In the 1950s and 60s British horror was booming. Most of the fame and infamy was enjoyed by Hammer but forever in their shadow was Amicus. Amicus was known for horror anthologies, a production model based on not being able to afford name actors for a whole shoot. Instead, they […]
Rob Simpson
Chief Editor
Host of the Uncut Network. With a love of movies kicked off by Hong Kong Action and Claymation Monsters, Rob has forever been cradled in the bosom of Cinema. Rob has his hands in many a pie, including no budget film making.
When a Stranger Calls: the scariest phone call in horror (Review)
While up for debate, one of the most famous scenes in any of Wes Craven’s work is in Scream. Drew Barrymore deals with a man calling her again and again, ending with the question of “what is your favourite scary movie?” subsequently she is chased and offed by Ghost-face. Turns […]
The Night Sitter (2019) Evil Dead in the Suburbs (Review)
For any aspiring screenwriter, a tried and tested method for both selling and creating a new project is to take a film and move it somewhere else. How about Jaws in Space? or Die Hard in the white house? maybe, Evil Dead in the upper-middle-class American suburbs? That last one […]
Giant Killer Ants/Dead Ant: Creature Feature vs Tom Arnold’s bad jokes (Review)
With this new Frightfest Presents title, Dead Ant, the plight of the creature feature came to mind. They were responsible for an entire generation getting interested in things that plant their roots in the genre spectrum, I count myself among them. Being such a slave to trends as it is, […]
Terror of Hallow’s Eve (2019) passionate creature feature featuring a soulless epilogue (Review)
I don’t understand the 1980s. Sure, the ’80s and horror were very good to one another, many a classic and new voice climbed out of that decade. However, the films of that decade didn’t stylise themselves with kitschiness in mind, that’s merely the way that things were back then. Now, […]
Nightfall (1956): An Unsung Noir by one of the Great Unsung Directors (Review)
Jacques Tourneur is the kind of director that has been consigned to the history books, the RKO-man was well known for his many low-budget horror films (including the pre-Romero, I walked with a Zombie), he also did many noirs, westerns and epics. Filmmakers just aren’t allowed that level of liberation, […]
Level 16 (2019) how and how not to do low-budget Sci-Fi (Review)
Over the years, low budget movies have changed exponentially. In 2019, independent filmmakers are getting an awful lot more bang for their buck. Look at 1970s low budget film, for example, as excellent as those genre films could be, some elements of their production lacked. The audio was either weak […]
The Big Clock: Charles Laughton powered noir (Review)
A good extra can take your appreciation of a movie to a whole new level. On Arrow Academy’s newly issued [the] Big Clock, Simon Callow has done just that with his video appreciation of Charles Laughton’s performance as the despotic magazine magnate, Janoth. Callow goes on to say that this […]
Black Moon Rising (1986) John Carpenter albeit minus the craft (Review)
Troy Howarth in his visual essay, Carpenter’s Craft, talks about how John Carpenter shopped around spec scripts he had written in order to start one of the most beloved of all late 20th century runs. One of those was Arrow Video’s Black Moon Rising. That opening says everything that needs […]
Scared Stiff: Midnight Madness undone in 60 seconds (Review)
Over the years of covering home video releases, I have discovered some new favourites; equally, I have been subject to some of the worst films I’ve ever seen. One of the latter was Doom Asylum, a film so inept I was speechless. The director of that film was Richard Friedman, […]