A city couple relocating to a home in the forest discover a commune on the neighbouring land is home to a cult of sasquatch worshippers harbouring sinister secrets...
2012 Dirs. Jen and Sylvia Soska Following on from their low-budget but exuberant debut Dead Hooker in a Trunk , the Soska sisters’ sophomore offering is a darkly, wholly unsettling tale of an impoverished medical student who finds herself lured into the bizarre underground world of illegal surgery and extreme body modification. Unfurling as an intriguing character study, American Mary is a much more refined and mature film than Dead Hooker , though it still retains the jet-black humour and off-the-wall tone the filmmakers are quickly becoming known for. Part body horror, part rape-revenge, part black-comedy, the various sub-genres the filmmakers utilise to tell their tale are swirled into one highly distinctive and provocative whole. From the opening moments depicting Mary (Katherine Isabelle, Ginger Snaps ) practising her surgical skills on raw chicken flesh, to the various characters who later enlist her talents to alter their physical appearance, the emphasis in American Ma...
Last month I went to see a very special screening of Dario Argento’s nightmarish, witch-infested classic, Suspiria , in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall. The screening, courtesy of those cool cats at the Belfast Film Festival, was accompanied by a live score performed by none other than original Goblin member and long time Argento collaborator, Claudio Simonetti, and his band, the Simonetti Horror project. Argento’s classic tells the terrifying tale of an American ballet student who enrols at an exclusive dance academy in Germany, only to discover - after several vicious murders and assorted weirdness - much to her horror, that behind the scenes lurks a witches' coven. Often hailed as Argento’s masterpiece, Suspiria is an overwhelming onslaught of vision, sound and colour. The director mercilessly bombards the audience with scenes of graphic violence, fantastical lighting, overwrought production design and an immensely atmospheric soundtrack courtesy of Italo prog-rockers Goblin. ...
I recently took a stroll through Belfast City Cemetery. I’ve lived in Belfast for about seven or eight years now and this was the first time I set foot in the place. I was immediately taken by how big it was, and how overgrown the majority of the older graves were. Ivy chokes and cascades over everything, rendering the whole place immensely atmospheric. The cemetery was founded in the mid 19th century, at a time when Belfast saw a drastic rise in its population. The Great Famine drove people out of rural areas and into the city in search of work. As the population rose, more burial space was needed for the increasing numbers of the dead. Up until this stage, the majority of burial grounds in Belfast were controlled by religious denominations. Plans for a municipal cemetery for all religious denominations were made and in 1866, Belfast Corporation (now Belfast City Council) purchased land from a prominent family on Falls Road, with a view to turning it into a burial ground and a pa...