Twin Peaks the Return Episode 1 MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS MY LOG HAS A MESSAGE FOR YOU Why talk about Twin Peaks: The Return now? Well, for one thing, it’s one of the few modern American prestige dramas whose reputation hasn’t settled now it’s off the air. After Breaking Bad’s last episode […]
Graham Williamson
Senior Contributor
Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971) a deliciously stylish melodramatic Occult Hammer Horror (Review)
It’s nearly Christmas, so let us think of those less fortunate than us: specifically, the Mummy. Even before this summer’s Tom Cruise-led flop, ol’ bandage face had a chequered screen history. The 1932 Universal feature had Boris Karloff in front of the camera, Karl Freund behind and a certain topicality […]
The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976) The arty yet exploitative end of the video nasties list (Review)
Newly released as a stand-alone Blu-Ray by Arrow, The Witch Who Came From the Sea was previously part of Arrow’s American Horror Project Vol. 1 along with Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood and The Premonition. It’s a much less comfortable fit within the horror genre than those two films, displaying a mix […]
Sherlock Jr (1924) A silent comedy far ahead of its time (Review)
The shortest of Buster Keaton’s features, the 45-minute Sherlock Jr. is only five minutes longer than the Oscars’ stated limit for short films (not that they existed back then). It had been conceived and shot as a six-reel feature, but Keaton deleted two of those when the film tested poorly. […]
Manina, the Lighthouse-Keeper’s Daughter (1949) Host to the Best Extra Feature of 2017? (Review)
Let’s get the big issue out of the way first: Eureka’s new Blu-ray release of Manina, the Lighthouse-Keeper’s Daughter by Willy Rozier boasts the most unexpected and delightful extra feature of the year. It actually pertains not to the title feature, but to another Rozier film included as a bonus, […]
Voice of the Moon (1990) The Master, Federico Fellini’s Final Film (Review)
By an odd coincidence, 1990 saw the release of two films called Voice of the Moon, one of which saw the beginning of a directorial career, the other saw the end of it. The first was a short documentary by Richard Stanley about his travels in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, the second […]
JD’s Revenge (1976) In touch with its culture, and has ideas that transcend its budget (Review)
One of the many rare and cherishable things about Jordan Peele’s Get Out was that it was a horror movie with an African-American lead that nevertheless wasn’t pitched or marketed as the black version of any pre-existing horror film. After Night of the Living Dead, which should have been the […]
The Gorgon (1964) Hammer’s Terence Fisher tackles Greek Mythology (Review)
The most famous monsters in Hammer Studios’ repertoire were essentially the same ones Universal had hit paydirt with in the 1930s: Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the mummy. But Hammer had plenty of other things to shock and disturb audiences with – zombies, Satanists, aliens, man-lizards and, at the end of the studio’s […]
The Haunting (1963) the impenetrable monochrome terror of black and white horror (Review)
The transformation of the haunted-house subgenre began in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, where the house, rather than just the ghosts within it, demonstrated paranormal abilities. In his essay ‘Supernatural Horror’ H.P. Lovecraft argued that the point of Poe’s story was to show that the house […]
There’s Always Vanilla (1971) George Romero’s Lo-Fi & Savage Anti-Advertising Satire (Review)
To mangle Shakespeare, there are two types of horror directors: those who are born horror directors, and those who have it thrust upon them. Arrow Films’ Between Night and Dawn box set reveals George A Romero to be the latter. Consisting of the three films Romero made in between his […]