Review by Tristan Bishop I’ll start this review with a warning – A Magnificent Haunting is not a horror film. Yes, it contains ghosts – several in fact – but what we’re dealing with here is a light-weight, low-key comedy more inspired by Almodovar than Insidious. Director Ferzan Özpetek, known for several gay-themed dramas and […]
Review by Ben Bussey Ever watch a horror movie that felt like it just got that bit too close to the bone? Cheap scares are ten-a-penny; for horror to really have an impact, sometimes it has to come and get you where you live. It has to present a fantasy scenario that the audience can […]
By Comix With the increasing popularity of horror and horror icons, other genres have begun to crossover to the torrid side, creating works that either suck, rock, or defy all explanation. Vampires and romance? BAM, Twilight. Zombies and comedy? BAM, Shaun of the Dead. Sharks and Tornados? BAM, we call that Sharknado! Another popular crossover, […]
By Comix One thing I learned from being around the comic circuit is that no one is more expandable (and replaceable) than the creative talent. Writers, each as unique as a snowflake, are a dime a dozen; artists, limited to the writers’ words, are even more so. Unless you’re one of the lucky few that […]
Review by Ben Bussey Can’t you just picture the scene? Bunch of filmmakers sitting around, just watched an episode of Game of Thrones, opened a few beers, put Led Zeppelin III on… voila. Well, okay, perhaps a little more thought went into Hammer of the Gods then that. Presumably someone also threw the Cliff’s Notes […]
By Stephanie Scaife Read part 1 of Steph’s FrightFest round up here. Day three of FrightFest started with The Hypnotist, a Swedish crime thriller directed by Lasse Hallström (Safe Haven, Dear John) and based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Lars Kepler (husband and wife duo Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril). […]
Review by Stephanie Scaife I was pretty surprised when I read that Jim Mickle (Mulberry Street, Stake Land) was working on a remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s film of the same name. But as an admirer of Mickle’s previous work I went in with an open mind, happily to discover that We Are What We Are […]
By Tristan Bishop Are you old enough (let’s say, 35 or above) to remember the days before DVD and the internet? Back in the pre-digital era, being a horror junkie could be tough work – we didn’t have scores of companies releasing pristine prints of obscurities on VHS tape (Redemption being the exception to the […]
Review by Stephanie Scaife The Desert is the first feature from German/Argentinean documentary filmmaker Christoph Behl and it has its world premiere at FrightFest last weekend. I went in knowing almost nothing about the film other than it being set in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. Being a particular genre-weakness of mine, I decided […]
By Stephanie Scaife It’s that time of the year again: FrightFest is back and it is bigger than ever, screening a massive line-up of 51 films across 3 screens at London’s iconic Empire Leicester Square cinema. After sadly managing to miss the world première of The Dead 2: India, FrightFest 2013 began for me with […]
Review by Stephanie Scaife There is always at least one of the late night screenings at FrightFest that brings the house down and ultimately proves to be one of the highlights of the festival, and this year I wholly anticipate it being E.L. Katz’s directorial debut Cheap Thrills. It’s a blackly comic, gross-out morality tale that examines […]