Cult Tag Archive
Altered States
Though written by three-time academy award winning writer Paddy Chayefsky (adapting his own novel), Altered States had a surprisingly tough trip to the big screen. Pawned off by production companies, plagued by budgetary issues, and shunned by a litany of directors, the film eventually found salvation in Ken Russel. Altered States’ heady, sometimes silly, mix […]
Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made
In the long list of postmodern horror films Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, directed by David Amito and Michael Laicini, has a special place. Few movies have the audacity to play up their own potential as intriguingly and brazenly. It’s a potential pitfall since the louder a film blusters about its own power, the […]
Session 9
The crispness of vision and the timelessness of both its location and story are testament to why Brad Anderson’s Session 9 is still lauded as one of the finest examples of contemporary horror. Session 9 is a classic haunted house story. A group of men take a short-term, high-pressure, job to get a big payout. […]
Lake Mungo – The Saddest Scariest Movie of the 21st Century
Of all the 00’s found footage films none perhaps have achieved the underground adoration of Joel Anderson’s Lake Mungo. The Australian Indy underdog made waves at film festivals but never achieved a full cinematic release, instead sneaking quietly onto DVD and floating insidiously out into the world with little fanfare bar word-of-mouth. It deserved so much more. […]
In the Earth
Hands up if you went into 2020 thinking we’d spend a year dodging in and out of lockdowns as a viral pandemic swept across the world like something out of a movie? In the Earth is, for all intents and purposes, a pandemic horror film and one of the first of its kind. The latest […]
Satanic Panic
Directed by Chelsea Stardust from a story by Ted Geoghegan and a script by Grady Hendrix (Mohawk), Satanic Panic is a refreshingly daft horror comedy steeped in Satanic imagery. Its occult entertainment for The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina generation. Geoghegan’s story sports the self-aware nostalgia he first flaunted back in We Are Still Here, but […]
Suspiria 2018
Tremble, Tremble!!! The Witches are Back… Remakes can be controversial, especially in the horror genre. The fandom around genre classics can get territorial, defensive over their nostalgia, enraged at the very idea of a new “insert film here”. When Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria was announced, there was a very particular type of confused rage. Guadagnino is […]
Hereditary
Ari Aster’s debut film has crawled under the skins of audiences all over the world by now. Hereditary’s simple, family-in-a-grief-vacuum, approach to genre filmmaking is a
Right Place, Wrong Time: Nostalgia and the House of 1000 Corpses
Back in 2001, Rob Zombie, global heavy metal star, directed his first feature film, House of 1000 Corpses. Its schlocky exploitation soul was abandoned by producers to the whims of post-production purgatory for three years: shelved because of its freakish nature.
Guardians – EIFF 2017
Whilst Marvel sustains a stranglehold on action adventure films and continues to monopolise the superhero genre, reactionary releases are appearing more and more. Sarik Andreasyan’s Russian super soldier mash up The Guardians is an enjoyably barmy example of a pulpy under-dog reaction to Marvel’s expanding universe.
