Behind the Couch

A few weeks back I was invited to make a podcast with Aaron Duenas of The Death Rattle . We chatted for a couple of hours over Skype - Aaron in Hawaii, me in Northern Ireland - about Italian horror cinema, my book on Dario Argento, and the little seen Italian-shock cult oddity, The Spider Labyrinth . The podcast is now online, so why not head over to The Gentlemen's Blog to Midnite Cinema to check it out.  For great appreciations and critiques of everything from Seventies Ozploitation to lesser spotted Eurocrime titles, plus a slew of in-depth interviews with the likes of Laurence Harvey ( The Human Centipede II ), Sherilyn Fenn ( Twin Peaks, Boxing Helena ) and John Jarratt ( Wolf Creek, Picnic at Hanging Rock ) to name but a few - don't forget to check out Aaron's blog The Death Rattle . Adios!

Gerard Damiano’s moody 'porno-chic' title The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) straddles an odd divide between art house and hardcore pornography. Upon release it was described as "More morality play than masturbation aid." It follows the tragic story of Justine Jones (Georgina Spelvin), who dies by suicide only to end up facing an eternity in Hell because she took her own life. She insists that if she’s given another chance she can ensure she lives a life that truly warrants such eternal damnation. So begins an X-rated and oddly emotional odyssey of lust. The lush piano driven score courtesy of Alan Shuman highlights the melancholy at the heart of the story and negates typical conventions of kinky Seventies porn soundtracks. Head over to Paracinema.net to read my review of Shuman’s wistful score.  While you’re there, why not pre-order a copy of issue 16 of Paracinema Magazine? It’s packed with in-depth critiques and articles on the likes of The Devils, Assault of...

2000 Dir. John Fawcett ‘Monstrosity is explicitly associated with menstruation and female sexuality... woman’s monstrous nature is inextricably bound up with her difference as man’s sexual other.'  Laura Mulvey ( Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema ). ‘The release of sexuality in the horror film is always presented as perverted, monstrous and excessive; both the perversion and the excess being the logical outcome of repression.’ Robin Wood ( The American Nightmare ). Written by Karen Walton, Ginger Snaps tells of a young woman who is attacked by a werewolf on the night she begins to menstruate, and begins to transform into a monster. Links between the menstrual cycle and lycanthropy cunningly swirl together to form a twisted tale of monstrous pubescence filtered through a chilling body-horror narrative. The result is a dark, savagely funny and haunting film that staggers blinking and bloodied into the unkind light of day as the most significant ‘menstrual horror’ since Carr...

Issue 16 of Paracinema Magazine is now available to pre-order. Amongst the myriad articles are This Ain’t Hollywood XXX: The Cultural Significance of the Porn Parody by Justin LaLiberty; “Images of Horror and Lust” in Ken Russell’s The Devils by Samm Deighan; Rehabilitating Daddy, or How Disaster Movies say it’s OK to Trust Authority by Jon ( Shocks to the System: Subversive Horror Films ) Towlson; The Films of René Laloux: Notes on the Golden Age of French Science Fiction by Derek Godin; plus much, much more. There’s also my essay,  Shadowy Suggestion in the Weird West: Val Lewton’s Apache Drums.  Sound good? Fancy picking up a copy? Head over to Paracinema.net and pre-order one now . Support independent publishing! 

1981 Dir. Gary Sherman This original and atmospheric horror flick comes courtesy of the director of cannibals-in-the-London-Underground shocker Death Line and the chaps responsible for penning such classic genre titles as Alien , Return of the Living Dead and Total Recall (Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett). It should come as no surprise then that it unravels as a rather unconventional and off the wall yarn with more than a few surprises up its bloodied sleeve. When a number of vicious murders occur in the sleepy seaside town of Potter’s Bluff, Sheriff Gillis (James Farentino) suspects that something sinister is afoot. The further he submerges himself in the investigation, the more he realises that all is not what it seems in Potter’s Bluff, nor has it been for some time… Opening with a shot of a black and white photo of the town that dissolves into live action, Dead and Buried immediately evokes contemplative notions of yesteryear and its roots in the past. This concept und...

The Titanic Mummy On a recent visit to the newly opened Titanic Belfast®, I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when I discovered that one of the myths revolving around the sinking of the ill-fated vessel concerns a mummy that was secretly stowed away onboard. There was even a creepy mummy on display in the centre. Naturally I took pictures. The mummy has been a popular stock figure throughout the history of horror cinema and literature, and it has long been associated with a terrible curse that brings about the untimely deaths of those who dare to enter its sacred burial place and disrupt its slumber. This belief probably stems from the supposed curse on the tomb of Tutankhamen and the death of Lord Carnarvon who was present during its excavation. Six weeks after his involvement in the project, Carnarvon died from blood poisoning caused by a mosquito bite. From Bram Stoker’s 1903 novel The Jewel of Seven Stars , (later adapted as the 1971 film Blood from the Mummy's Tomb...