Blu-ray Review: Sinister 2 (2015)

By Ben Bussey Any way you look at it, Blumhouse Productions are one of the most fascinating brand names working in horror today. While they represent the most mainstream end of horror with the vast majority of its output bound for the multiplexes, they also place a significant emphasis on developing new, original properties from […]

Blu-ray Review: Ghost Story (1981)

By Ben Bussey Ask anyone to name a high-profile studio horror movie from the dawn of the 1980s with a big name cast based on a best selling novel, and odds are most of us will reply The Shining. However, when Warner Bros, Stanley Kubrick, Jack Nicholson and co were busy adapting Stephen King’s third […]

Review: I Am Alone (2015)

By Nia Edwards-Behi The promotional bluster for I Am Alone makes some quite grand claims which had rather the opposite effect on me than what I presume was intended. Rather than make me think, ‘oh wow, this film must be great!’, the claims that the filmmakers “reinvented the [found footage] subgenre of horror” made me […]

Film Review: Krampus (2015)

By Keri O’Shea Whilst horror films which centre around Xmas time are nothing new, in the past few years more and more filmmakers have started to pay attention to Xmas folklore: films such as Rare Exports (2010) had fun playing with the idea that Santa isn’t necessarily the sanitised, commercialised figure we now consider him […]

Film Review: Deathgasm (2015)

By Keri O’Shea Although it’s hardly the first musical genre to bear the association, you have to admit that the relationship between heavy metal and black magic is a strong one. Forget your Stryper and your POD; we all know that these bands are basically aberrations in a pleasingly-familiar landscape of devils, witches and caco-daemons. […]

Abertoir 2015 Review: Bone Tomahawk (2015)

By Tristan Bishop The western and the horror film are two of the oldest genres in film – almost as old as film itself, in fact – and so it’s no surprise that there is a long history of cross pollination between the two. From creepy 1930’s pulps such as Riders Of The Whistling Skull […]

DVD Review: Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD (2015)

By Ben Bussey We’ve had no shortage of documentaries covering the cultural shifts of the 1970s and 1980s. In the US, American Nightmare charts how horror cinema was revitalised from the late 60s onwards by the likes of George Romero, Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper, whilst Going To Pieces chronicles the slasher movie boom which […]

Abertoir 2015 Review: Fatal Frame (2014)

By Keri O’Shea It’s so often the case that, when I sit down to watch a Japanese film, I find that it’s based on an extensive manga and/or gaming series of which I have no knowledge whatsoever. It’s been the case with filmmakers I know reasonably well – such as Takashi Miike (or at least […]

Abertoir 2015 Review: Francesca (2015)

By Ben Bussey Welcome back to Wales! In a strange kind of way it seems fitting that the horror festival of England’s bilingual neighbour should play host to the UK premiere of a movie spoken in Italian though shot by Argentinians. Okay, maybe that’s a bit tenuous, but bear with me on this. To be […]