Somewhere between the meta-cinematic knowingness of Scream and the self-contained irony of Jennifer’s Body sits Ginger Snaps, a smart, sassy, trilogy of teenage girls dealing with lycanthropy. Or are they really dealing with teenage problems? Menstruation and other signs of puberty; sexuality and relationships; addiction and self-harm; colonialism and manifest […]
Horror
Door / Door 2 (1988/1991): the high art of gut-level sleaze (Review)
What kind of films would be produced by a production house called the Directors Company? In a Western context, you could hazard a guess: serious-minded auteur films, unblemished by the crudities of genre, devoted to an artist’s personal vision. The Directors Company that existed in Japan from 1982 to 1992 […]
S03E06 – Post Scream Slasher Boom (I Know What You Did Last Summer
Messiah of Evil (1973) “They say that nightmares are dreams perverted” (Review)
In Messiah of Evil (1973), co-written, produced and directed by Gloria Katz and William Huyck, Arletty travels to the seaside town of Point Dume to visit her estranged father. Upon arrival, she finds her father’s house deserted and the town inhabited by sinister locals. As she tries to unravel the […]
When Evil Lurks (2023) A Spirited, Grim Take On the Possession Movie (Review)
Coming off the critical success of Terrified (2017), and his standout segment in the horror anthology Satanic Hispanics (2022), Argentinian director Demián Rugna is back with another instalment of his brand of mean horror with When Evil Lurks – meaner and grimmer than before. Hot off the film festival circuit […]
Faceless After Dark (Grimmfest 2023)(Review)
The Horrible Dr Hichcock (1962) & The Night of the Devils (1972) Radiance Italian Gothic (Review)
8 Found Dead (2022) Crime Thriller Playing ‘Guess the Sub-Genre’ (Review)
For all screenwriters moan about how mobile phones and social media have made certain traditional thriller plots obsolete, the internet has also opened up new possibilities for suspense cinema. For example, future books about horror subgenres will have to include a section on “AirBnB horror”, as recent films like Barbarian, […]
It Lives Inside (2023): comfortingly uncomfortable horror with a twist (Review)
Spare a thought for the horror pseuds, folks like me who live to make strained sociopolitical interpretations of horror trends. The 21st century started off well for us, with the zombie revival and the torture wave mapping neatly onto post-9/11 anxieties. Why, though, is everything about exorcisms and possession all […]