The House By The Cemetery is the finale of Lucio Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy after City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. The film concerns a house in New England that is synonymous with a series of murders that continue to happen in it. A new family have just moved in, not knowing …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween 2024- Day 2- The House By The Cemetery (1981)
New York writer Jennifer Hills relocates temporarily to a lakeside idyll in Connecticut to write her first novel. A local gang of four men attack, humiliate and rape her. They then order one of the gang to go back and kill her. He lies to them and says he has but they then learn that …
Continue reading Day 11- 31 Days of Halloween 2023- I Spit On Your Grave (1978)
Umberto Lenzi's film has gone by many different names with Mondo Cannibale and Sacrifice! being but two of them. But it was when it was released on UK video as Deep River Savages that it gained controversy during the Video Nasties furore. This was actually one of the few Video Nasties I had never seen …
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)
This film begins with the vile abuse of a small boy and his sister after they spied on their mother getting it on with her boyfriend. After Willy is tied up and gagged on a bed, his sister Lacey grabs a huge butcher knife, cuts the ropes that are holding her brother to the bed …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween- Day 19- The Boogey Man (1980)
I love any film that is so notorious it generates it's own urban legend regarding it's controversial release, whether this account is true or not. One such film is Lucio Fulci's 1982 sleazy slasher gorefest, The New York Ripper. Rumour has it that when the UK distributor submitted it to the British Board of Film …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- The New York Ripper (1982)
Three women are travelling to a music festival but crash their car. They awake in the isolated mansion of an elderly matriarch and her daughter. I love this film and not just because I found it in Poundland of all places. This is a chiller that keeps you guessing until the shocking and completely nutty …
Continue reading Day 15- 31 Days of Halloween- Unhinged (1982)
Donny is a very damaged person. After an incident at work sees one of his colleagues set himself on fire, we see Danny freeze with terror at the incident. This is explained through flashbacks. We see that as a boy his mother used to punish him by burning his forearms. When he returns home from …
Continue reading Day 11- 31 Days of Halloween- Don’t Go In The House (1979)
The infamous video nasty that was banned in the SS Thatcher days of 80’s Britain. It’s a solid effort with great gore and decent suspense as two couples go to an island for a vacation. I loved the lead character who feels like she’s been having nightmares all her life about the place she’s just arrived at. …
Another serious contender for the title of 'The Most Controversial Video Nasty' (the film shared that title with The Evil Dead). And whilst the film does have its shocking moments of lurid horror (yes involving an electric drill) this is more a slow and meticulous study into alienation, the descent into madness and mental illness amidst …
Continue reading The Driller Killer – Day 26 – 31 Days of Halloween
Meathook Cinema 