After working on his Bafta-winning feature Bait and folk-horror follow-up, Enys Men, Mark Jenkin vowed that he would never work with boats again: too many logistical problems, unpredictable tides, sea sickness, etc. Thank goodness he went back on his word, as it is hard to imagine a better impetus for […]
Pop Culture
Doctor Who A-Z #84: The Brain of Morbius (1976)
Aside from the grand experiment of The Deadly Assassin, most of the scripts Robert Holmes was primarily responsible for during his time as script editor were heavy reworkings of other writers – John Lucarotti in The Ark in Space, Lewis Griefer in Pyramids of Mars, Robert Banks Stewart in The […]
Doctor Who A-Z #83: The Android Invasion (1975)
At the height of his early success, Terry Nation left Doctor Who to try and launch an American TV series based on the Daleks. He returned for the show’s tenth anniversary in 1973, when he wrote Planet of the Daleks, then followed it up a year later with Death to the Daleks. The most […]
Relentless (Grimmfest 2025)
An underrated aspect of the horror festival is the programming process as you need to satisfy the demands of the genre faithful, whilst also providing palate cleansers since a weekend of nothing but horror is exhausting. After previously playing Grimmfest in 2019 with his movie, Artik, writer/director Tom Botchii returns to […]
Frankie Maniac Woman (Grimmfest 2025)
It can be tempting, when reviewing a low-budget film you have no real preconceptions of, to compare it with a recent hit. In the case of Pierre Tsigaridis’s Frankie, Maniac Woman, a graphic horror movie about a woman driven mad by unreasonable beauty standards, the obvious comparison point would be […]
Doctor Who A-Z #82: Pyramids of Mars (1975)
Pyramids of Mars is one of those stories so enshrined in fan mythology as one of the series’ maximum highs that it can be hard to think clearly about it. When asked about it, we know exactly what to say: this is a great serial because it has a darker […]
Doctor Who A-Z #81: Planet of Evil (1975)
Season Thirteen is the first of two consecutive seasons where Louis Marks will turn in a very good script that nevertheless gets ignored because of all the consensus classics around it. Perhaps this is why he’ll leave the show next year, twelve years after his first story was broadcast. That […]
Doctor Who A-Z #80: Terror of the Zygons (1975)
Terror of the Zygons is a rarity among classic Who stories, in that its masterpiece status is most often defended by pointing to its visuals. Classic-era Doctor Who fans, who normally find themselves in the position of declaring a haughty disinterest in special effects, have been known to go into […]
Deathstalker (Fantastic Fest 2025) Retrograde 80’s trash finds glorious new purpose
In an age when to be dorky is to be damned, when eons have passed since the final battle between charm and naffness sealed the fate of many brave artist-warriors yet to be born, a hero will rise. His name… is Steven Kostanski. His conquests are legendary in the latest […]
Marama (Fantastic Fest 2025)
Colonialism is an ill of the “political class”, an eternal manifestation of the 1%’s insatiable greed. Their empire way of thinking has drawn together some far-flung corners, such as North Yorkshire and the Maori people of New Zealand, as facilitated by the violence of Captain James Cook. While Captain Cook may be […]