Behind the Couch

1995 Dir. Joe Chappelle Six years after she and her psychotic uncle Michael Myers were abducted from the Haddonfield police station by the mysterious Man in Black, Jamie Lloyd and her newborn baby go on the run again with Myers’ in hot pursuit. Meanwhile, relatives of the family that adopted Laurie Strode have moved into the old Myers house and befriended Tommy Doyle, whose obsession with Myers’ leads to the discovery of a family curse that drives the killer to violently eradicate his bloodline – which is bad news for the Strodes. Teaming up with Dr. Loomis, they set out to stop Myers and the cult that protects him once and for all. With Miramax having purchased the distribution rights to the Halloween franchise, it was their intention to give the flailing series something of a reboot and to release further instalments through its newly established genre arm, Dimension Films. Following in the wake of the leaden Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers - complete with its amb...

2009 Dir. Brett Anstey Prompted by the arrival of a mysterious package from her terminally ill grandmother, Claire drags her reluctant new boyfriend off to meet her family at their remote country home where she hopes she will discover the motivations behind the unexpected gift. Things go well until Claire’s grandmother begins rambling on about a female spirit she is expecting to come in the night to escort her body into the afterlife. That night, as a violent thunderstorm rocks the house, the family is awoken by a succession of piercing, otherworldly shrieks, which prove to be the cries of a banshee. As the terrifying sounds ring out, the dead are summoned to rise again, so beginning a waking nightmare for Claire and her family as the banshee and her army of the undead unleash their fury upon the living. The figure of the banshee in traditional Irish folklore is a tragic, sorrowful one, but also a terrifying one. She is said to appear mournfully wailing near the house of someone...

1961 Dir. Rafael Baledon Amelia (Rosa Arenas – The Witch’s Mirror ) and her husband Jaime are invited to stay with Amelia’s estranged Aunt Selma (Rita Macedo). The mansion Selma resides in has a creepy reputation amongst the locals and a number of grisly murders in the area enhance their suspicions of Selma’s dubious practices. Amelia eventually unveils dark secrets about her lineage, and even more disturbingly, the sinister intentions her Aunt harbours. Selma informs Amelia of their family’s turbulent past: Selma's mother was the Crying Woman, a witch who fraternised with the devil to obtain immortality. After a string of brutal murders, she was found guilty by the townspeople and killed. Amelia is the last descendant of the Crying Woman and Selma intends to resurrect the spirit of her mother so she can possess Amelia and continue her reign of terror. The figure of La Llorona (The Crying Woman) has a rich and significant presence in Spanish folklore. Amongst her many titles ...

AKA The Haunted & the Hunted 1963 Dir. Francis Ford Coppola Troubled couple Louise (Luana Anders) and her husband John are staying at his family castle in deepest, darkest Ireland. The family have gathered for the annual memorial service of John’s sister and the reading of his mother’s will. Taking a midnight jaunt in a row boat, Louise and John discuss his mother’s will, they argue and he reminds Louise that if he dies before his mother, she will not see a penny of the inheritance. As she tries to persuade him to talk his mother into changing the will, he has a heart attack and dies. Louise sees the opportunity to worm her way into her mother-in-law’s favour and tips John’s body into the lake, later faking a note from him stating that he had to return to New York on urgent business. She hatches a plan that involves driving the mother insane by making her believe that her dead daughter has come back to haunt her and will therefore be more easily persuaded to change her will....

1943 Dir. Jacques Tourneur I Walked with a Zombie was the second collaboration between director Jacques Tourneur and producer Val Lewton and it followed on from the irresistible moodiness of Cat People (1942). Essentially taking the film’s rather lurid title from a newspaper article, and transporting elements of the plot of ‘Jane Eyre’ to a tropical setting, the filmmakers have created one of the most subtle, chilling and downright poetic horror films ever produced. The plot follows Betty (Frances Dee), a nurse, as she journeys to the West Indies to care for Jessica (Christine Gordon), the catatonic wife of plantation owner Paul Holland (Tom Conway). Betty soon begins to fall in love with Paul, and begins to suspect that the Holland family have a few dark secrets that are about to surface. Paul’s younger brother Wesley (James Ellison) and their mother Mrs. Rand (Edith Barrett) are also caught up in whatever it is that Paul seems so keen to keep Betty from discovering. Betty b...