By Keri O’Shea “There is no safety! – Anywhere!” Like the films before and after it which have dealt with the insalubrious subject of Europe’s witch trials, 1970’s Mark of the Devil is an unremittingly grim affair – perhaps even surprisingly so, given its vintage. However, as it proudly announces its links to historical fact […]
Review by Ben Bussey The 80s were quite a time for ‘night of’ movies, weren’t they? Fred Dekker gave us 1986’s Night of the Creeps, and Kevin Tenney gave us 1988’s Night of the Demons; but before those, Thom Eberhardt delivered Night of the Comet. Low-budget genre features from fairly inexperienced filmmakers, one and all, […]
Review by Matt Harries For some reason the werewolf has never really established itself as the alpha of horror’s bestiary. Lacking the charm of the vampire, the gimmicks of the xenomorph; without the likes of Dracula or Alien to truly immortalise it. Maybe Werewolf Rising would be the film to change that, and at last […]
Review by Ben Bussey Ever wondered what would have happened if Brad and Janet in Rocky Horror hadn’t had car trouble right by Dr Frankenfurter’s place, but instead ran afoul of a demonic biker gang, with Janet kidnapped as an offering to Satan and Brad left for dead, only for him to return as an […]
Review by Ben Bussey In an arena typically dominated by filmmakers who often seem to be making no effort at all, we certainly can’t fault writer-director MJ Dixon for ambition. Following on from 2012’s Slasher House, Legacy of Thorn sets out to build a rich mythology around the earlier film’s most formidable figure: a masked […]
Review by Karolina Gruschka From Dusk Till Dawn, as a series – who would have envisaged this to happen back in 1996? I remember recording it on VHS while my parents were asleep, and then watching it every single day for a couple of weeks. George Clooney, then mainly known from TV Drama, surprised (and […]
Review by Ben Bussey When it comes to Hollywood outsiders, Joe Dante’s in a class of his own. Not unlike John Landis, he seems generally accepted as directorial royalty in horror circles, despite the fact that comparatively few of the films in his back catalogue can really be classed as horror. The vast majority of […]
By Svetlana Fedotov Magicians are pretty freaking sweet. With their billowing capes and sultry assistants, you know the next hour of your life is going to be filled with illusory brain teasers and child-like wonder as cascades of doves flutter from every corner of the stage. From children’s birthday parties to Vegas stage shows to […]
Review by Karolina Gruschka The Shout; what an odd little film. Watching it felt like listening to Pink Floyd: chilled, mystical, heavy, deep, dreamy, trippy, intricate, surreal, sophisticated, powerful, sensual. It is a story about the intimacy of marriage, about adultery, about power struggles, about subjective realities, about isolation, about madness, about mysticism, about sound. […]
By Keri O’Shea When you get press releases that proudly proclaim the presence of a soap star in a film’s cast, it gets you thinking about how ubiquitous soap operas are, still – especially if you don’t watch any of the soaps, ever. For instance, total strangers, when unsure how to make conversation, will usually […]
Review by Ben Bussey If you’re hoping for a concise, unbiased, even-handed appraisal of the conclusion of Hammer’s Karnstein trilogy, you may as well stop reading now. Twins of Evil is far too big a deal to me. For various reasons – some screamingly obvious, others somewhat less so – this 1971 vampire movie proved […]