The Dark Gets In world première at Beyond Fest, 2 Oct 2026 “When either an individual or a community has gone through some sort of pain or trauma, they will instinctively reach for the superstition to make sense of that which they’re going through,” says the academic folklorist Dr Evan Westfall (James Swanton) towards the…
The Fairy Moon had its world première at Fantasia 2025, 27th July When Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) came out, I recall my boyish excitement at being able to catch up later with the previous two films in the series. Yet within its brief duration, The Fairy Moon manages to incorporate not…
Stopmotion opens with the image of an object floating in space. It is just like the beginning of Eraserhead (1977), which later included some of its own stopmotion sequences – and much as David Lynch superimposed the bobbing face of his protagonist Henry Spencer over the planet to suggest that what we are seeing is…
“It’s all contactless,” says Harry (Oliver Maltman) at the beginning of The Dead of Winter. Harry is apologising for having no change to the man (James Swanton) whom he has just encountered, indeed practically stepped on, in a dark alley outside the pub. That man was not just lying unnoticed, curled up in a thin…
To Fire You Come At Last had its European première on Sat 26th Aug at FrightFest In 17th-century England, a body must be carried along the lichway across the moor to a church yard for burial. Still grieving the death of his 21-year-old son Aldis (Stephen Smith), Squire Marlow (Mark Carlisle) has hired four men…
Walking Against The Rain first published by SciFiNow Scott Lyus’ Walking Against The Rain opens with text which sounds like a quote from the Biblical Book of Revelation (although it is in fact of the filmmaker’s invention), about the defiant ones knowing ‘great pain’, and beasts risen from the abyss to destroy men while leaving…
“You’re bloody neolithic!” Grace (Rebecca Palmer) shouts at her husband Abel (Eoin Slattery) in Dan Gitsham and Sophie Mair’s short film The Thing That Ate The Birds. Abel barely responds – and that is precisely the problem between this couple who are no longer even sharing a bed, and whose other communications are practically non-existent….
Broadcast Signal Intrusion first published by Movies On Weekends Broadcast Signal Intrusion opens with a video recording that resolves into a dream. A woman runs happily through a field, and a man pursues her with a camera. Then she stops, swaying in the mist, her face turned away, and we get his, or at least…
The word ‘host’ can refer equally to anyone accommodating a houseguest, to the organiser of a group webchat, or to a person who has become possessed. All these meanings will come into play in Rob Savage’s Host, in which six friends, bored by the isolation of lockdown and eager for any kind of stimulation, agree…
[note that this review of Frankenstein’s Creature was based on a test preview] “My story lies in pieces, but I’ll offer it to them in pieces, and extend to them the chance to piece it back together.” So says the Creature (James Swanton), unravelling the sorry tale of his brief but extraordinary life of constant rejection and…
First published by TheHorrorShow As a train careers through the dark, Jeremy (Jonathan Rigby), Laura (Claire Louise Amias), Miranda (Jamie Birkett) and Freddie (James Swanton) all find themselves guests at a mysterious costume party on board. While their chosen callings (respectively a financier, a politician, a gossip journalist and a paedophile rocker) mark them as…