With this double-disc set, Arrow have put together a nice showcase of Chad Crawford Kinkle’s two features, Dementer (2019) and Jug Face (2013). Both show off Kinkle’s range with the former mixing docu-drama with occult horror, while the latter is a straight-up folk horror set in the American South. He shows clear talent in terms of sound design and […]
Reviews
Early Universal Vol 1: Skinner’s Dress Suit/The Shield of Honor/The Shakedown (1926-1929)(Review)
Released to Blu-ray on Eureka’s Masters of Cinema last month, Early Universal Vol 1 is a boxset celebrating the legendary studio’s formative years with three beautifully restored silent features. Each film feels carefully chosen to represent the breadth and variety of features made during the silent era; the domestic comedy […]
Death Screams (1982) and the essential innocence of early slashers (Review)
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is one of those American TV shows which, like Little House on the Prairie and Leave it to Beaver, is remembered as a euphemism for cloying wholesomeness more than an actual show. If you were told that its main child star David Nelson later […]
Johnny Guitar (1954) Oh, Vienna! (Review)
To the unconverted, Westerns are a predictable genre in which the same archetypal characters, settings and situations recur over and over again. To fans, Westerns are a fabulously varied genre in which the same archetypal characters, settings and situations can be combined in an infinite number of original variations. Think, […]
Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968) Scooby Doo for Adults! (Review)
New from Arrow, the Blu-Ray release of the amazingly titled Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is great news for both fans of classic Japanese horror and reviewers with a word count to hit. Jokes aside, the film boasts an impressive pedigree. It’s directed by Noriaki Yuasa, most famous for […]
Paranormal Activity (2007) all these years later, still the best of the bunch (Review)
A full 8 years after the found footage sleeper hit The Blair Witch Project made camcorder footage terrifying, in 2007 director Oren Peli released Paranormal Activity on a (somewhat) unsuspecting cinema audience. Spawning a string of sequels which arguably rivals the Blumhouse MCU of horror, does this Second Sight re-release […]
Gaia (2021) Challenging Ecological South African Body Horror (Review)
While horror cinema has always been away from the gaze of the mainstream, that doesn’t make it less susceptible to trends. Ghosts and zombies are unaffected by the passing trends of the time. Everything else though passes with whatever is the cutting edge discourses of the time. Now, it is […]
Duel to the Death (1983) One of the unsung action movies of the 1980s (Review)
Duel to the Death, 1983, Hong Kong, Dir. Ching Siu-tung (A Chinese Ghost Story) Set up as a modern facing alternative to the then traditionalist Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest is an icon for any fan of martial arts cinema albeit one that Jackie Chan built. It was through Golden Harvest […]
Children of the Corn (1984 -1995) The also-ran horror franchise that keeps on motoring (Review)
Stephen King must be the most adapted author in horror: there are over 60 direct efforts to bring his work to the big screen. The number of movies that those 60 have inspired or the sequels they have spawned, his influence is indisputable. One of the weirder is the Children […]
Corruption (1968) Camp British Proto-Slasher with a surprisingly game Peter Cushing (Review)
Re-released by Indicator, 1968’s Corruption asks a bold question, unheard of during that era of British horror… “What if Peter Cushing did horrible murders in a 60’s style suit rather than a Victorian-era suit?” The plot of this Robert Hartford-Davis directed slasher is the kind of nonsense that you’d expect […]