Horror

The Innkeepers

A genuinely involving and disconcerting chiller that thankfully eschews any trendy post-modernism

11 May 2012

Having established his credentials as a serious genre fan with a spot-on homage to 80s horror movies in The House of the Devil, writer-director Ti West reaches even further back into the past with this slow-burning thriller. Like all good haunted house…

Trailer for The Lucifer Effect marries found footage with hyper-viral marketing

10 May 2012

Cinema has had its fair share of found footage thrillers recently. While some have had some success on a semi-stale horror circuit (such as the almost genre-defining Blair Witch Project and the Paranormal Activity series), others have failed massively…

666: The Prophecy

By-the-numbers horror from Darren Lynn Bousman, inspired by calendar numerology

18 Apr 2012

(15) 90mins The current public appetite for horror barely excuses the eventual, much delayed release of 666: The Prophecy, which was opportunistically released in the US in November last year on the date (and under the title) 11-11-11. The idea that…

The trailer for Lovely Molly, the new film from Blair Witch director Eduardo Sánchez

More close-up crying from the found footage pioneer

3 Apr 2012

Since pretty much inventing the found footage horror genre with The Blair Witch Project back in 1999, Eduardo Sánchez has been keeping kind of a low profile, with only a couple of (poorly-received) horrors to his name. The trailer for his newest…

The Divide

A nasty and nihilistic portrait of rapid decline of civilisation

19 Mar 2012

(18) 108mins Rarely will you see a film as nasty and nihilistic as Xavier Gens’ The Divide. The Frenchman scored a cult hit with 2007’s Frontier(s) before making his first foray into the studio system with the by numbers video game adaptation Hitman.

Guy Pearce delivers futuristic TED talk for Ridley Scott's Prometheus

Pearce stars as the founder of Weyland Industries

29 Feb 2012

We appreciate a well-thought out viral online campaign here at List HQ. We're also fans of the inspirational TED talks, where the leading lights of culture, technology and industry come together to deliver talks based on their chosen field of expertise.

GFF 2012 - Day planner

Our highlights for each day of the Glasgow Film Festival

6 Feb 2012

It can be difficult, when any festival rolls around, to decide which events to skip in favour of others. Searching rigorously through the programme, referring back to the calendar, trying to fit in as much as possible - it's a painstaking piece of work…

GFF 2012 - Frightfest highlights

A round up of the best films showing as part of the Glasgow Film Festival's horror strand

2 Feb 2012

FrightFest is back once again to terrorise the Glasgow Film Festival. Now taking over the GFT for two full days, this year (as with every year) it’s a vibrant snap shot of the state of horror cinema. It’s been so successful the organisers have launched…

GFF 2012 - Italo-horror artist Umberto

The soundtrack specialist fits comfortably into the Glasgow Music and Film Festival strand

1 Feb 2012

Horror-score revivalist Matt Hill channels the creepyass compositions of Goblin, John Carpenter and Fabio Frizzi in his eerie synthjams, conjuring up a sonic witches brew. A member of drone-merchants Expo 70, Hill has, in his Umberto guise, explored the…

Steven Severin: Vampyr - Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Thu 12 Jan

Ex-Banshees bassist delivers brooding live score to 1930s horror classic

1 Feb 2012

The man with the flowing white hair walks towards a small table and chair to one side of the Cameo’s big screen. Sporting a long black winter coat and carrying a glass of red wine, the man looks as if he’s stepped in from another, altogether darker age…

The Woman In Black

Daniel Radcliffe's first post-Potter film lacks the requisite scares for a classic ghost story

23 Jan 2012

(12A) 95mins Susan Hill’s Victorian ghost story has been terrifying theatre audiences for the best part of twenty-five years, second only to The Mousetrap as the longest running show in the history of London’s West End. It has already been…

Intruders

Derivative, moderately engaging paranormal horror starring Clive Owen

5 Jan 2012

(15) 110min Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has never quite delivered on the promise of his clever debut feature Intacto. Retro chiller Intruders is cleverly constructed and suspenseful but fades when pitted against superior genre fare like…

The Awakening

Superior British period ghost story sets a tone of creepy unease

15 Nov 2011

There’s been a glut of cinematic ghost stories this year. The likes of Paranormal Activity 3 and Insidious often relied on jump scares and cheap parlour tricks, whereas The Awakening goes in the opposite direction letting the story unfold to reveal the…

Alice Cooper - SECC: Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, Mon 31 Oct

2 Nov 2011

Could there be a more perfect date for Alice Cooper to play Glasgow? And the Halloween freakshow starts early with protopunks New York Dolls still pouting after all these years. A muted response from the crowd in this vast arena lessens the impact but…

Paranormal Activity 3

Surprisingly effective third instalment of found footage suburban ghost story

21 Oct 2011

(15) 84min Now Saw has relinquished it’s stranglehold on the multiplex each and every Halloween, Paranormal Activity has stepped up to fill the void. And it’s impressive that they’ve managed to mine this much back-story from the simplicity of the…

Shark Night 3D

Dumb fun as big fish chow down on stereotypical college kids

6 Oct 2011

(15) 91 min The avalanche of 3D releases may be slowing down but there’s still a few chuckles to be had with the format. Shark Night 3D has the flimsiest of plots as seven college kids head out for a weekend at a luxurious lake house in Louisiana…

Red State survey reveals loss of morals in UK

A questionnaire promoting Kevin Smith's Republican-skewering horror flick has interesting results

29 Sep 2011

Kevin Smith is well-known for baiting controversy - his apocalyptic comedy Dogma drew massive complaints for its depiction of a shallow Catholic church, while latest release Red State focuses on a group of serial-killing Christian fundamentalists.

The Woman

Challenging horror from the minds of Lucky McKee and Jack Ketchum

28 Sep 2011

(18) 98 min There has been a spate of interesting indie horror recently, films like Dead Girl, The Loved Ones and Red, White & Blue have brought a real intelligence to the genre. A challenging leftfield take on the idea of what is horror. The Woman…

Red State

Uneven political horror-thriller from Kevin Smith

14 Sep 2011

(18) 88min Outspoken filmmaker Kevin Smith hit a creative and commercial low with his last studio-backed production, the Bruce Willis-starring flop Cop Out, but before that film was even released Smith had shifted focus to this long-gestating…

Don't be Afraid of the Dark

Unimaginitive reboot of 70s cult horror film

13 Sep 2011

(15) 99min Looming large in the childhood memories of many US pop culture aficionados, the original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark was a minor but effective 1973 TV movie in which Jim Hutton and Kim Darby played a couple menaced by demonic creatures in…

Profile: Melissa George

Aussie actress Melissa George tells us all about her new film A Lonely Place to Die

1 Sep 2011

Born 6 August, 1976, Perth, Australia. Background Yet another Aussie soap alumni done good, after starring as Angel in over 300 episodes of Home & Away. ‘I’m a very good quitter, I always quit a job at the right time,’ explains George. ‘I was…

Final Destination 5

Horror franchise gets back on track with some suitably gory bloodshed

24 Aug 2011

(15) 92 min In many ways the Final Destination series is the ultimate streamlined horror franchise, they have dispensed with a villain and it is death itself that stalks our victims. And FD 5 returns the glorious gory yucks to the screen after the…

A Lonely Place To Die

Tense and riveting Brit-thriller set in Scottish Highlands

24 Aug 2011

How far would you go to save a stranger? Would you risk your life? And your friends’ lives? It’s a question Alison (Melissa George) and her fellow climbers must answer after they stumble across a young girl (Holly Boyd) buried in a wooden box while…

The Skin I Live In (La Piel Que Habito)

Almodovar's adaptation is measured, playful and spellbinding

19 Aug 2011

(15) 120min The Skin I Live In has all the elements of a campy Vincent Price B-movie. There is a meddlesome scientist driven mad by grief, a grisly revenge plot and a hapless victim, not to mention multiple murder, kidnap and rape. In the hands of…

Kill List

Genre-schizophrenic crime spree lacks clarity

19 Aug 2011

(18) 95min Down Terrace director Ben Wheatley second feature is another tale of crime, skullduggery and mystery. Kill List is one of those movies that starts off in one genre (kitchen sink drama) and turns into another (horror). Robert Rodriguez…

Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden & Ben Stenbeck - Baltimore: The Plague Ships

Disappointing supernatural horror from Hellboy creator Mike Mignola

20 Jul 2011

(Dark Horse) Hellboy creator Mike Mignola continues to expand his universe of supernatural horror inspired by 19th and 20th century pulp fictions with this his latest creation, Lord Henry Baltimore, vampire hunter. This first story arc, the first…

DVD reviews: The Kingdom, Giallo, The Pack, Bloodrayne 3, Evil Rising and Lake Mungo

Summer horror DVD round-up

18 Jul 2011

Forget Hollywood – this month we embark on a European horror odyssey. First up, Lars von Trier's superlative haunted hospital drama The Kingdom (Second Sight ●●●●). Collecting both of his four-part Danish TV series into one boxed set for the first time…

Julia's Eyes

A very well made chiller in the stalk ‘n’ slash tradition

1 Jul 2011

(15) 112min In addition to directing visionary adult horror-fantasies (The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth) and outstanding Hollywood blockbusters (Hellboy and its sequel), Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is also carving a second career for…

DVD reviews: Amer, My Soul to Take, Season of the Witch, The Resident and more on DVD

Horror DVD round-up

24 Jun 2011

Time for another dastardly delve into the horror DVD pile. We’ll start on a highnote. Amer (Anchor Bay) is actually French but is a studied homage to Italian 70s gialo filmmaking, more concerned with sound, colour, style and mood than coherent…

The Last Circus

Spanish black comedy/horror takes in clowns, circus life, love and madness

20 Jun 2011

The latest film from writer/director Alex de la Iglesia is almost unclassifiable, a love story, a black comedy and horror all apply and as fans of his Accion Mutante (1992) will know it’s this glorious mess of ideas and themes that makes for such a…

Rabies (Kalevat)

An interesting twist on slasher movie conventions from Israel

17 Jun 2011

The problem with slasher films is that they perhaps have the most rigid rules in cinema. It’s so easy to fall into the standard clichés as set out by Halloween and Friday the 13th. Not that it means you can’t make a fun, entertaining film within these…

Profile: Jim Mickle, director of vampire horror Stake Land

Director turnes hometown into a post-apocalyptic wasteland

23 May 2011

Name Jim Mickle Born Pottstown, Pennsylvania, 1977 Background After graduating from New York University’s filmmaking programme, Mickle worked in the camera department for features Transamerica, Shortbus and Pride and Glory. The experience gave him…

Kaboom

Cult director Gregg Araki returns to his B-movie roots with comedy-sci-fi-horror

23 May 2011

(15) 86min Cult director Gregg Araki (The Living End, Mysterious Skin), one of the leading figures in the New Queer Cinema of the 90s, returns to the style of his earlier work for Kaboom, a gloriously trashy, insane ride of a film that wears its…

Mother's Day

Rebecca De Mornay stars in rare example of a horror remake done well

23 May 2011

(18) 112min Following on the heels of bloodless remakes of cherished 1980s slasher flicks like The Stepfather and Prom Night, Mother’s Day is a nastier but more accomplished beast. This home invasion drama is a reboot of the 1980 Troma original, and…

Stake Land

Jim Mickle's post-apocalyptic vampire horror shows the monsters still have bite post-Twilight

23 May 2011

(15) 98min Moving on from his impressive 2006 horror debut Mulberry Street, writer/director Jim Mickle scores a breakout hit with Stake Land, which fuses the post-apocalyptic journey scenario familiar from The Road or Zombieland with the current…

Insidious - Leigh Whannell and James Wan interview

Terrifying new ghost story Insidious from horror duo behind Saw

26 Apr 2011

They gave the world Saw, followed it up with Dead Silence and now writer director team Leigh Whannell and James Wan are back with the terrifying ghost story that is Insidious. So what is Insidious about? Leigh Whannell: The film is our version of…

Scream 4

Fun, clever and thrilling revitalisation of Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson's horror franchise

26 Apr 2011

Back in 1996 horror was in the doldrums, the glory days and box-office clout of Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween were a thing of the past. Big budgets and horror were distant relatives. Then along came Scream. From the tense…

Insidious

New horror from the creative team behind Saw, succeeds in getting under your skin

15 Apr 2011

(15) 102 min There’s a real art in making a good scary movie – a film that sends shivers down your spine – and Insidious gets it just right. Well, almost. Perhaps not something you’d expect from the writer director team of Leigh Whanell and James Wan…

Cold Fish

Dark but overlong Japanese serial killer horror from director Sion Sono

15 Apr 2011

Sion Sono has had a varied and intriguing career directing hair extension horror Exte and the award winning four hour Love Exposure. Here he returns with a dark serial killer character study told from the perspective of Shamoto (Mitsuru Fukikoshi) who…

Wake Wood

Supernatural horror from Hammer Studios captures relentless claustrophobia

30 Mar 2011

The resurrected Hammer Studios really are upping the pace, swiftly following The Resident with British supernatural shocker Wake Wood. Very much a riff on Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (which also got an excellent big screen adaptation from overlooked…

Horror Channel announces TV premieres of UK horror films for April 2011

Includes Mum & Dad, Tony: London Serial Killer and Salvage

30 Mar 2011

‘Essentially through the month of April every Friday night we’re going to have the UK TV premiere of brilliant British cutting edge horror films,’ explains Programmes & Acquisitions Coordinator Paul McEvoy (also founder and co-director of horror film…

Profile: Simon Hynd, director of horror thriller Senseless

Jason Behr plays US businessman who is kidnapped

24 Mar 2011

Born 20 January, 1974, Edinburgh Background Hynd studied Film & Television at Napier, making a few shorts that got him noticed by the Scottish film industry, going on to win a Scottish BAFTA for his short Tumshie Mcfadgen’s Bid for Ultimate…

The Resident – Film review

Hilary Swank, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Christopher Lee star in the latest thriller from Hammer studio

16 Mar 2011

It’s certainly fantastic seeing the legend ‘Hammer Film Productions’ on the big screen again (especially when it’s followed by the name ‘Christopher Lee’) however this thriller goes more for the chills of The Nanny or Fear in the Night than the Draculas…

Goblin - The Arches, Glasgow, Friday 25 February 2011

3 Mar 2011

The Glasgow Music and Film Festival has scored a real coup with Goblin, arch-horror instrumentalists usually found supplying the music to Dario Argento’s giallo masterpieces through the 70s and 80s. Alongside Ennio Morricone they have provided some of…

GFF blog: Jason Eisener on Rutger Hauer exploitation flick, Hobo With a Shotgun

The former Grindhouse trailer gets the feature-length treatment

2 Mar 2011

Almost everything you want to know plot-wise about the film Hobo With a Shotgun is right there in the title. There’s a hobo. He has a shotgun. You can probably fill in the blanks yourself. The film’s genesis has a slightly more intricate story…

Buried, Puppet Master: Axis of Evil and Shock Labyrinth released on DVD

Horror DVD round-up

2 Mar 2011

Over the years some of the greatest horror films have found love and longevity amongst the classics of the genre despite their direct-to-video origins. Unfortunately that’s not always the case as The Open Door (Second Sight) ● proves. Taking the vague…

GFF blog: Bruce Goldstein talks The Tingler

The Vincent Price-starring, William Castle-directed gimmick fest gets a new lease of life at the GFF

22 Feb 2011

Bruce Goldstein is not happy about his official job description at the Glasgow Film Festival. ‘I’m not a film historian – well, I guess I am, of a sort – but primarily, I’m a film distributor, and I run a cinema. Most successful repertory stream in the…

The Rite - The human obsession with possession

Latest in line of films exploring possession of the body, spirit and soul

18 Feb 2011

We know that modern society is obsessed with ownership – fancy electrical goods, high fashion and general clutter. But there’s another form of possession with which people have been obsessed for a very long time. It’s possession of the body, the spirit…

The best of Frightfest at Glasgow Film Festival 2011

Founder and co-director of the horror film festival within GFF

18 Feb 2011

Paul McEvoy, founder and co-director of the horror film festival within a festival, picks the best of the line-up ‘We always have a snapshot of exactly where the genre is at the moment, so we’re only as strong as the films that are being produced. I…

The Rite - Demonic possession thriller bogged down by script

Anthony Hopkins, Rutger Hauer and Colin O'Donoghue fail to escape The Exorcist's shadow

18 Feb 2011

(15) 113min ‘What did you expect, spinning heads and pea-soup?’ asks Vatican-approved exorcist Father Lucas Trevant (Anthony Hopkins) in Mikael Håfström’s demonic possession thriller, which initially offers a sober take on a horror genre that usually…