Malum opens with a diptych of horrific sequences from 2022. In the first, police-seized footage shows four abducted young women being terrorised in the barn of a pig farm by the members of a Manson-esque cult whose leader John Michael Malum (an understated Chaney Morrow) evidently causes the video to blur and distort by his…
FrightFest 2009 Diary: Day 4 first published by Little White Lies Day 4 – Sunday 30 Includes capsule reviews of: Dead Snow; The Human Centipede (First Sequence); Coffin Rock; Night of the Demons; Dread; Michael Jackson: Making Michael Jackson’s Thriller; Black Dead Snow (2009) Of all cinema’s monsters, zombies have so dominated the horror landscape…
Extremity first published by SciFiNow In his Poetics, Aristotle argued that tragedy provided viewers with a catharsis, or ‘cleansing’, of their fear and pity. Ask people today why they watch horror films, and you will typically get a similar response: horror enables us to work through our unresolved emotions and dark drives (chiefly, although not…
A Touch of Zen/Last Shift first published by Little White Lies as the second part of my Cinema Psychotronicum column King Hu’s A Touch of Zen and Anthony DiBlasi’s Last Shift might seem literally worlds apart in terms of their provenance, period, duration and genre. After all, the former is an epic wuxia from Taiwan released in 1970…
Most Likely To Die first published by TheHorrorShow “I’m over it, it’s in the past,” declares Gaby (Heather Morris), as Brad (Ryan Doom), her one-time school boyfriend turned TV star, tries to apologise for the circumstances in which he left her so many years ago. Her words may well resonate with the way that viewers feel…
First published by Grolsch FilmWorks With Big Love all over our TV screens, The Book of Mormon winning critical acclaim and awards on stage, and in 2012 the first ever Mormon candidate running for the US Presidency, the Church of Latter Day Saints – the most mainstream of America’s homegrown religions – has recently risen to…
With Missionary due to screen at the Film4 FrightFest on 25 August, here is my interview with its director Anthony DiBlasi, first published by Grolsch FilmWorks. From his debut feature Dread (2009) to his follow-up Cassadaga (2011) and now Missionary (2013), Anthony DiBlasi has fast established himself as an intelligent, uncompromising genre filmmaker never afraid…