Film and Horror

Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre - James Kendrick

16 Apr 2010

(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

29 Mar 2010

(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

18 Mar 2010

(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

2 Mar 2010

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

1 Mar 2010

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

25 Feb 2010

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

18 Feb 2010

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

17 Feb 2010

(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

17 Feb 2010

(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

12 Feb 2010

(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…