Film, Horror

Phobia and His Name Was Jason release on DVD

Horror DVD round-up

For this issue’s delve into the world of summer horror we’re taking a trip around the globe. Starting in the US with one for real horror aficionados, His Name Was Jason (Stax) ●●●● is an exhaustive look at the history of everyone’s favourite…

The Collector

(18) 86 min Horror is constantly searching for icons, figureheads and antiheroes. It celebrates its directors (the John Carpenters, Wes Cravens and Tobe Hoopers) like no other genre and worships its villains, with the likes of Freddy, Jason and…

Cannibal Apocalypse

(18) 93min (Optimum) During the late 1970s/early 1980s a handful of Italian directors unleashed a spate of cannibal films (including the infamous Cannibal Holocaust) most of which were promptly banned as ‘Video Nasties’ in 1984. Despite being…

A Nightmare on Elm Street

(18) 95 min Horror remakes seem to be one of the most reliable money spinners in Hollywood right now. And Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes are specialists in this subgenre already giving us an excellent new Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003 and passable…

Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist among Edinburgh International Film Festival 2010 highlights

With The Edinburgh Film Festival 2010, which runs between 16-27 June, only a matter of weeks away, the red carpets are getting waterproofed and the popcorn machines are getting serviced. Now in its 64th year, the twelve day festival, packed with…

Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre - James Kendrick

(Wallflower) James Kendrick’s short volume isn’t at all an ambitious book; and that is perhaps as much down to the nature of the commission as it is to the limitations of the writer. This is one of Wallflower publishing’s Short Cuts. The books are…

Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde

(15) 94min (Optimum) By the turn of the sexploitastic 1970s Hammer Films were upping the erotic content of their already titillating takes on horror classics with this transgender spin on Stevenson’s evil alter-ego tale of terror. Released in 1971…

Storm

(15) 110min Last time out director Hans-Christian Schmid directed the psychological horror Requiem based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, a young Catholic epileptic sufferer who believed that she was possessed by demons. Schmid has a long…

Case 39

The current vogue for demonic children flicks doesn’t excuse the unwarranted release of Christian Antibodies Alvart’s long-shelved horror film, in which Renee Zellweger plays Emily Jenkins, a social worker who adopts a malevolent girl with the ability…

Hipsters, Bad Lieutenant and a Frightfest at GFF

Glasgow Film Festival blog

Friday afternoon. I decide to brave the vertiginous screens at Glasgow’s Cineworld Renfrew Street where some festival films are also showing. I make the perverse choice of Hipsters, a Russian film with no current UK distributor about a group of post…

Shutter Island

Just as he followed his gangland classic Goodfellas with his pulpy remake of Cape Fear, so Martin Scorsese’s first feature film proper since The Departed is thriller Shutter Island. Based on the 1954-set novel by Dennis Lehane, like Cape Fear, it’s…

The Room

Is Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 horror the worst good bad film ever made? Allegedly screening for the first time ever at a Scottish cinema, you can now judge for yourselves. Late night screening. Cameo, Edinburgh on Sat 20 Feb.

Tower of London

(15) 92min (Optimum) This long unavailable (on DVD), deliciously nasty historical horror made in 1939 is all dungeons, manacles, torture and beheadings. But it’s also fairly classy stuff, boasting a fine cast headed by Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff…

Chaw

(15) 117min (Optimum) This blackly comic South Korean horror film arrives on the back of the success of the Asian monster movie The Host. Like that film, Chaw (pronounced ‘chow’, meaning animal trap, but probably intended to invoke Jaws) is at once…

The Wolfman

(15) 125 min This remake of the classic 1941 creature feature was a project close to Benicio del Toro’s heart, not only does he take the lead role but also a producer credit. However a shifting release date is often the sign of a problematic…

Mad Monster Party

(U) 94min (Optimum) You can see how this 1967 stop-motion animated feature (allegedly being remade) has had an enduring influence on Tim Burton, from his most recent foray into old-school-style animation The Corpse Bride, all the way back to his…

The Stepfather

Reprising the unfortunate wine-into-water routine of his Prom Night remake, director Nelson McCormick performs a similarly unwelcome trick by blandly rehashing Joseph Ruben’s solid 1987 sleeper hit. TV staple Dylan Walsh steps into the role previously…

Saw VI

(18) 90 min. The Saw series is as fixed in the calendar as Halloween itself (they have had a movie out every October since the series started back in 2004), and surprisingly Saw VI is the best instalment for a good while (certainly trumping the last…

Colin

No-budget Welsh zombie horror

(18) 97min Young Welsh horror movie fan Marc Price apparently made this zombie flick for just £45 – the cost of keeping his crewmates in tea and biscuits for the 18 months of weekend filming plus a few buckets of red food dye. If true, that makes…

Halloween Guide: M - S

Yet more spooky goings-on

M is for Movies Perhaps only rivalled by the upsurge in the plastic horn industry around 31 Oct, the annual economic boost for the horror film industry ensures that, every Halloween, there is a fresh crop of dismembered corpse-filled flicks to satisfy…

Interview: Wes Craven

As The Last House on the Left remake hits DVD, we talk to the legendary horror director

The Last House on the Left was your first movie, shot in Super 6 and with a very low budget in 1972. How have you changed since then? I would like to think that I have acquired some wisdom along the way … How did the idea of making a remake come…

Halloween Guide: G - L

The next step in our Halloween runthrough

G is for Ghost Vigil Ghost hunting is a serious business – Derek Acorah has proved that. If you fancy busting some ghosts, then this all night Ghost Vigil aboard the Tall Ship in Glasgow is a good place to hone your skills. Conducted by experienced…

Interview: Greg Dillahunt

Speaking to The Last House on the Left's most vicious villain

Are you a fan of Wes Craven? I have always been a huge fan of Wes Craven! He was on my mental checklist of people I wanted to work with. When did you meet him? I met him just before we started shooting because he had the last word with casting…

Jennifer's Body

Winning horror comedy from Juno writer

When it was released in the US, the heterosexual males who ogled Megan Fox’s superstructure amid the heavy-metal chaos of two Transformers movies stayed away in droves from Jennifer’s Body, and it’s not hard to see why. Karyn Kusama’s visceral horror…

The Horseman

Australian revenge thriller fails to thrill

The template for this Australian murder-revenge drama is clearly Mike Hodges’ classic Get Carter. Writer/director Steven Kastrissios’ film features a tough-as-nails central performance from Peter Marshall as Christian, a revenge-seeking father. The…