Lots of film fans thoroughly enjoy the make-up effects which contribute so much to the quality of our favourite horror films, and god knows we all have our own opinions about film FX, but not so many of us know much about it as an industry in its own right. With that in mind, I […]
Out of the World (2020) was the second film of the weekend to open on a man carefully cleaning a knife; however, tonally, this film couldn’t be more different to Vicious Fun. It’s immediately made clear that this is not to be a standard-issue villain, but even though director Marc Fouchard humanises his lead character […]
Knowing how to balance the horror and the comedy in a horror comedy is a fine art, and one which eludes many filmmakers; it’s not so with Vicious Fun, a film which gets it absolutely right. This is a dark, very funny battle of wills, with a sharp script and a great cast, revelling both […]
Possession horrors are almost always based around Catholic lore, and demons are dispensed with via Catholic means. But this, surely, isn’t the whole picture: other traditions and cultures must have their own spin on this kind of horror. Well, The Old Ways at least initially purports to provide a different spin on the genre; however […]
PG: Psycho Goreman is a film which pays homage all over the place. Whilst watching, I found myself thinking of all of the following: Jase and the Wheeled Warriors, Mac and Me, Power Rangers, Tokyo Gore Police and Bad Taste. It’s clear that director Steven Kostanski is both an ardent nostalgist and an SFX fiend; […]
I Care a Lot is a story of utterly dismal, conscience-free people doing spectacularly well for themselves; on several occasions, it mentions the old adage (or variants thereof) that, in life, you take or you are taken. It’s a light-touch but often galling examination of the ‘American Dream’ which, when it comes down to it, […]
Gatecrash (2020) has an interesting pedigree; based on a play, and directed by Lawrence Gough – who has spent far more of his time working on television than cinema over the past decade – it’s a film which contains aspects of both the stage and the small screen. That being said, there are some similarities […]
More and more, anxieties about what we’re sharing online and who is watching are making their way into cinema. Scouting for clicks and ‘likes’ is a new version of the Satanic pact, it seems; surely, a horror unfolding on a TikTok timeline cannot be far away. And the appearance of ‘influencers’ was simply bound to […]
The back story of Sator (2019) is a deeply interesting one. It’s a film seven years in the making, with director Jordan Graham doing far more than even most first-timer indie directors find themselves doing (right down to building a cabin used for one of the sets). Not only this, but the film has a […]
I’ve made my feelings about the contributors to director Rodney Ascher’s documentary about The Shining – Room 237 (2012) – quite clear elsewhere; I’m still far from clear on some of the ideas held by its interviewees, nor indeed how there is any link between skiing and the Minotaur, much less how it’s related to […]
It’s no great surprise that the early relationship between Mary Shelley (née Godwin) and Percy Bysshe Shelley has proven irresistible to filmmakers, given its importance to the development of horror. Perhaps my favourite version of the events at the Villa Diodati comes via Ken Russell’s Gothic (1986), which presents a colourful, but nightmarish spin on […]