Cinema Rediscovered 2018: Trapped in THE MAFU CAGE. When is a cult film not a cult film?

Shown as part of this year’s Cinema Rediscovered Festival at the Bristol Watershed, The Mafu Cage had me stumbling out of the cinema wondering WTF did I just watch… so I had to tell you about it.

We are the youth gone wild! Savage Streets and yoofsploitation

Here for the LOLS is a piece on youth rampage exploitation and Savage Streets a particularly sleazy example from 1984.

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN – HORROR HOUNDS PROWLING THE MARGINS

This started as a review of Hounds of Love, and has mutated into a meditation on genre. It’s a bit rambling, and once again I wish I could afford to pay someone to edit this stuff, but I hope those of you interested in horror and the fringes of the genre find something of interest in it.

Exhuming The Entity

Screened as part of the Cinema Rediscovered festival in Bristol, Sidney J. Furie’s 1982 supernatural horror film The Entity is ripe for reappraisal (and it is now available on Blu Ray in the UK). This rare big screen outing for a film that has languished in relative obscurity since its original release was presented by The Final Girls (@thefinalgirlsuk) Anna Bogutskaya and Olivia Howe. They first apologised for what they were about to put the audience through, but looked forward to hearing post film reactions. Frankly, I was a little too stunned by the movie to offer any in the immediate aftermath. Hopefully the following review makes up for that.

Be warned, spoilers do follow…

Event preview – Bristol’s Cinema Rediscovered weekender (27 – 30 July 2017)

I’ve recently relocated to Bristol and have found a city with vibrant film culture into which I’m currently dipping my toes. Here follows a preview of the upcoming Cinema Rediscovered festival running at the end of July. If you live in, or around Bristol there are some great screenings and events. Here is my pick…

Hidden Gems: Cheap Thrills – a down’n’dirty, cocaine-fuelled, Gonzo version of Indecent Proposal

It’s a constant mystery to me how some quality genre films slip beneath the waves almost unnoticed. Cheap Thrills was one of those, receiving a UK release only barely a handful of screens and becoming just another entry on one of those gloating listicles of films that made only a few hundred quid on their theatrical releases. It possible isn’t helped by not fitting comfortably into genre categories. It’s the kind of film that horror fans might enjoy, but it isn’t a horror film. It’s very funny, but it’s funny in a very cutting way that isn’t comfortable. Once upon a time a film like this might have found its audience at the video rental store. But in these days of declining physical media sales, streaming is primary outlet and if the deals aren’t quite right a film just disappears.

So here is my review of Cheap Thrills – originally written for the now defunct Chris and Phil Presents website – to try and keep the fire burning.

The return of SAVAGE CINEMA! Bone Tomahawk and Green Room bring the PAIN!

Buckle up brothers and sisters, this is a LOOOOOOONG one.

Goodnight Mommy and the rise of ‘Indie Arthouse Horror’

American novelist and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis on his popular and provocative podcast has recently decried the rise of what he calls ‘Indie Arthouse horror’. Among the films that form the vanguard of what Ellis wants to see as some kind of new wave (although in a pejorative sense) is the 2014 Austrian film Goodnight Mommy (original title Ich seh, Ich seh). 

Remembering Wes Craven and The People Under the Stairs

The news today (the 31st August 2015) of the death of the director Wes Craven came as something it was hard not to characterise with gallows humour as a ‘Shocker’, of all the directors classed as ‘Masters of Horror’ Craven was the one that had kept a candle burning for the horror genre. Whilst others either fizzled out after initial promise (Hooper), gradually got stuck in a genre rut (Romero), suffered a gradual decline (Carpenter), or left the genre for pastures new (Cronenberg), Craven demonstrated a remarkable resilience. 

Is Cub Scout Survival Horror the new thing?

A group of scouts venture into the countryside in search of adventure and find a much more real and visceral threat stalking the woods than scary campfire tales.