It’s that time of year again. The nights are getting longer and darker, all the leaves are brown, and everywhere you go, jack-o’-lanterns and fake cobwebs adorn windows and doorways – the season of the witch is well and truly upon us. Brand-new Blu-Ray distribution label Radiance Films have had […]
Robyn Adams
Robyn Adams is an actress from Stockport, Greater Manchester, who spends a lot of her time watching horror films, feeding the pigeons in her garden, and being annoying on Twitter. She has previously written for Ghouls Magazine, hosted a panel talk on LGBTQ+ representation in horror in partnership with Forward Stockport and Grimmfest, and been a guest on numerous genre film podcasts. Her friends don't trust her to pick films on movie nights anymore.
The Psycho Collection (1983-1990) Rehabilitating the Most Unlikely of Horror Franchises (Review)
On June 16th 1960 New York cinemagoers saw Janet Leigh step into a shower, and the world was forever changed. Even 63 years later, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic suspense stunner Psycho (1960), is widely regarded to be one of the greatest films of all time – a statement which this reviewer […]
Trim Season (Frightfest 2023)(Review)
Cannabis and horror have a complicated relationship that should be no surprise considering that the drug has been the focus of conservative moral panic from the reefer madness of the ‘30s to the D.A.R.E. campaigns of Reagan’s America. The genre has a history of playing on and exploiting the cultural […]
T Blockers (Frightfest 2023)(Review)
Alice Maio Mackay is a horror phenomenon. At 18 years old she has already directed three genre features in the span of three years, with another two pictures in post-production at the time of writing. More importantly, she’s an out-and-proud transgender woman who isn’t afraid to let the world know […]
To Fire You Come at Last (Frightfest 2023)(Review)
Throughout the English countryside, there are roads built for the dead. Very few of these paths still exist in any easily detectable way, with many of them now overgrown and forgotten to time, but there was a time when these “corpse roads” were a necessity for remote rural communities, marking […]
Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams – The Dungeonmaster (1984) & Cellar Dweller (1988)
Empire International Pictures was a movie studio and distribution outfit founded by American B-movie mogul Charles “Charlie” Band in 1983. Even if you haven’t heard of Empire, there’s a good chance you’ll have heard of some of their genre film output, and perhaps even watched some of it – during […]
From Hollywood To Heaven (III)(1971-77) (Review) Part Two – Ron Ormond’s Bogus Journey
Continuing on our journey From Hollywood to Heaven, we must first take the road through The Burning Hell (1974), with the Reverend Estus Pirkle as our Dante, Ron Ormond our Virgil, and The Neon Demon (2016) director Nicholas Winding Refn still ever-present for some as-of-yet indiscernible reason. The Ormond family’s […]
From Hollywood To Heaven (III)(1971-77) (Review) Part One – All Ormonds Go to Heaven
Can a born-again Christian really become an exploitation movie superstar? Picture, if you will, one Ron Ormond, a Louisiana-born screenwriter, author, magician, showman and, most relevant to the subject of this review, director of motion pictures. If you’ve heard that name before, it may be because Ormond was a rather […]
Repulsion (1965) Jeanne Dielman for the beat ‘60s with a supremely knotty director in tow (Review)
Before we begin, I feel as though my review must be prefaced with a trigger warning; Repulsion is not exactly light viewing. As you may know, Repulsion was directed by the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski, a man whose directorial back-catalogue contains some of the most celebrated examples of the […]
Creeping Horror (1933-46)Perfect Marathon for Enthusiasts of Classic Horror (Review)
Not all monsters are supernatural in origin, nor do they always have fangs and claws. Many would (fairly) assume that Hollywood wasn’t ready to accept that idea until audiences saw Janet Leigh get sliced up in a motel shower in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Still, in reality, filmmakers were already depicting […]