Behind the Couch

Aging actress Veronica Ghent travels with her nurse Desi to a remote wellness retreat in the Scottish Highlands to recover from a double mastectomy. The retreat stands upon the ground where thousands of women were persecuted as witches. As Veronica reflects upon her life – as a child star she was groomed and abused by a famous film director – she becomes aware of and begins to commune with powerful forces within the earth which enable her to exact revenge... She Will is the striking feature debut from artist and filmmaker Charlotte Colbert, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kitty Percy, and it unfurls as a bewitching amalgamation of atmospheric folk horror and MeToo-era feminist revenge fantasy. With her roots in the visual arts, Colbert effortlessly conjures an eerie atmosphere enhanced by a rich, stylised aesthetic and piercing imagery, backed by a pulsing Clint Mansell score. The film evokes an unnerving timeline of societal misogyny, paralleling past and present, from the emerging s...

Set in the mid-nineties, Spiral tells of same-sex couple Aaron and Malik, who, along with Aaron’s teenaged daughter Kayla, move to a small town for a new life and a much-needed change of pace. Not long after they arrive, however, Malik begins to suspect that their neighbours are members of a strange cult with sinister intentions… The plot of Spiral is very familiar – city-folk outsiders relocate to small rural town only to be ostracised, gaslighted, disbelieved and victimised by diabolical forces. However, with its gay protagonists and powerful social commentary, Spiral sets itself apart from similar films and unfolds as a moving, character-driven chiller. Director Kurtis David Harder builds tension and an uneasy atmosphere as Aaron (Ari Cohen) and Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) meet their new neighbours and Malik gradually begins to suspect that something in town is not-quite-right. The neighbours appear welcoming enough, but subtle microaggressions and way too much smiling sets him...

Directed by Michael Felsher and written by Adam Marcus, this documentary commemorates the 30th anniversary of the most controversial entry in the Friday the 13th film series, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday . It unfolds as an irreverent and gushing love letter to not only the film’s avid fanbase, but its characters, cast and crew, and charts its ascent from maligned ‘dreck’  and ‘confusing mess’  to cult classic slasher. Several years in the making, Hearts of Darkness was funded entirely by a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo and has been an obvious labour of love for all involved in its production.  Jason Goes to Hell was the ninth film in the Friday the 13th series and the first to be produced by New Line, who had purchased the rights to the character of Jason Voorhees from Paramount in the early Nineties. Co-written by Dean Lorey and Jay Huguely, and based on a story by Huguely and Adam Marcus, it is infamous for its daringly eschewed approach to the classic...

The first in a series of moody, literate horror films produced by Val Lewton in the 1940s, Cat People is an evocative example of how effective the ‘less is more’ approach to horror can be. Directed with effective restraint by Jacques Tourneur, the film is a masterpiece of mood and atmosphere. By electing to suggest the horror rather than show it outright, Cat People remains an eerily atmospheric and psychological chiller to this day. One of the first horror films to reference psychoanalysis, it plays out as a dark tale of sexual anxiety and coded lesbianism. It tells of Irena (Simone Simon), a young Serbian woman working as a fashion designer in New York City, who meets Oliver (Kent Smith), a draftsman in a ship building company. After their somewhat impulsive marriage, their relationship becomes strained when they fail to become sexually intimate. This is because Irena believes she is descended from a race of Satanic cat people, doomed to transform into a ravaging panther when arous...

When Max is murdered by a mysterious demon-worshipping cult, his partner Jay (Zarif) and best friend Aria (Cassie Hamilton) set out to avenge his death. Directed by prolific Aussie filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay, and co-written by Mackay, Cassie Hamilton and Benjamin Pahl Robinson, Satranic Panic is a low-budget, character-driven, comedy-horror road movie. Quite similar in tone to Mackay’s previous feature, T-Blockers , Satranic Panic also unfurls as a love letter to schlocky b-movie horrors and features transgender characters who make a defiant stand against intolerance. And demons. Retaining most of the crew from T-Blockers , including cinematographer/editor Aaron Schuppan, composer Alex Taylor and sound designer Roisin Gleeson, Mackay’s approach is as bold as it was on her earlier film, but with slightly higher production values. While Satranic Panic is still a very low budget affair, it’s just as much a labour of love and exhibits an equally off-kilter yet exuberant tone. The low b...

Dormant alien parasites are unleashed in a small Australian town after an earthquake. They begin infecting and possessing susceptible locals, including a group of incels, intensifying their hatred and aggression, turning them into violent, zombie-like creatures hellbent on eliminating anyone who isn’t like them. Young trans filmmaker Sophie finds herself caught up in the horror when she and her friends are targeted by the possessed mob. Written and directed by Alice Maio Mackay, T-Blockers is an ultralow-budget horror and a spirited pastiche of B-movie tropes. It utilises an Invasion of the Body Snatchers -style narrative to explore contemporaneous prejudice and transphobia. What she lacks in budget, Mackay makes up for with a striking sense of style (it’s all neon lighting and retro-wave inspired aesthetics), incisive social observations and scathing humour. Her third feature, T-Blockers exudes a real punk sensibility: anarchic, rebellious, and reminiscent of Gregg Araki and early J...

Directed by Leigh Whannell, Wolf Man is a reboot of the 1940s classic The Wolf Man , starring Lon Chaney Jr. It tells of a family stranded at a remote forest cabin who are attacked by a werewolf. As it prowls around outside the cabin, they face another deadly threat from within, as the wounded father begins to transform into a slathering beast...  Throughout folklore, literature and cinema, the figure of the werewolf has been used to explore ideas of mankind's innate savagery; the unleashing of an inner beast, primitive, instinctual, stripped of logic and reason, unshackled from centuries of civilisation and societal conformity. Many of the conventions of the werewolf film were established by Hollywood films: the use of silver to destroy the werewolf, the influence of the full moon on transformation, and the contagious nature of lycanthropy. Aside from the latter, Whannell's film dispenses with these conventions and attempts to establish a sense of realism. While the screenpla...

“I learned that just beneath the surface there’s another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. I knew it as a kid, but I couldn’t find the proof. It was just a kind of feeling. There is goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force – a wild pain and decay – also accompanies everything.” David Lynch, the artist and filmmaker whose works include Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks  and Mulholland Drive , has died aged 78. His family announced his death on Facebook, saying 'There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.” It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.'  Lynch was an artist, his abstract canvas extending into film, music and television. His visions are imbued with a deeply haunting, dreamy quality, both wonderful and strange. From his feature debut Eraserhead - his “dream of dark and troubling things” - to the small town horrors of Twin Peak...

Written, directed, co-edited and produced by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat, The Substance is a vicious and gruesome body-horror satire about ageing, identity and the impossible standards women are held to by a society obsessed with youth and beauty. It has divided critical opinion, with some lauding it as a feminist horror masterpiece, and others accusing it of pandering to the male gaze (those lingering shots of Sue's body in her fitted Lycra leotard), and exploiting old horror tropes (rendering the female body – especially older bodies - a source of terror). It tells of Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a faded film star, who, on her 50th birthday, is fired from her hit aerobics TV show by her producer, who wants to replace her with a younger host. A despairing Elizabeth decides to try a new experimental drug that will create a younger replica of herself, with deeply horrifying results... When Elizabeth's replica, Sue (Margaret Qualley), finds success and fame as her replac...