1971 saw something of a cinematic seismic shift in Britain, with three films seeming to trouble the censors and moral guardians of Britain more than any others before. Arriving in quick succession were The Devils, A Clockwork Orange, and Straw Dogs, three films which seemed to pave the way for a landslide of taboo-breaking and […]
Apologies if this is a bit of a trite analogy, but it’s hard not to note clear parallels between slasher movies and punk rock. Both genres emerged more or less at the same time, in the downbeat days of the mid-to-late 70s, and tapped into a similar vein of youthful discontent and rage. There was […]
Unless something else just sneaks under the wire over the next couple of weeks, it seems this could be my final Horror in Short feature for the current site. Huh. It feels like only yesterday that I decided it was high time we spent more time championing these often brilliant, inventive and grossly-underrated cinematic […]
If I were to do some of that word association business, my response to the word ‘Mycho’ would be ‘bold.’ It applies to the company’s work in just about every meaning of the word. On an aesthetic level, bold is an accurate summation of their in-your-face approach, particularly when it comes to colour schemes: as […]
Shakespeare’s celebrated adage “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” may carry some weight, but it’s fair to say that when it comes to exploitation movies, by any other name they might not get such great numbers. Director Abel Ferrara’s more-or-less debut feature (he’d previously directed hardcore porno Nine […]
Japanese cinema has a proud tradition of body horror and over the past ten years or so, the Sushi Typhoon phenomenon alone has given us a whole host of flying limbs and mad mutations which are lots of fun to watch. For many of us, films of this ilk have pretty much set the bar […]
Novel concepts in horror movies often seem hard to come by. Fear, Inc., the feature debut of seasoned short film director Vincent Masciale, comes close to doing something relatively unique in what initially seems a fairly fresh and funny fashion, but it winds up hitting pretty wide of the bullseye. I’ll do my utmost to […]
One good microbudget indie horror anthology movie deserves another. 2015’s Volumes of Blood (my review here) was an enjoyable addition to the pantheon of portmanteau horror made with a cut-price charm and unmistakable affection for the genre, so it should come as little surprise that the sequel Volumes of Blood: Horror Stories continues in a […]
Given that at the time of writing the filmmaker and musician has been thrilling audiences all over the globe with live performances of his classic synthesizer scores, I find myself wanting to open this review with the note that John Carpenter is very much in fashion at this moment – but that seems a moot […]
By Ben Bussey Anonymous small-town middle America: always the last place anyone anticipates crazy things happening, yet more often than not the first place crazy things happen in horror fiction. Stephen King’s main stock-in-trade for much of his career has been presenting us with an average, humdrum little place, going to lengths to ensure we’re […]
By Keri O’Shea I’d been wondering what had happened to director Sean Byrne since his brilliant debut feature The Loved Ones assured audiences that you could still weave an effective, horrific and ultimately heartwarming story out of elements which – on the surface – seem tried-and-tested. Incredibly, it’s been seven years since that film was […]