By Karolina Gruschka Cinema “Pionier”, ulica Krakowska in Strzelce Opolskie, Poland; built in the 1960s, it suffered a crisis it could never recover from, when home entertainment arrived in the East. Slowly, the building would decay to become the derelict and atmospheric cinema I so much loved in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It […]
Review by Ben Bussey There are few things more tedious than a film which takes the seeds of a potentially interesting idea, before promptly getting lazy and churning out something so bland, unimaginative and illogical it almost hurts. When such a middling production manages to procure the services of a genuine cinematic heavyweight like Rutger […]
By Ben Bussey and Keri O’Shea Here at Brutal As Hell, we have at least one bona fide Last House on the Left scholar in our midst: our beloved Nia, who penned a fairly epic tribute to Wes Craven’s breakthrough movie on its 40th anniversary in 2012. However, just to balance things out, the BAH […]
By Matt Harries (For the first part of Matt’s feature, click here.) Onwards, to 1978, and LSD’s uneasy relationship with public perception continues with a pair of little known films that act as the unwanted flashbacks of the acid generation. In Blue Sunshine, the plot revolves around the premise that a group of individuals who […]
Review by Karolina Gruschka Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Fairest of Them All… … Ingrid Pitt, that’s for sure! Not only one of the most attractive film sirens of all times, Ingrid was beautiful on the inside too. She embraced her iconic position in the horror genre and appreciated her supporters and fans. […]
Review by Ben Bussey The end of an era tends not to be the prettiest sight, especially not for those with particularly fond memories of the way things used to be. Not all devotees of the Universal monster movies were best pleased when that cycle reached its lampoonish conclusion in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein; […]
Review by Svetlana Fedotov For fans of horror videogames, one of the first games that come to mind is Konami’s Silent Hill franchise. A careful mix of 3rd person action and puzzling solving platforms, this survival horror managed to join the ranks of other breakthrough exploration games such as Resident Evil and Castlevania, while creating […]
By Matt Harries It is 1943. Dr Albert Hoffman of Sundoz Labs, Switzerland, sets off on one of the more notable bicycle rides in history. Through accidental absorption of the drug he synthesised in 1938, Hoffman became aware of the remarkable properties of LSD-25. He ingested a deliberate, and much larger dose, some days later […]
Review by Ben Bussey What a difference eighteen years can make. Widely dismissed on release as little more than a spoke in the 90s erotic thriller cycle (which, by 1996, was rapidly losing momentum in the wake of Showgirls and Striptease), I think it’s fair to say Bound has since become something of a cult […]
Review by Tristan Bishop The Northern European crime thriller, now commonly referred to as the Nordic Noir, has been quite the hot export in recent years. In much the same way as Germany’s pop art-infused krimi films of the 60s and the stylish and savage Italian gialli which dominated the 70s, these Scandinavian murder tales […]
Review by Ben Bussey When we think of the Hammer Horror brand in the early 1970s, typically we think of sleaze. The once-mighty British institution was falling on hard times, struggling to keep up with a rapidly evolving industry – to say nothing of an evolving horror genre – and so they sought to retain […]