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Tenebrae

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1982 Dir. Dario Argento After a detour into Gothic, witchy, fairy tale horror with Suspiria  (1977) and Inferno (1980),  Tenebrae  marked director Dario Argento's return to the gialli which he helped popularise in the early Seventies. Based on the filmmaker’s own experiences of an unhinged fan obsessed with his work, Tenebrae  is generally regarded as one of his finest films. It follows the story of American mystery-thriller novelist Peter Neal, whose arrival in Rome to promote his latest title coincides with a series of violent murders – the perpetrator of which claims to have been inspired by Neal’s latest book. When the author himself begins to receive death threats from the killer he must use his literary know-how to snare the slasher before he becomes the next victim. Unfolding as a cunningly reflexive critique of the Italian giallo, violence in cinema, and indeed Dario Argento’s own body of work, Tenebrae directly addresses the misogyny he has often...
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Lurking on the Bookshelves: Opening the Cage, It Came From the Closet, Claimed! & Feeding the Monster

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Opening the Cage: A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin by Keri O'Shea, is a meticulous and fascinating examination of Lucio Fulci’s dazzling, and oft overlooked, 1971 giallo , which tells of a woman plunged into a waking nightmare when she is accused of murdering her neighbour. O’Shea is the editor of Warped Perspective , a site dedicated to horror, sci-fi, genre film/TV and literature. I’ve really enjoyed and admired her work for years now and was excited to learn she had published a book on A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin . Her thoughtful analysis of the film begins by contextualising it within the Italian giallo tradition, before diving deeply into its key themes, including art, counterculture and the role of medicine, and a consideration of its striking aesthetics. She carefully dissects the film’s approach to traditional gender roles and power struggles and offers an intriguing look at the use of liminal spaces within its London setting to heighten the unnerving mood. Elsewhere, she explores...
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Childer (2016)

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Nominated for Best International Short at the International Women in Horror Festival and the Nightmares Film Festival, Childer (an Irish colloquial word for children) is written and directed by Aislínn Clarke ( The Devil’s Doorway , 2018). It tells of Mary (Dorothy Duffy), an introverted single mother, who suspects she and her young son are being stalked by feral children living in the woods surrounding her home. She spends her days obsessively cleaning, trying to maintain order, and preventing her son from playing with the forest-dwelling children. Clarke’s screenplay explores ideas concerning parenthood, obsession, loneliness, and mental illness. The spectre of Shirley Jackson drifts throughout proceedings as domestic, homey spaces become veiled in quiet menace and the seeming innocence of childhood takes on sinister qualities. The beautiful photography by Ryan Kernaghan and art direction by Claire Fox help imbue the story with an eerie fairy tale quality: the little house, neat and ...
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