot of trouble: a misunderstanding between her and a local homeless guy results in a nearby stranger feeling the need to rush to her aid – nearly getting himself […]
By Keri O’Shea Frantic, clumsy, urgent, the first thing we see in 10 Cloverfield Lane is a young woman who turns out to be named Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) throwing several of her personal possessions into a box, before hurrying to her car with them and driving away at top speed. This act is not, […]
By Ben Bussey There’s always a special charm to horror movies set in amusement parks. The two institutions share a lot of common ground; we go there to let it all hang out, cathartically unload our anxieties, confront our fears in an ostensibly safe environment. Of course, we’ve all heard stories about rides going wrong, […]
By Tristan Bishop Your teen years can be a scary place, what with all those possibilities and unknown quantities rubbing up against hormonal explosions – things can get weird and extreme quite quickly, so it’s unsurprising that filmmakers tend to keep mining the teenage experience for horror films. Of course, the vast majority don’t really […]
By Keri O’Shea I’ll be the first to admit that I’m something of a fan of post-apocalyptic cinema: give me a filmmaker who can show us some unpalatable possibilities for humankind’s future via a dramatisation of just how frail our structures and norms are and, in an odd way, I’m happy. The opening scenes of […]