WARNING- There are spoilers ahead. I remember as a young kid going past my local cinema in the family car and seeing the poster for the double bill The Incredible Melting Man and The Savage Bees. Just seeing this poster in passing was enough to give me sleepless nights. In fact, my protestations that The …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- The Incredible Melting Man/The Savage Bees
I love combing through the archives of the local newspapers to see the ads used for my favourite films as they were released in Yorkshire. If one of these films is controversial enough, it will find itself the centre of attention wherever it is released. One such film was, of course, The Exorcist. The film …
Continue reading The Exorcist Comes to Leeds. Controversy Ensues.
After the death of their daughter by drowning, John and Laura Baxter (played brilliantly by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) decide to go to Venice as John has an assignment there restoring a church. It's here that Laura crosses paths with an elderly pair of sisters named Heather and Wendy, one of whom claims to …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- Don’t Look Now (1973)
It's 1990. I'm tuning into the excellent Moviedrome series of films on BBC2 with each cult film in the series being introduced by director Alex Cox. The film being shown that night was John Carpenter's second feature film Assault on Precinct 13, his reworking of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo and my mind was blown. I …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
One of the best things about Yorkshire Television, when I was growing up, was the eclectic fare that made up their schedules. At night they showed the most wonderful and unexpected films you could ever imagine. They also showed films you had never heard of before that were either unavailable on video because of some …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- Slithis (1978)
I had heard so much about the original of Black Christmas from 1974 by the time I finally got to see it. Its reputation as being the main film that inspired the slasher movie sub-genre pre-Halloween was well established, with horror fans salivating over it and singing its praises to the heavens. 'Let's see how …
Continue reading The Gift That Keeps On Giving- What Makes Black Christmas So Darn Scary?
My early teenage years were when I discovered my three favourite living film directors- John Waters, William Friedkin and Martin Scorsese. It was whilst I was frantically hunting down all of the movies made by Scorsese after first watching Taxi Driver when I was 14 that I read of a documentary made in 1977 called …
Gail Osborne is a 16 year old who starts dating Steve Pastorinis who goes to the same school as her. It's also around this time that she starts to receive abusive notes stuck in the grills of her school locker and also abusive telephone calls. For a film, let alone a TV movie to deal …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween- Day 31- Are You In The House Alone? (1978)
A hotel complex where a new building is being constructed is infested with killer ants. I love the TV movies that featured a special guest star who was slumming it as work had dried up. Ants stars Myrna Loy as well as Suzanne Somers (!) and Lynda Day George (yes, the actress from Pieces!) so …
This infamous film from 1978 starts with an anonymous man wearing a balaclava and going on a killing spree. He uses a different tool for each murder such as an electric drill, a screwdriver and nail gun. But then events take a bizarre twist as we get to see who the killer is and...to tell …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween- Day 25- The Toolbox Murders (1978)
Meathook Cinema 