Terror Australis: Australia and its Cult Cinema (Part 2)

By Matt Harries Editor’s Note: for the first part of Matt’s special feature, click here. So, Australia’s Outback can inflict lethal damage on the unwary. What, though, about the most dangerous beast of all? What happens to the man who lives there, far from the reach of the western world and its focus on ease […]

Abertoir 2014 Review: Noboru Iguchi’s Live (Raivu) (2014)

Review by Tristan Bishop The advance word on Noboru Iguchi’s Live, which received its UK premiere at this year’s Abertoir Horror Festival, was that the scatalogically-obsessed manchild of Japanese cinema was toning it down a bit – unsurprising really, as it might prove a little difficult to top the excesses of Dead Sushi (2012) and […]

Abertoir 2014 Review: Over Your Dead Body (2014)

Review by Karolina Gruschka Takashi Miike is a Japanese auteur known for his strange films: take Visitor Q (2001), for instance, a bizarre movie about a highly dysfunctional family or the surreal zombie musical The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001). However, Miike is probably most (in)famous for the disturbing Audition (1999) and the ultraviolent Ichi […]

Terror Australis: Australia and its Cult Cinema (Part 1)

By Matt Harries For a country which has often courted an image of a roguish bonhomie and raffish conviviality, Australia seems also to possess a dark heart, which lies perhaps in the great vastness of the continent away from the densely populated coastal regions and their cosmopolitan modernity. Since being sighted by Dutch explorer Willem […]

Horror in Short: Revelations (2014)

By Keri O’Shea Now here’s a novel idea. We’re all familiar with the anthology – sometimes called ‘portmanteau’ movie, which typically consists of three interlinked stories, or at least three stories with an overarching framework. Why three? Three definitely still seems to be the magic number in storytelling, as it has been in an abundance […]

Abertoir 2014: Ben and Keri talk Tusk

By Ben Bussey and Keri O’Shea After seeing Kevin Smith’s Tusk at Abertoir Horror Festival 2014, your illustrious editors reflect on the experience. In case you haven’t heard about it, in a nutshell it’s about sleazy podcaster Wallace Bryton (Justin Long) who goes to interview wacky old seafarer Howard Howe (Michael Parks) about his life […]

Blu-Ray Review: Trancers (1985)

Review by Ben Bussey Whaddya know, another mid-80s title reborn in HD courtesy of 88 Films, and (not unlike The Toxic Avenger before it) it’s another of those kind of ‘where it all began’ movies. An early directorial effort from now-legendary low budget schlockmaster Charles Band, it spawned five sequels in the following two decades, […]

Abertoir 2014 Theatre Review: The Temple

By Keri O’Shea The literary works of HP Lovecraft have long been a source of temptation for horror filmmakers keen to take on the challenge of rendering visible all of those unspeakable, unknowable and unnameable terrors. It’s something of an irony, given that Lovecraft himself wasn’t keen on the silver screen as a medium, and […]

Abertoir 2014 Review: Faults (2014)

Review by Ben Bussey There’s a joke about this being a ‘cult’ movie in here somewhere, but try as I might I can’t seem to pin it down. You see, not only is the debut feature of writer-director Riley Stearns a film likely to attract a cult following, but it also deals with the subject […]