Review by Ben Bussey Asami: a relatively common name in Japan so I understand, and yet to fans of contemporary Japanese exploitation cinema it can only mean one person. While she generally appears in supporting roles, the porno/pinku veteran has pretty much become the Linnea Quigley of J-sploitation: the mere sight of her face (not […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
Review by Nia Edwards-Behi What’s left to say about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that hasn’t already been said? The film is one of those behemoths that looms over the rest of the horror genre, a classic hailing from that dangerous frontier of American horror filmmaking in the 1970s, and its impact and intensity have […]
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 […]
By Keri O’Shea In horror, certain things seem to go together very nicely, and anyone with even a passing interest in the genre could work out that you Don’t Go Into The Woods if you know what’s good for you; as certainly as you’d lose all of your marbles once a mere half an hour […]