When The Exorcist was first released back in 1973, rumours began to spread that the movie itself bore supernatural, satanic properties; after all, how could somebody possibly make, or even want to make, a movie as sinister and shocking as that without calling upon the forces of darkness? In the […]
Pop Culture
Chainsaws Were Singing (Fantastic Fest 2024)
I mean what more can you say? If you hadn’t guessed already, Chainsaws Were Singing is a madcap comedy splatterfest from the country that brought you… anyone else seen November? That’s a good one, and in fact is also a certifiably odd film and yet it doesn’t come close to […]
Sunset Superman (Fantastic Fest 2024)
Fantastic Fest isn’t just a horror film festival – it covers all the genre staples (action, sci-fi, & horror) and the spaces that intersect those divides. Lately, however, the heaviest load falls on horror, relegating sci-fi and action to supporting roles, which is true of both the microcosm of Fantastic […]
Apartment 7A (Fantastic Fest 2024)
The horror genre is often characterised by ongoing sequels, as filmmakers devise ever more convoluted ways to bring back the threat. In recent years, the legacy sequel has become popular, from Scream V (and VI) to Halloween (2018 and its sequels) to The Exorcist: Believer. Amongst these continuations, there have […]
Frankie Freako (Fantastic Fest 2024)
What ever happened to freaky little guys? For many of our childhoods, they were scuttling around everywhere – from Gremlins to Ghoulies, the rubbery wee nightmares were wreaking havoc in fictional suburban homes, instilling fear in children who really ought not to be watching such traumatic whimsy. Many of those kids are now […]
The Severed Sun (Fantastic Fest 2024)
Ever since I first clapped eyes on his 2018 short The Sermon, I’ve been assiduously following the work of Cornish based filmmaker Dean Puckett for the last five years. A folk horror tale about a homophobic church community living in rural isolation, the short was imbued with a wonderful 1970s aesthetic […]
Doctor Who A-Z #02: The Daleks (1963-4)
In a parallel universe – the one where John Lumic creates the Cybermen, perhaps, or the one where we all wear eye-patches – the second Doctor Who serial was Anthony Coburn’s The Masters of Luxor. Script editor David Whitaker held it back for reworking, then cancelled it when the problems with Coburn’s script […]
Doctor Who A-Z #01 – An Unearthly Child (1963)
Nobody comes to An Unearthly Child cold these days. The only reason anyone knows about it is bound up with what happened next: it launched a series, a series which, barring accidents, ran for the next sixty-one years and counting. Yet one of the pleasures of the opening episode is […]
The Skies of Arcadia (2000) do not speak louder than my heart
First gaming session for ‘Skies of Arcadia’ I kicked off this series of articles, to document my play-throughs of classic Dreamcast games that I’d never experienced, by explaining how I’d first purchased the console during a personal crisis. (At the tail-end of a weekend from hell in Edinburgh, as my […]
Oddity (Fantasia 2024)(Review)
A horror movie doesn’t necessarily need to be “scary” to be successful, and even then what gets under peoples’ skin is highly subjective. Describing a horror movie as “scary” can nonetheless imply its success in several areas at being able to frighten audiences, such as having a well-developed atmosphere or […]