Talkin' Italian Horror

When I was asked to have a chat about Italian horror films with Fred Macpherson from indie band Spector, I wasn’t going to say no. Any excuse to wax lyrical with a fellow admirer of Italo horror.

An extremely enjoyable and geeky conversation about Argento and Fulci ensued.

Head over to The Quietus to read it.

Popular posts from this blog

Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010)

Image
Dir. Andy de Emmony After placing his senile wife in a care home, retired astronomer James Parkin (John Hurt) heads for the coast to revisit their ‘old haunts’, including the now out-of-season hotel they honeymooned in. By day he is stalked along the windswept beaches by a spectral figure dressed in white, and by night he is terrorised by strange sounds and someone, or something, attempting to enter his room… In the 2000s BBC4 attempted to reignite the old Ghost Story at Christmas tradition by adapting MR James’s A View from a Hill (2005) and Number 13 (2006). This series was seemingly short lived though, as their next outing wasn’t until 2010, and an unusual reinterpretation of James’s classic chiller Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad . While de Emmony’s direction captures the atmosphere and tone of James very well, this film differs significantly from other adaptations, including Jonathan Miller’s supremely unsettling 1968 take . Neil Cross’s screenplay only incorpo
Read more

Caveat (2020)

Image
Isaac, a brooding drifter suffering from memory loss, agrees to look after Olga, the niece of his acquaintance Moe. A troubled woman prone to bouts of catatonia, Olga lives in an old, ramshackle house on an isolated island in the middle of a dark lake. Isaac agrees to wear a chained harness that prevents him from going into certain rooms. He gradually comes to learn of the unsettling history of the house and the unquiet dead it harbours within its walls... Written and directed by Damian McCarthy,  Caveat  is steeped in the Gothic tradition. With distinct echoes of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, it is ripe with a lingering atmosphere of morbidity and decay. McCarthy's screenplay toys with themes such as psychological rot, dark family secrets, and the aftermath of unspeakable violence and cruelty. The story unfolds within the creepy confines of the lonely, mouldy house, with myriad forbidden rooms, hidden passageways and concealed bloody secrets. The house itself is cut off from civili
Read more

Landmine Goes Click

Image
2015 Dir. Levan Bakhia Landmine Goes Click is one of those films best viewed without knowing anything about it.* Echoing the likes of Phone Booth (2002) and Buried (2010), and indeed Levan Bakhia’s own debut feature, 247°F (2011), it holds much promise with its high-concept premise. Boasting a constantly twisting plot which intrigues as much as it infuriates, the film explores how the lives of three American friends are altered forever when, travelling through Eastern Europe, one of them steps on a landmine... Unable to move for fear of detonating it, he and his friends are the captive audience of unveiled secrets, shifting dynamics and the darker side of human nature. Head over to Exquisite Terror to read my full review .  *My review is spoiler free and I've tried to be as sensitive as possible regarding plot details. Well, beyond the obvious, anyway. 
Read more