By Keri O’Shea By sheer coincidence, two of the films which I most enjoyed at this year’s Dead By Dawn festival are all about the subject of friendship, and how that friendship endures under, shall we say, a series of unfortunate events. The first of these is of course The Battery, which uses a zombie […]
By Oliver Longden It is fair to say that time has not been kind to The Leopard Man. 70 years after its release it looks hokey, unevenly acted and has a twist ending that looms like a Titanic-sinking iceberg over the second half of the movie. Yet despite its flaws, or perhaps because the distance […]
Review by Ben Bussey High Rising Productions have long been a familiar name in the horror scene. The team of writer/director Calum Waddell and editor Naomi Holwill have been responsible for the bulk of the extra features on the exemplary Arrow Video range, grabbing interviews with the cast and crew of too many cult favourites to […]
By Keri O’Shea It isn’t so unusual in cinema which deals with post-apocalyptic scenarios – whether the world has been destroyed by war, or zombies, or war which leads to zombies, or something else entirely – to see human friendships put under extraordinary pressure. As life goes to hell, relationships crumble, lifelong bonds are torn […]
Review by Kit Rathenar Having been impressed by Thai director Piyapan Choopetch’s ghost revenge horror My Ex last year, I was hoping for more of the same from My Ex 2: Haunted Lover. Not quite a sequel, though very much in the spirit of the first film, Haunted Lover instead hooks to its predecessor by […]
By Keri O’Shea It’s a strange phenomenon when you think of it, but in recent years we have had such a glut of ordeal movies that we now require stronger, more numerous shocks in order that we may maintain interest in the proceedings. Otherwise, all we have is someone being tormented or tortured with very […]
By Oliver Longden April 2013 marks 70 years of Jack Tourneur’s psychological horror film I Walked With a Zombie. Underneath the layers of 1940s reserve and casual racism, there’s quite a charming little movie that probably deserves to be better remembered. Back in 1943, zombies weren’t the horde of shambling undead cannibals we know today: […]
By Keri O’Shea The idea of destiny – the inescapability of some event or course of action, come what may – is an ambiguous one at best, and on one distinct level, it is downright terrifying. If any way in which you try to exercise your personal volition is pointless, or worse still, messes with […]
By Keri O’Shea Well, let’s see: my body aches, I am having to wean myself back onto solid food after giving this up completely by early on Saturday and the sunlight hurts my eyes. Yep, it can only have been a horror movie festival which has wreaked such havoc upon my mortal frame. Horror fests […]
Review by Nia Edwards-Behi Back in 2010, I saw The Collector in the screening room of the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, and almost immediately dismissed it. The film which started life as a Saw prequel came across as nothing more than a dull rip-off, Saw and its several sequels making it seem derivative and […]
Review by Ben Bussey Ideas: those little sparks of inspiration that are the backbone of all creative acts, yet so often seem painfully thin on the ground. All movies need at least one big idea to bounce off, and to a certain extent it doesn’t really matter whether it’s good or bad, new or old, incredibly smart or […]