Strange Darling
After a season of big blockbusters and gripping genre offerings, JT Mollner’s Strange Darling brins an intriguing and explosive full stop to summer 2024. Even amidst the likes of Longlegs and Cuckoo, Mollner’s latest is the quiet underdog, arriving with a host of rave reviews from its limited but lauded cinematic release. Kicking off with an […]
The Velvet Vampire
Vampires tread a world between extremes. So full of life, but surrounded by death. They are the ultimate consumers, perfectly placed to spend eons accruing wealth, luxury, property, knowledge, and taste, yet doomed to spend eternity starved of pleasures like food and wine and love. Eternally hungry. Eternally horny. Sometimes monstrous. Often Gorgeous. Its a […]
My Soul to Take
Though Scream 4 was Wes Craven’s final film before his death in 2015, My Soul to Take was the last film he wrote, directed, and produced. Much derided on release this overstuffed slasher takes us on a messy thematic tour of Craven’s hits and, whilst not as clean-cut as the Scream film which came after […]
The Substance
The Substance is, by any stretch, a batshit sophomore step for Coralie Fargeat and without a doubt the most nuts thing on Demi Moore’s CV. Where Fargeat’s 2017 debut Revenge offered a vibrant visceral update of the rape-revenge sub-genre, The Substance is a stylish, sexy, and all together horrifying new chapter in body horror. Moore stars […]
Longlegs
It feels like ages since the first posters for Longlegs dropped and even longer since horror fans had such a potent buzz eruption. The mystery around Oz Perkins’ fourth feature film has been a singular ride for horror hounds, fermented by mysterious posters, Satanic riddles, and the cautious withholding of Nicolas Cage’s visage from marketing. […]
Infested
When we talk about spider horror movies we talk about Arachnophobia, Eight Legged Freaks (for my money Big Ass Spider is the better daft B-Movie), and maybe that bit in The Mist. Hold on though, because there’s fresh phobia-instigation for a whole new generation. From now on Infested will be a staple of those lists and conversations. The […]
The Pope’s Exorcist
At first glance, The Pope’s Exorcist is another tired venture into spiritual warfare led by another vaguely daft late-stage Russell Crowe performance. Yet, under the lazy scares and formulaic structure, there’s the beating heart of a genuinely fun B-Movie and the groundwork for a demonically daft franchise. Its 1987 and Father Gabriel Amorth (Russell Crowe), […]
Top 10 2023
Writing the yearly Top 10 is always tough. Thousands of films released, hundreds of films hitting the big screen, even more hitting the small screen. Then there’s straight-to-DVD and the film festival circuit. The more you watch, the more films you discover. It’s a treadmill. Film lovers are faced every year with the quandary of […]
Suitable Flesh
After wowing crowds at Fantastia Fest and Frightfest hype for Joe Lynch’s latest film Suitable Flesh has been high. Adapted from Lovecraft’s ‘The Thing on the Doorstep’ by Dennis Paoli (the man behind Stuart Gordon’s iconic 80’s Lovecraft adaptations) Suitable Flesh is a camp creeping tale of spiritual terror and body swapping led by two […]
Saltburn
Saltburn, the sophomore film from Promising Young Woman writer/director Emerald Fennell, quickly became one of the most talked-about films of 2023. For some the cutthroat class parable was relatively vanilla, for others it was rampant filth. Debates about its High-Brow or Low-Brow aspirations became mind-numbing whilst contrarian arguments blossomed from the fertile grounds of shock, […]
