25th anniversary retrospective by Ben Bussey As is the norm with these kind of things, beware of spoilers… March 13th 2012, and it’s another silver jubilee. This time, however, I’m really not sure if I can find the words. This time it’s a film so unique, so unmistakable, that as familiar as it is it’s […]
Review by Keri O’Shea The Raven feels as though it has sneaked up on its audience a bit. I remember hearing about this proposed release a long time ago: my initial excitement gave way to a sneaking suspicion that the whole project had collapsed in on itself, as so often happens to compelling projects – […]
by Keri O’Shea “We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many columned Y’ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.” Those of you who are regular visitors to Brutal as Hell might […]
Review by Nia Edwards-Behi This keeps happening to me. I hear about a film. I avoid the specifics of why everyone loves it. It becomes something of a festival darling or a genre fan favourite. Then, I eventually watch it and… oh. That’s it? Is the hype machine doing its worst, here, or am I […]
Review by Keri O’Shea ‘Suddenly, it was obvious we had lost our way and been unwillingly lured into a world where our artistic talents had been bought out by corporations wanting to sell stuff, and we were going to get old and die miserably, having never made that film that had sparked our youthful passion […]
Review by Ben Bussey What makes a rebel? The dictionary definition is “1. a person who refuses allegiance to, resists, or rises in arms against the government or ruler of his or her country; 2. a person who resists any authority, control or tradition.” Presumably we’re safe to disregard the first definition in relation to […]
Review by Stephanie Scaife Here we have the sophomore effort from Canadian director Jon Knautz, who brought us the amusing festival pleaser Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer in 2007. This time he plays it entirely straight in this ambitious but ultimately disappointing horror film that arrives on DVD and Blu-ray this week. Ambitious young journalist Carmen […]
A 25th Anniversary Retrospective by Ben Bussey Reader Advisory: Moderate Spoilers ahead… I’m not sure how well we all remember 1987 – blimey, some of our readership and possibly even some of our staff might not have been born back then – but it was quite a year for horror cinema, seeing the release of […]
by Keri O’Shea Editor’s note, 23/02/2012 – since we posted this article, it has come to light that Lina Romay, star of this film and lifelong muse to Jess Franco, passed away last week after a long battle with cancer. We at Brutal As Hell are deeply saddened by this news and offer our deepest […]
Review by Stephanie Scaife “A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations.” I should start off by saying that Alex Cox’s (Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell) Repo Man is one of my all time favourite movies, making this review a little tough to write as it’s near impossible to be objective when […]
Review by Ben Bussey A word of advice to microbudget filmmakers who plan on subjecting us to yet another by-the-numbers torture flick: might be best to give yourselves a title that doesn’t invite cockney rhyming slang. Flashing the word ‘terrible’ in the opening sequence perhaps isn’t the best step either. First impressions count for a […]