It used to be really popular in Britain when I was growing up for the hottest topics of the day to be debated and discussed live in a studio with experts on a stage and an audience who would ask questions and contribute. A famous example is the debate regarding certain religious figures calling for …
You're on tour in the U.S. as the frontperson of one of the biggest bands on the planet. Some people would request a room full of hookers and cocaine. Some would demand that all of the brown M&M's are removed from the band's munchies. Robert Smith of The Cure, on the other hand, is a …
I can still remember the first time I saw the poster for Maniac. The killer's legs and crotch, his hand holding a severed head, his other holding a knife with the tagline of 'I WARNED YOU NOT TO GO OUT TONIGHT' in the deranged scrawl of a psychopath. What was not to like for a …
When I hear people say that 1984 is happening in 2020 I take it literally. Not only is George Orwell's novel replaying in front of our eyes but the actual year of 1984 was when the moral panic regarding the so-called Video Nasties here in the UK occurred. I thought we had learnt from that. …
I remember the Video Nasties furore like it was yesterday. With my father being an avid Daily Mail reader and staunch Thatcherite I felt like I had a front row seat with the then Tory government seeking to ban the very films I loved when they were released on video in the early 80's. I …
Continue reading Great Video Nasties Moral Panic Documentary
It's amazing what you find when you go trawling through the microfiche archives for your local newspaper. When browsing through the back issues of The Yorkshire Evening Post for 1979, I noticed that The Warriors, Walter Hill's gritty, comic book-style New York action flick, was actually shown at a 'members-only' cinema called The Tatler here …
Continue reading The Warriors (1979)- The Film Leeds Local Authority Tried To Ban
This film was actually made in 1986 (although I've read it was actually shot in 1985) but not released until 1990 as there were censorship problems as to the graphic nature of the film's proceedings. The film is loosely based on the lives of real life serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole. Henry lives with …
Continue reading Day 25- 31 Days of Halloween- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
I first saw this when studying film at University. Tod Browning tries the sideshow carnival trick of sensationalism to try to bring audiences in to gawk at the disgusting freaks of nature. But he has a trick up his sleeve- he treats the ‘freaks’ as human beings, utterly likeable and as having feelings like everyone else. …
Continue reading Day 15- 31 Days of Halloween- Freaks (1932)
A class are transported to an island and its then disclosed that they have to kill each other with the last person left standing the winner. Brutal (as you'd expect) but also witty, humane and strangely poignant in places. This film is brilliantly acted, directed with style and is beautiful to look. Murder and deception …
Continue reading Day 2- 31 Days of Halloween- Battle Royale (2000)
Meathook Cinema 