Behind the Couch

After reading the sad news about filmmaker Jamie Blanks , I felt compelled to revisit some of his work. I’ve already written about Urban Legend (one of my all-time favourite slasher films), with its irresistible premise, top-notch cast and slick execution, and his eerie eco-horror Long Weekend , so thought I’d turn my attention to his early 2000s slasher, Valentine . It tells of a group of girlfriends - Paige (Denise Richards), Kate (Marley Shelton), Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw), Shelley (Katherine Heigl) and Lily (Jessica Cauffiel) – who, in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, are targeted by a mysterious killer wearing a cherub mask. A solid slasher with a strong cast, creepy masked killer and several frenzied set pieces to get the adrenaline flowing, Valentine is a real throwback to classic, holiday-themed 80s slashers, such as My Bloody Valentine , Terror Train and Prom Night . Despite coming in the wake of a slew of post-modern, self-referential slashers in the late 90s, b...

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...