The Pain Eater is one of those stories which feels familiar in some aspects, but yet weaves a new potential mythology of its own, one which it launches into a world rendered very recognisable. As such, it’s a convincing and engaging blend of unpolished, everyday family drama, and something else entirely – which comes down […]
Following on from our recent review of the ‘creature feature road trip’ movie The Passenger, we were pleased to get the opportunity for a quick chat with leading man Ramiro Blas, who plays the inimitable (and potentially divisive) leading man Blasco in the film. Blas has a long pedigree as an actor – over twenty […]
I’ll be honest; I’ve been dreading the inevitable ‘lockdown horror’ boom, and it’s something which is already happening: bored folks with cameras riffing on ideas about coronavirus is unlikely to bring us too many in the way of classics. Happily, Hall (2020) is not of this stripe. It’s born of coincidence rather than opportunism, a […]
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 […]
By pure chance, several of the most recent films I’ve watched have had elements in common: a certain kind of body-mod sci-fi has cropped up in films such as Parallax, with its riff on memory and mental states, and again in Peripheral, where one woman takes on futuristic tech in an attempt to maintain her […]
When I first heard that the Soska twins were directing a remake of David Cronenberg’s 1977 movie Rabid, I think, like many people, I wondered what on earth they were going to do with it. Whilst not an obvious choice for a glossy re-imagining, it’s also a film with plenty of potential for a new […]
Placing monsters on screen – as in your vampires, or your aliens, or so on – has its own share of challenges, but at core, there’s a fairly obvious requirement to, well, get the monsters on screen. When you are aiming to represent monstrous behaviour or thoughts, however, this can be rather more tricky, even […]
By Matt Harries If ever there was a horror franchise that elicited an equal sense of both joy and frustration, it is surely the Hellraiser franchise. How many films have managed to nail (sorry) such a heady blend of slasher flick and (to paraphrase Doug Bradley) ‘Gothic Ibsen’? The first film, Hellraiser, established a template […]
I have to say right away, it takes some balls to slap a title like that on a low-budget indie horror from a largely unknown cast and crew. It’s almost as if writer-director Justin McConnell and company are inviting the likes of me to snidely declare that it’s far from a life-changing experience. By extension, […]
It’s been nearly fifteen years since Dans ma Peau (2004) was released, duly taking its place in the canon of New French Extremity, and garnering a great deal of justifiable praise for its transgressive nature and clarity of vision. These features alone – both the film’s age and its reputation – give us good enough […]
You know a film still has something, however many years pass, when you consider what would happen to it if it was pitched today. So at a guess, and alongside most of the best horror and exploitation films ever made, a film which involves exploding drug addicts and reanimated hookers via bad science would be […]