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.

Hidden Gems – rediscovering American Mary

Jen and Sylvia Soska’s 2012 film American Mary is a highly original horror film that flew under the radar on it’s original release and is ripe for rediscovery (or maybe just discovery).

BBC One’s Requiem could be the best British TV horror story in years

Sorry, it’s been a slow start to the blog in 2018 as life has got in the way. But here is my first piece of the year, an introduction to the BBC’s new horror series Requiem. 

Guest blog – XX marks the future

Hello my good fiends, to mark the passing of Samhain and the beginning of winter, I am bringing you only the second ‘guest’ post in this blogs brief history. A few words of introduction, apart from being a dear friend of mine (one who I shall be having for dinner soon) Mr David William Hall was my editor at the late and highly lamented Verite Magazine (all issues archived online here). Along with Toby Weidmann editor of Official Walking Dead Magazine, I credit David’s gossamer editorial touch, critical insight, and encouragement for making my writing at least passably readable.

Obviously the views and opinions that follow are the author’s own, but they appear with the complete endorsement of this blog, with the caveat that I liked the Annie Clark segment of XX, and still think Rosemary’s Baby is a classic horror film.

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…

THIS GREEN UNPLEASANT LAND – THE VISIONS OF NIGEL KNEALE

With the release of an updated version of the excellent biography Into the Unknown – the fantastic life of Nigel Kneale (Andy Murray, Headpress) this seems like a good time to burrow deep into my archives and exhume an article I wrote for the now defunct digital magazine Cult TV Times. Enjoy…

Post-It [Comes At Night] Notes

Claustrophobic horror thriller It Comes At Night is the latest film to land in an ongoing culture war (actually more of a skirmish between factions) for the soul of the genre, between films considered mainstream and art-house. I feel I have to write something about this about once a year. The last time being when Bret Easton Ellis went on a diatribe against ‘art horror’ coinciding with the UK release of Austrian horror movie Goodnight Mommy, you can read that here.

Such think pieces and debates are frustrating to me, as the often obscure the qualities of the film at hand. So is to worth spending your hard earned case on seeing It Comes At Night at the movies, or should you just wait for VOD or streaming?

Find out after the jump…

Jordan Peele’s Get Out explores the uncanny landscape of racial tension

Coming to UK screens off the back of huge box office success in the US, low budget horror film Get Out is destined to be one of the most talked about films of the year. Review follows…

Train to Busan is an express ride to hell with no stops

Released by Studio Canal, Korean zombie film Train to Busan rocks up on UK screens from the 28th of October. A box office blockbuster in its home country, is this a zombie epic worth boarding? Review follows…