Behind the Couch

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...

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...