Allow me to introduce the most recent book on the Warped Perspective print roster! Periphery is a collection of supernatural fiction, themed around the profound impact which landscape and place can have on us. Whilst this ostensibly reads like ‘folk horror’, and indeed many of the stories could be classed as part of that estimable […]
Heresy (2024) begins – in a non-specified, but very much rural, pre-industrial setting – with a young woman, Frieda (Anneke Sluiters) dismayed by the arrival of her period. Although her husband seems, at least initially, kind, it’s clear that her continued lack of a pregnancy is a big problem in this harsh, impoverished community, one […]
In a remote Shetland cottage – one where you’d think there’d be a vested interest in repairing gaping holes to the wilds outside – a couple in bed are being spied on through said gaping hole by a blue-eyed Peeping Tom, something which gives way to a montage of pagan-ish nightmares and images before we […]
There’s a moment in Mark Jenkin’s new Cornish time-slip themed, 16mm folktale Rose of Nevada when the main character (Nick) finds a group of local fishermen in the newly invigorated fishing community he’s fallen through time into, all helping his crewmate to mend their vessel’s torn fishing net. As a traveller from a rather more […]
The Whistler (2026) opens with some on-screen text introducing the María Lionza cult, a Venezuelan belief system which believes, amongst other things, that spirits live amongst us, ready to possess the living. This being established, we next see a fearful woman creeping in and out of a sugarcane field in the dark, trying to avoid […]
I didn’t intend to start this rundown of my favourite independent films of the year with a rant, but it feels like the most honest way to start my preamble. Of course, I could start by saying what a diverse year it has been for a wide array of titles, genres and shooting styles, many […]
The Severed Sun (2024) opens in a remote religious community, just prior to a calamitous event. A young woman named Magpie (Emma Appleton) has, presumably with the tacit approval of her bruised and battered elder stepson David (Lewis Gribben), concocted a plan to poison her monstrous husband. Husbands tend to be monstrous, by the by, […]
The story of Bokshi (2025) is, in essence, a simple one. For horror fans, it will also feel like a very familiar one: a young woman follows her mysterious destiny into the mountains and woods, where it turns out she’s linked by fate to ancient folklore. Along the way, there are interesting snippets and ideas […]
There are a couple of mysterious proverbs – at least they seem to be proverbs – at the beginning of All You Need is Death. ‘Love is a knife with a blade for a handle’; ‘Love goes in at the eye’. Taken together with the version of a certain Beatles track used for the title, […]
On occasion, you see a film – whether a short film or a feature – and something about it stays with you afterwards. Something about the visuals, perhaps, or some ingenious touch to the plot, or its characters – or perhaps some of its hints of a universe existing on its periphery, not fully extrapolated, […]
Dagr (2024) is quite clear on what it is and what it’s all about from the very opening credits: this is found footage, brought right up to date. We get some on-screen text telling us about two social media stars, Thea and Louise, who had amassed a serious following by 2021 for their particular shtick, […]