The classic story of a delusional, maybe-psychopath, best captured in American Psycho, is given a sort of British re-telling in this stylish, disturbing and very entertaining study, of a man addicted to drinking, smoking, fucking and, er, killing. Antihero David Pettigrew is a disillusioned sales agent, who is hopelessly in love with his happily married [...]

Though their debut, Dead Hooker In A Trunk, left a lot to be desired, the Soska sisters’ follow-up, American Mary, garnered serious buzz on the festival circuit, and its bad ass trailer left me almost weeping with joy. American Mary is a significant improvement on its predecessor. In fact, if this were their debut, the sisters would be [...]

Following the worldwide success of last year’s rather good The Conjuring, creepy doll Annabelle – who you may remember currently resides in Ed and Lorraine Warren’s Room Of Creepy Things – gets her own outing because, clearly, someone thinks she’s a hell of a lot scarier than she actually is. To be fair, Annabelle is [...]

Although the title seems like just a play on words, the phrase “as above, so below” is actually the key to all magic. Or, so we are told by Perdita Weeks’ know-it-all British student – and you’d better believe she’ll utter those words ominously herself before the film is out. Kicking off with a great [...]

Fear of enclosed spaces has strangely little to do with this tense, surprisingly effective, little thriller set largely within the confines of an ATM vestibule, which is of course located in the middle of nowhere. Starring Nickelodeon teen royalty Josh Peck and Alice Eve, the girl who’s more famous for prancing around in her undies [...]

Novice director Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin, which is also adapted from his self-penned screenplay, seems at first glance to be a standard, run of the mill revenge thriller. Newcomer Macon Blair, Saulnier’s own high school buddy, begins the film sporting a scraggly beard of which Daniel Bryan would be proud, before delivering some Old Testament [...]

Horror fans of a certain age possess a deep, abiding love for Joe Dante. The auteur who gave us Gremlins, Piranha, Matinee et al can (usually) do no wrong, as evidenced by his most recent offering, The Hole; a fun, exciting, super-spooky kids’ horror flick with the scariest clown doll this side of Poltergeist. It’s [...]

There seems to be no end to the unnecessary horror remakes that Hollywood wishes to foist upon those of us lucky enough to know Jason doesn’t usually grow weed when he’s not busy killing people, or that Freddy’s face is supposed to, well, move a little bit. One could spend weeks justifying the existence of [...]

Claustrophobia is, thankfully, not something from which I suffer. That’s not to say I enjoy being stuck in small spaces, I just don’t go crazy when forced to do so. Being thrust headfirst into a pool of angry sharks, however, wouldn’t exactly be my idea of fun. In comparison, though, I’d much rather that than [...]

Pitching itself as a modern Rosemary’s Baby for the Paranormal Activity generation, Devil’s Due is unlikely to thrill, chill or spook even the most easily scared moviegoer, thanks to a dull premise, dreadful pacing and not nearly enough scares. And naturally, because this is the year 2014, it is of course presented to us as [...]

The cult movie that launched heartthrob Ryan Gosling into the major league stratosphere is, arguably, one of the bleakest, most beautiful looks at a life of crime this side of The Godfather and, following the release of follow up, Only God Forgives, the discussion surrounding this most un-Hollywood of Hollywood films has jump-started all over [...]

Boo! Chomp! The Ghost Shark is coming to get us and he is PISSED! If there was ever any doubt that the latest project, from the mad scientists over at SyFy, featured the recently-reincarnated spirit of a viciously murdered Great White, hell-bent on revenge, on the town who wronged him, then worry not, because the [...]

In a world of slithery sharktopuses (sharktopi?), penis-chomping piranha and dam-obliterating zombeavers, Godzilla looks like a grumpy old fart. Following his less-than-impressive outing almost twenty years ago, the big guy was relegated to the bargain bin, and stripped of his title in his home country – the 1998 incarnation is referred to only as Zilla [...]

Following the disheartening, yet predictable, mainstream success of the incredibly derivative Insidious, along with this year’s far more accomplished The Conjuring, James Wan returns with yet another ghost story, about a haunted house, a tortured family, and not much else. The events of Insidious: Chapter 2, to give it its full name (surely that title [...]

Back in 2004, when Edgar Wright’s brilliant Shaun Of The Dead was released, a rom-zom-com seemed like a bizarre idea for a movie. On a mainstream level, at least, a romantic horror story had yet to take hold as a viable concept and yet, ten years later, it’s established its own sub-subgenre to the point [...]

Remakes are a tricky business. When handled correctly, we get films that are great in their own right, such as 2004’s Dawn Of The Dead. But, more often than not, we’re subjected to utter dross, like 2010’s A Nightmare On Elm Street. As a result, it’s natural to wonder why the hell, aside from the [...]

Recently, it seems as though the theme of religion is popping up in more and more horror flicks. Apparently, there’s no end to the amount of stories that can be mined from the relationship between otherwise normal people and God(s). At this year’s Frightfest, there were several, notable films with a religious angle, from the [...]

Oculus may sound like a substandard metalcore band from the early-2000s but the word actually refers to a style of design that is round, or eye-like, which somehow feeds into the idea of a musty, old haunted mirror. Adapted from a short by director Mike Flanagan (who also helmed the enjoyable Absentia), the premise is [...]

For most normal people, the idea of hanging from large hooks, embedded into their skin, doesn’t even bear thinking about, but for filmmaker Kate Shenton, the world of suspension, and those who inhabit it, is the perfect premise for a documentary – just don’t expect to learn anything about the practice, or the enthusiasts, or [...]

Following up the hugely successful Drive was never going to be an easy task, and it is, therefore, understandable that Only God Forgives feels like a far more complicated film than it actually is, not to mention one whose aspirations far outweigh its own reality. The film reunites director/writer Refn with Ryan Gosling, a man [...]

Vampires are finally given back their bite (excuse the pun) in this captivating, gorgeous, and utterly irresistible twist on the old tale from hipster director Jim Jarmusch, which pitches odd couple Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as centuries-old bloodsuckers Adam and Eve, who are struggling to keep their lifelong love alive, as well as themselves, [...]

Gil Kenan is a brave man. Although it boasts about as many scares as Jumanji, the original Poltergeist – a Tobe Hooper/Stephen Spielberg co-project on which the latter’s fingerprints are more obvious – is curiously beloved by genre fans. Remaking it was always going to be an arduous task, regardless of whether the director in [...]

Opening with a picket at the funeral of a recently-murdered young gay man, one could be forgiven for assuming Kevin Smith’s Red State is a slight on the much-maligned Westboro Baptist Church. However, about halfway through this disturbingly realistic take on cult mentality in the Deep South, John Goodman’s law enforcement officer informs a colleague, [...]

With a title like Sharknado, we know right off the bat not to expect Jaws, or even Deep Blue Sea. In fact, the only thing that is expected of a film such as this is that its tongue is held firmly in its cheek, with all notion of reality thrown completely out the window in [...]

Much like its predecessor, Sharknado 2: The Second One does exactly what one might expect. The sequel ups the ante considerably, kicking off its ludicrous narrative with an utterly unfathomable, yet ultimately very thrilling, airplane sequence, which involves, among others, Kelly Osbourne, Wil Wheaton, Airplane!’s Robert Hays and a whole load of flying sharks. Although [...]

You know the drill by now: storm’s a brewin’ and it’s full of the hungriest, most aggressive sharks imaginable. Make no mistake about it, the ‘nadoes of the Sharknado series – a series that will not die, judging by the announcement of a fourth instalment on the very same day the third was released – [...]

Short films are, by their very nature, problematic – communicating a story that’s sufficiently involving and interesting, with believable characters and enough exciting events to hold the attention of an audience is difficult enough when given ninety minutes to do so, let alone fifteen or twenty. When it comes to horror, the idea of doing [...]

Upon its release, blockbuster box office hit Guardians Of The Galaxy was described by certain genre fans as the most expensive Troma movie ever made. Clearly, they haven’t seen Slither, Guardians writer/director James Gunn’s raucous, gory and hugely enjoyable 2006 creature feature with a heart of gold that, sadly, never quite found the audience it [...]

Although it may not seem like the most obvious setting for a cold-blooded murder, writer/director Alain Guiraudie makes a scenic, lakeside cruising spot for gay men the most frightening, claustrophic place imaginable, where everyone is a witness, in his slow-burning, uninhibited and utterly engulfing thriller, Stranger By The Lake. The French subtitles signal the first [...]

For horror fanatics, Halloween is more than just a holiday. It’s the one night a year that is truly ours, when we can celebrate everything that’s weird, wonderful and dark, out in the open, without fear of reproach from those who don’t normally get the attraction. Most have felt a certain affinity for Halloween since [...]

Heralded as the new voice of horror by the likes of Kim Newman et al, this Aussie chiller boasts one of the creepiest trailers of the past year, and a villain that could be this generation’s Freddy Krueger. Almost universally praised, and after shocking audiences at Frightfest, finally, it’s getting a well-deserved release. With the [...]

The story of paranormal investigator couple Ed and Lorraine Warren is truly fascinating. A demonologist and clairvoyant respectively, the two were involved in the study of multiple cases of “hauntings” in the US, including the infamous Amityville. Their work so impacted on their lives, in fact, that Lorraine keeps a room of tokens, gained along [...]

The mainstream press would have you believe that found footage has had its day, that it hasn’t been good since The Blair Witch Project and that it should just go off and die somewhere already. This is because movies like Willow Creek, The Borderlands, etc. usually aren’t afforded theatrical releases and, therefore, the majority of [...]

Considering its distribution remains in serious doubt, with certain commentators speculating about whether it will even make it to theatres, Frightfest 2014 attendees were lucky to catch Eli Roth’s highly-anticipated cannibal shocker, The Green Inferno, at all. Charting the ill-fated escapades of a group of seemingly well-meaning young activists – “Activism’s so fucking gay” a [...]

It’s the future! America is even crazier than it is now! There’s even a special, annual holiday, during which everybody is allowed to KILL! Except that, according to the title card that pops up at the beginning of the film (always a bad sign), it’s only 2022. Does that mean, just nine years from now, [...]

Following the success of last year’s dystopian nightmare The Purge, which squandered a half-decent idea by limiting the action to one suburban household, the sequel widens the scope significantly by encompassing an entire city. The Purge: Anarchy follows three interconnecting stories, each representing a different faction of a troubled society, from a poor mother and [...]

When Kevin Smith, purveyor of dick and fart jokes, announced his first foray into horror, fans were understandably aghast – what does this overgrown man-child know about our beloved genre? As it turned out, a hell of a lot, Red State proving to be a smart, slow-burning and ultimately very frightening exercise in narrative tension, [...]

Remakes are so ubiquitous at the moment, particularly in horror, that they’re often dismissed as trash long before they’ve hit theatres, while low-budget features barely even get a look in – understandably so, when dross like Carrie is competing against indie flicks that never even get a shot at the box office, who’s going to [...]

If, like me, you regularly watch the cooking competition/bitchfest that is Come Dine With Me, but often find yourself wishing the stakes were just a little bit higher, then Would You Rather might just be for you. The premise of the film is quite original; a group of strangers, from varying backgrounds, all of whom [...]