David Lynch’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel ‘Dune’ emerged in 1984 to a double whammy of both box office failure and a vicious critical drubbing. Not that these are in themselves perfect indications of a film’s inherent lack of value or cultural longevity; 1982’s Blade Runner was also a critical and box office flop, […]
Ghosts have feelings too. That’s been one of the most noticeable shifts in supernatural horror (and other genre-straddling) films in the past couple of decades, from the fairly high-profile film The Others at the start of the century, through to the likes of A Ghost Story, a largely-mute, but very poignant story from 2017. (There’s […]
Insomnia – hand in hand with its best friend, anxiety – is a bizarre experience. A fundamental inability to do the most basic, fundamental thing your body requires; like the snake which eats its own tail, the complex brain which requires rest and recuperation is the very thing which prevents that, via its own complex […]
Office parties. Not even once, in an ideal world. But, the thing is, sometimes they’re unavoidable, if you want to get on in your career – that seems to be the case with the unnamed protagonist of Why Haven’t They Fixed the Cameras Yet? Using an internal monologue, she ruminates over an evening that would […]
Magpies are notorious for their willingness to eat almost anything. In fact, it is due to this habit that they lend their Latin name, picave, to the psychological condition known as pica. Listed in the DSM-V as an eating disorder wherein one persistently eats non-nutritive, non-food substances, pica is basically the formal diagnosis for someone who […]
We don’t do this very much, but – want to win a copy of Koko-Di Koko-Da on Blu-ray? To celebrate the recent release of this unusual, often challenging and often poignant horror (check out my review here) we have a copy to give away. If you would like to be in with a chance (provided […]
The gig economy, specifically ride-booking and vacation rental apps, has turned the social contract of the service industry upside down. For better or for worse, hailing a ride or renting a place now typically includes a personal flourish that might not be entirely welcome. Personally, I love when I get into a taxi, and the driver […]
Social media, being a hellworld of our own making, is inevitably creeping into horror cinema; The Columnist (2019) is unusual, however, as it focuses on the implications of online trolling before riffing on what for many people is probably pure wish fulfilment – finding and punishing the worst offenders. In this regard, it mixes social […]
I’m aware that all the good movie titles, like all the good band names, have been taken. But For The Sake Of Vicious (2020) is as clumsy a name as any I’ve heard. It has no particular relevance to the film – at least not to the point where it was necessary – and is […]
It is likely that you’ve heard some version of the term “Mind Palace Technique” used in conversation around feats of memory. Known formally as “The Method of Loci,” it is a memorization technique wherein one memorizes the layout of a building, associates an item with each location in the mental image, and later mentally retrieves […]
A boat drifts, its lone crewman (Neville Archambault) coming to and shocked by the disarray on board. A horrific, guttural sound attracts his attention…this all takes place within the first few moments of The Block Island Sound, a neat, often inventive horror which splices a kind of eco-horror with something altogether more supernatural, though it […]