Behind the Couch

One final line. Countless ways to reach it.  I'm absolutely delighted to have a short story published in a brand new shared-line anthology from Lemon Jelly Press. The Forest Knows the True Beast  features short stories and poetry built around one simple challenge: every contributor was asked to create an original piece ending with the exact same sentence: The forest knows the true beast. What comes before those words is entirely their own. The collection moves through horror, folklore, fantasy, eco-fiction, dark fairy tales and poetry, with each writer taking the shared ending somewhere completely different. Strange creatures wait between the trees, old legends are reimagined, landscapes fight back and familiar worlds become unsettling. At its heart, this is a celebration of imagination, interpretation and the many different stories that can grow from a single line. Different voices follow different paths, but all end with the same final sentence. If you feel so inclined, you ...

When it was released into cinemas back in 2007, Oren Peli’s minimalist creeper, Paranormal Activity , absolutely terrified audiences and garnered critical praise for its chilling, low-key execution. It tells of a young couple who try to document supernatural occurrences in their home by setting up cameras throughout the house. Peli’s suggestive, slow-burning and highly atmospheric approach effortlessly exploited collective fears of the unknown and of the dark. Handheld camerawork provided a sense of intimate urgency, placing us within the action, while long, static shots from the various security cameras prompted us to gaze into the dark abyss of the screen, searching for the vaguest hints of threat in the corners of the frame. The creeping power of Paranormal Activity rendered our own homes unsafe spaces full of shadows, threat and possible demonic invasion. Now, nearly 20 years later, Paranormal Activity has been adapted for stage, inviting theatre audiences into a whole new creepy...

With its themes of the past returning to haunt the present, emotional and psychological turmoil, the exhumation of dark secrets, and bloody revenge from beyond the grave, teen slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) is deeply entrenched in the Gothic. Based on the YA novel by Lois Duncan, and adapted for the screen by Kevin Williamson, it tells of four teenaged friends – Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and Barry (Ryan Phillippe) - who, one year after dumping a body into the murky depths of the sea to cover up their involvement in an apparently fatal car accident, find themselves stalked by a mysterious fisherman wielding a large hook. From its opening images of surf crashing upon a rugged coastline to its tautly knotted climax aboard a fishing boat, I Know What You Did Last Summer is also awash with aesthetic and thematic notions of the ‘seaside gothic’, as it contemplates the shifting boundaries between past and present, l...

‘Some men take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world’ - Cyndi Lauper With its uncomfortable, grim subject matter – a man so obsessed with a beautiful woman that he abducts and dismembers her to contain and possess her - Boxing Helena (1993) is a dark, twisted fairy tale exploring themes of obsession, control, objectification, free will and bodily autonomy. Written and directed by Jennifer Lynch, who was 19 when she wrote the screenplay (based on a story by Philippe Caland) and in her early twenties when she agreed to direct it, Boxing Helena sparked controversy and tabloid fixation as soon as it went into production (Madonna and Kim Basinger were infamously attached to it before eventually backing out). Upon its release it experienced a savage critical mauling with many lambasting it, and its director, as misogynistic. Lynch maintains it was always meant to be seen as a macabre fairy tale, stating: ‘To me, if you look at the film, the woman is always in contr...

When a young woman travels to a small Californian coastal town to search for her missing father – an artist who has been researching the town’s strange history - she suspects something sinister is afoot. Before long, she discovers the town is home to a mysterious blood cult of moon-worshipping, living-dead people intent on summoning an ancient evil entity from the depths of the ocean… Written and directed by Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck, Messiah of Evil is surely one of horror cinema’s best kept secrets. Unfurling as a kindred spirit of Carnival of Souls and Night Tide , its story follows outsider characters who exist on the lonely peripheries of society, navigating liminal spaces and wandering, phantom-like, through an uncertain, dreamlike narrative. It’s an utterly bewitching film, replete with striking imagery, eerie lighting and sound design, and saturated in a morose atmosphere. Just the year before, Katz and Huyck had written American Graffiti (directed by George Lucas), a no...

In the late nineteenth century, a couple attempt to settle in a small farmhouse on the desolate prairielands of New Mexico during the American Frontier. When her husband must travel to the nearest town – a journey of several days – Lizzy is left alone and begins to suspect she is being stalked by a malevolent presence which seems to emanate from the very land around her. Written by Teresa Sutherland and directed by Emma Tammi, The Wind (not to be mistaken with the 1980s psychological slasher of the same name ) is an atmospheric slice of Weird West cinema. Combining elements of the traditional frontier setting of the Western with supernatural horror, The Wind unfolds as a Gothic character study, following the mental anguish and breakdown of its protagonist as she battles isolation, paranoia and an ambiguous demonic threat. Tammi’s direction, coupled with striking cinematography from Lyn Moncrief, creates a powerful sense of the maddening solitude endured by the characters, as they liv...

Written and directed by Olivia Rose Beatty, Lived Once Buried Twice: The Legend of Margorie McCall  (2025) is a morbidly humorous short film which brings to life an old County Armagh folk tale about premature burial. It marks the directorial debut of Beatty, who grew up in Lurgan – the town where the tale originates. As the old yarn goes, some time in the 18th century a woman named Margorie McCall, who lived and worked in Lurgan, died after a brief fever. During her wake, mourners tried in vain to remove her wedding ring. Margorie was buried in Shankill Graveyard and, that very same night, was exhumed by robbers who had heard she was buried with her precious wedding ring. Also unable to remove the ring, the desperate ghouls tried to cut off Margorie’s finger. As soon as they began cutting, and the blood began flowing, Margorie awakened with an unearthly scream. Having scared off the graverobbers, Margorie proceeded to make her way home and give her husband the shock of his life... ...

Written and directed by Olivia Rose Beatty, this short film brings to life a spooky old folk tale from my hometown, Lurgan, County Armagh*. According to local legend, poor Margorie McCall died after a brief fever. At her wake there was much commotion concerning her wedding ring. Many of the mourners tried in vain to prise it from her finger, perhaps anticipating that grave robbers might attempt to steal it. Margorie was buried in Shankill Graveyard, and sure enough that very same night, her body was exhumed by robbers after her precious ring. Also unable to remove the ring, the ghouls tried to cut off Margorie’s finger, and as soon as they began cutting and the blood began to flow, Margorie awoke with an unearthly scream… Her headstone still stands in Shankill Graveyard to this day, and it bears the eerie inscription, 'Margorie McCall: Lived Once, Buried Twice.' This old tale has always been ripe for a filmic adaptation, and Beatty, in her directorial debut, has created a stri...

When Flavia is enrolled at a new school she is befriended by Verónica, an unpopular orphan who lives with her ailing grandmother and whose nanny regales her with tales of witches, fairies and spells. What begins as an innocent enough friendship soon turns coercive, as Verónica confides to Flavia that she is a witch in disguise, making Flavia a reluctant accomplice in several acts of wickedness. As the line between what is real and what is imagined begins to blur, Flavia descends into a terrifying spiral of magic, manipulation, petty jealousy, and murder. Written and directed by Carlos Enrique Taboada, and part of a rich tradition of Mexican Gothic horror cinema - which includes such titles as The Witch’s Mirror (1962) and The Curse of the Crying Woman (1961) -  Poison for the Fairies unfurls as a complex study of the fraught and intense friendship between two impressionable girls whose dabbling in witchcraft and descent into occultism leads to tragedy. While it quite comfortably...

Ever since Mary Shelley’s Creature first spoke, uttering the words "I expected this reception [...] All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!" , horror has provided a voice for the voiceless. It has made readers and audiences privy to the outsider's perspective, and in doing so, has challenged mainstream, ‘normative’ values and presented the experiences of the marginalised and ‘othered’. From ground-breaking literary works by Mary Shelley, Ann Radcliffe, Shirley Jackson and Angela Carter, to trailblazing filmmakers such as Lois Weber, Alice Guy-Blaché and Maya Deren, whose work flickered fiercely across the early silver screen, women – historically silenced and marginalised, and currently living in a world where violence against women and girls is practically ambient - have used horror to interrogate and subvert traditional male-centric narratives and examine themes of agency, bodily autonomy, motherhood and restric...