By Keri O’Shea “I’m Welsh, and the Celtic twilight sometimes descends at odd moments.” Vincent Price Horror draws its influences from a diverse range of sources, in particular borrowing from the legends and lore of the past to conjure its contemporary demons. One of the richest seams for such forgotten horrors, ripe to terrify new […]
By Keri O’Shea Here at Brutal as Hell we have a nickname for ourselves: that nickname is ‘Contrary as Fuck’, because you can bet your bottom dollar that for every film which sparks a massive positive reaction in the horror world, at least one of us will at best shrug, and at worst actively reject […]
Review by Quin There is a famous quote from Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung that has always stayed with me: “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” Personally, I’ve always tried to remember this when dealing with difficult people. It doesn’t always help in the moment, but if nothing […]
This time last year, it was “Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!” Today, it’s “Let them fight!” After making a valiant, but ultimately less than successful attempt to revive the daikaiju for the CGI blockbuster age with 2013’s Pacific Rim, Warner Bros and Legendary Entertainment have stepped right back into the ring with a movie […]
By Keri O’Shea Portraiture of tyrants from history is a curious thing indeed; so often, what we see in their paintings seems to belie what you might expect, given their recorded character traits. There are of course lots of reasons for this: painting techniques and styles, the ideals of the day, and of course issues […]
By Keri O’Shea People being put through their bloody paces in rural or sylvanian surroundings is certainly nothing new these days; rather, it’s a horror staple, and so to make good use of it now, you really need to do something a bit special. This is why a film like Tucker and Dale vs Evil, […]
By Svetlana Fedotov The Disney Company has pretty much owned the word “princess” since Snow White burped onto the movie scene in 1937. Doe-eyed girls with full bosoms and sassy attitudes have defined the world of royal ladies, inspiring millions of little girls to match their shoes to their dresses while speaking in a very […]
Review by Quin What would you do if you were ever put into a scenario where you met yourself? Yes, I know it’s a strange question, and it’s one that I’ve never really considered before. There have been tons of films over the years featuring clones and doppelgängers, but +1 does it in a pretty […]
By Svetlana Fedotov Of all the evil creatures to grace the human imagination, none is more feared than those closest to humanity’s irrationality: other people. While we safely assume that the people who pass us every day are just as sane and well-adjusted as us, we only have to turn on the TV to see […]
By Ben Bussey When the trailer for Camp Dread came online a month or so back, I thought it looked like complete and total shit, been-there done-that microbudget slasher fare offering up absolutely nothing new – but even so, showing potential to be a bit of a laugh. Guess what? I was right about the […]
Editor’s note: as this is a full discussion of Hostel, it does contain plot spoilers. Whilst people being tormented is of course really nothing new in the horror genre, the advent of the Noughties did seem to bring about a change in the types of brutality we were seeing on our screens. From the […]