***TRIGGER WARNING!!!*** This is a Pete Walker movie. In 1957 Dorothy Yates and her husband Edmund are convicted of murder and cannibalism (!) and sent to an asylum until the film's present day (1974). They are then released supposedly fully cured and living a quiet life. But are they? The answer, of course, is no! …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 12- Frightmare (1974)
Every now and again a horror film's reputation builds through word of mouth and because the first horror fans who have seen it rave about it and this snowballs until it can't be denied or ignored by fans and film journalists alike. This happened in 1998 when Japanese film Ringu was made. This was also …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 9- Ringu (1998)
A movie that was on the other side of my DVD of the (much better) film, The Pit. This direct to video movie concerns a young woman who is snatched by a gang of bikers and brutally murdered. Her father then discovers a crystal that can bring the dead back to life and uses it …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 8- Hellgate (1989)
I remember seeing this on video shortly after it was released way back when. The original Hills Have Eyes wasn't on video at that time and so seeing this was the next best thing especially in hindsight as there are LOADS of flashbacks to the first film. Yes, even a dog from the first movie …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 6- The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 (1984)
Land of the Dead is George A Romero's next instalment in the Dead series after 1985's pedestrian and plodding Day of the Dead. This involves the human race who are still at the mercy of a world overrun by the undead and now being split into the ordinary folk who are forced to live in …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 5- Land of the Dead (2005)
I didn't even know there was a remake of George A Romero's 1985 film. When I found out about it I was hardly looking forward to reviewing it as I found the original to be the runt of the litter of Romero's zombie movies- it was too slow, talky and with not enough action. The …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween 2020- Day 3- Day of the Dead (2008)
Mommie Dearest has the wrong kind of reputation. It was conceived as a movie version of Joan Crawford's adopted daughter Christina's tell-all book regarding her upbringing and the years of abuse she endured at the hands of her mother. Instead, it's now synonymous with being 'campy', 'so bad it's good' and as being one of …
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 …
Once upon a time (the early 80's to be precise) when my family rented our first video recorder from Granada Home Video, you could rent tapes of trailers from the same shop. One tape had all of the trailers for Warner Bros video releases on it and included such gems as The Exorcist, The Shining …
It was great timng when I started to get completely obsessed with the work of Martin Scorsese in the late 80's because it wasn't long before a pretty much indispensable text was published that lifted the lid on his oeuvre to a frighteningly thorough degree. There was already the excellent Scorsese on Scorsese that was …
Continue reading Book of the Week- Martin Scorsese: A Journey by Mary Pat Kelly
Meathook Cinema 