Behind the Couch

Written and directed by Emilie Blichfeldt, The Ugly Stepsister filters the fairy tale of Cinderella through a feminist body-horror lens to lambast the impossible standards women are held to – both in this world and in folkloric fantasy worlds of make-believe. It follows Elvira (Lea Myren), a shy, awkward young woman who is driven by her mother, societal pressures, and by jealousy of her beautiful stepsister, to undergo gruesome cosmetic surgeries to make herself beautiful, win the heart of the prince and marry into wealth. Blichfeldt has created a daring work that blasts open the misogyny inherent in many literary fairy tales, revealing them to be a means of containing and controlling young women. Her screenplay ensures audiences glimpse the full horror of how glass slippers become glass ceilings, as female ambitions are forcibly limited, dreams corralled and bodies cruelly transformed. The film is laced with blood-dark humour as Blichfeldt sets about satirising and carving up patriar...

Originally published by Tor Horror in 1988, Elizabeth Engstrom’s unusual and compelling vampire novel,  Black Ambrosia , has been republished (with an introduction by Grady Hendrix) by Vallencourt Books as part of their new Paperbacks from Hell series. Unfolding as an insular journey into the heart of darkness, Engstrom’s sophomore novel is as seductive as it is unsettling; every turn of a page beckons the reader ever further into dark, lurid realms of twisted psychology and sensual, bloody violence. It tells of Angelina, a troubled young woman who, after the death of her mother, sets off on a journey across the United States. To where, she isn’t sure; but she is curious to find a place for herself in the world and to know what it feels like to belong somewhere. The story, populated with lost souls and sinister predators, unfolds within a lonely world of desolate highways, small towns, shadowy apartments, truck stops and dingy diners. Angelina lives a transitory life, only ever br...

The figure of the witch has had a formidable presence in cinema since images were first captured on film to flicker across the silver screen. From early titles such as The House of the Devil (1896) and Haxän (1922), through to classic Gothic horror films such as Black Sunday (1960) and Suspiria (1977), right up to contemporary works like The Love Witch (2016), The Craft (1996) and The Witch (2015), the figure of the witch has intrigued, terrified and seduced audiences across the world. Over the years she has gradually come to represent ideas concerning female empowerment and sexuality, and defiance of patriarchal conventions and societal expectations. Author Keri O’Shea’s new book,  Celluloid Hex: The Witch in Horror and Genre Cinema, serves to explore the figure of the witch and her evolution on film. By exploring key titles throughout the history of cinema, and the times in which they were produced, O’Shea considers how factors such as social and political climates and sh...

Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Paul Duane, All You Need Is Death follows two underground musicologists, Anna and Aleks, as they travel the backroads of Ireland recording and collecting traditional folk songs. Things take a turn for the sinister when they hear about a woman in County Armagh who can sing them an ancient song, never recorded or transcribed, but passed down through generations of women. Sung in a language older than Irish, the song unleashes an otherworldly force and Anna and Aleks find themselves navigating a shady realm of arcane lore and forbidden knowledge. With its tantalising premise involving the recording of ancient folk songs, and shadowy black markets in which eccentric collectors vie for the rarest recordings, All You Need Is Death is a darkly beguiling folk horror. The story unfolds in rural, backwoods pubs and small farmhouses, gradually straying into strange hinterlands and creepy urban edgelands of disused industrial spaces. The contemporaneou...

Mandrake tells of probation officer Cathy Madden (Deirdre Mullins), who is assigned to help with the rehabilitation of recently released ‘Bloody’ Mary Laidlaw (Derbhle Crotty), who had been incarcerated years prior for the murder of her abusive husband. Rumours have long swirled in the local area concerning Mary’s dabbling in witchcraft and involvement in cases of missing children. No sooner has she been released, than the bodies of several local children are found in the woods near her farmhouse. As Cathy and local police delve deeper, the veil between real and imagined starts to fray and Cathy is drawn into a dark world of occult ritualism and blood sacrifice. Directed by Lynne Davison and written by Matt Harvey, Mandrake is a delicious slice of witchy, Northern Irish folk horror, dripping with atmosphere and arcane lore. While Irish horror is having a moment right now, with acclaimed titles such as Aislinn Clarke’s Fréwaka and Kate Dolan’s You Are Not My Mother mining rich and cr...

A group of high school friends who were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate years before are targeted by a mysterious stalker at their senior prom. One of the first slasher films produced in the wake of the success of Halloween  (1978), Paul Lynch’s Prom Night strictly adheres to the now standard slasher blueprint, unfolding as a lean and moody potboiler. All the tropes, cliches and conventions are present and correct. Significant calendar date? Check. A group of hormonal teens for the body count? Check. A masked killer emerging to avenge a past misdeed? Check. Ineffectual authority figures? Check. A heroic final girl who will eventually defeat the killer? Check. Prom Night has it all, including Jamie Lee Curtis as its star! If there’s comfort in the familiar, then Prom Night is the goose down duvet of slasher films. The opening shot of an old, discarded mirror, reflecting the image of a creepy, abandoned building, conjures notions of the double, and ideas regardi...

A year after they cover up their involvement in a fatal road accident, a group of friends are targeted by a mysterious, vengeful killer. In their desperation, the friends seek help from the survivors of a similar massacre from years before. The original I Know What You Did Last Summer   came hot on the heels of  Scream (1996) and was a huge hit in the late 90s. It was a taut, effective throwback to minimalist slashers of the 80s, and very much a part of the late 90s slasher film revival, unfolding as a compelling story of the (violent) end of innocence. It spawned a Bahamas-set sequel a year later, in which the murderous fisherman pursues surviving heroine Julie James and her friends to a tropical island retreat, and a further, unconnected supernatural sequel in the 2000s (the events of which are not part of the cannon established by the first film). The I Know films were never as critically acclaimed as the likes of Scream , but they were still slickly produced, effective s...

One year after the brutal murder of her friends by psychotic fisherman Ben Willis, Julie James continues to struggle with the trauma and grief. When her BFF Karla wins a holiday to an island in the Bahamas, Julie hopes the change of scenery will help her put the nightmares behind her. However, someone is waiting for her on the island. Someone who still remembers the events of last summer , and the summer before. Someone who wields a hook and craves bloody vengeance and will stop at nothing to obtain it… Get ready for some sun, sea, solitude... and slaughter! Written by Trey Callaway and directed with stylish aplomb by Danny Cannon, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer might arguably be a generic slasher sequel, but it’s also a highly entertaining, well-made and atmospheric slasher sequel. Not only does it have a great cast (including Mekhi Phifer, Bill Cobbs, Jeffrey Combs, Jennifer Esposito, Jack Black and 70s soul singer Ellerine Harding ), but an interesting location, engaging her...

Directed by Jim Gillespie and written by Kevin Williamson - whose screenplay is loosely adapted from the YA novel of the same title by Lois Duncan -  I Know What You Did Last Summer tells of a group of friends who cover up their involvement in an apparently fatal car accident. One year later, their dark secret resurfaces in the form of a mysterious stalker intent on terrorising them and spilling their blood. Coming in the wake of The Craft and Scream , I Know What You Did Last Summer was produced in the late nineties, a time when teen horror was officially hot (titles such as Urban Legend , Halloween H20 , The Faculty  and Cherry Falls   would soon follow). Like Scream before it, it heralded the arrival of Kevin Williamson and his distinctive brand of horror drama, driven by likeable, literate, pop-cultured characters the audience were invited to care for. Williamson’s work slyly (and not so slyly) references, subverts and pays homage to the very tropes and conventio...

When surgical nurse Jan Compton is tragically killed in a car crash, her fiancé Dr Bill Cortner retrieves her severed head and keeps it alive by means of highly unorthodox (!) and ethically iffy experiments. Despite Jan's protestations, he then sets out to find a suitable body for her, by any bloody means necessary… With its low budget, outrageous premise, and a lurid title promising all manner of exploitative thrills, the most shocking thing about The Brain That Wouldn’t Die is that it’s actually a deceptively thoughtful B-movie. Opening with a woman’s disembodied voice pleading ‘let me die, let me die’, the screenplay by Rex Carlton and director Joseph Green ruminates on some big and interesting ideas. While it can’t claim to be a feminist film, The Brain nonetheless has some feminist themes throughout it - such as bodily autonomy, patriarchal oppression, societal beauty standards and, perhaps most pointedly, the literal objectification of women. Other ideas thrown into the mix...

A young college student who remains on campus alone during Thanksgiving falls prey to members of a cult intent on hunting her and killing her. With its simple premise and highly suspenseful execution, Kristy is a back-to-basics adrenaline-fuelled exercise in lean, mean tension. Anthony Jaswinski's screenplay takes a few moments to set the scene, introduce protagonist Justine (Haley Bennett), outline her situation in the broadest of strokes, before it gets down to the business of terrorising her – and the audience. As the campus empties, we follow Justine as she bids farewell to her boyfriend and goes about her day, complete with a melodically scored montage of her dancing along empty hallways, studiously poring over books, running, swimming, doing her laundry and chatting with the friendly caretaker (James Ransone) and security guard (Matthew St Patrick).  Things are grand, if a little sad and lonely for Justine. She misses her family but takes it in her stride and keeps herself bu...

This underappreciated backwoods-slasher is a top-tier example of the subgenre, demonstrating just how powerful and effective the slasher can be as a form of storytelling. Released in the early 80s, the Golden Age of the slasher film, Just Before Dawn combines eerie atmospherics and breathless suspense, emerging as a survivalist horror creeper with echoes of an environmental message. Its premise is standard slasher fare (but hey, that’s why we’re here, there’s comfort in the familiar) as a group of friends head into the mountain forests of Oregon to explore a piece of inherited land, only to fall foul of a sadistic killer who picks them off one by one. Hmm, a backwoods slasher in which city-folk camping in a deep, dark forest are brutalised by a hulking, machete-wielding bogeyman? Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Just Before Dawn is far from a Friday the 13th clone though. While it was released the same year as Friday the 13th Part 2 and The Burning , it’s a very different beast: relative...