Eco-horror has never felt so timely as a genre. From the rise of AI threatening clean water, to water companies pumping sewage into seas and rivers, there are constant headlines of man-made threats to our environment. At the heart of it is corporate greed and indifference, no matter how much […]
Pop Culture
Creature of the Pines (Panic Fest 2026)
From its origins in movies like Cannibal Holocaust, The MacPherson Tapes and The Blair Witch Project, found footage has evolved from a way to imply unreal events took place in the real world into a surprisingly expansive genre. It struggled in the early 2010s when it seemed every other horror […]
Doctor Who A-Z #115: Logopolis (1981)
Like so many generations of fans, my road into Doctor Who fandom was paved with Target novelisations. During the 1990s there were almost no repeats on terrestrial TV, the videos were often expensive or hard to obtain, and the idea of the whole “Whoniverse” on iPlayer was a madman’s dream. Those little […]
Outside the Blue Box: Three Kinds of Heat (1987)
The first thing to note about Three Kinds of Heat, a fairly typical, bargain basement piece of 80s B movie filmmaking from the Cannon Group, is that it’s a film with three kinds of connections to Doctor Who. The first, least obvious connection, is the actor Trevor Martin, who was known for playing […]
Doctor Who A-Z #114: The Keeper of Traken (1981)
One curiosity of the Tom Baker years is its reluctance to use old villains. After the understandable caution of his first, continuity-packed season, the show settles into a groove of one previously established threat per season – sometimes, in Season Thirteen and Season Sixteen, even fewer than that. This sparing […]
Break A Leg (Panic Fest 2026)
Within the indie sphere of any art form there will always be room for projects where performers make their own opportunities rather than waiting for someone else’s validation or permission. It’s the lifeblood of the independent ideal, and one of the reasons why so many actors transition into directing, and […]
Dead Media (Panic Fest 2026)
The age of streaming is the age of convenience. Everything you fancy watching is available at the press of a button, all wrapped up in a much more affordable price than buying or renting individual films. But with the rise of streaming, we audiences have lost something beautiful – bonus […]
Buffet Infinity (II) (Panic Fest 2026)
It’s a beautiful day in Westridge County. The sun is shining, the birds are behaving strangely, the local fringe religious movement are advertising their upcoming book fair, and a large sinkhole has opened up in the car park outside everyone’s favourite new spot to eat… Buffet Infinity! Offering a seemingly […]
Pitfall (Panic Fest 2026)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: James Kondelik’s Pitfall is a slasher set in the woods – which maybe needs a little more context because “slasher‑in‑the‑woods” is one of the alpha tropes of horror. It’s a stereotype that’s so baked‑in it reads like a joke, but the spoiler […]
Doctor Who A-Z #113: Warriors’ Gate (1981)
I’ve tended to interpret Doctor Who stories through an authorial lens during this project, which raises the question of how we decide authorship in television. The cliche is that it’s a writer’s medium, and Doctor Who‘s format – the ultimate procedural, where every week involves a different location, set-up and […]