Behind the Couch

1985 Dir. Jack Sholder Five years after Freddy Krueger was seemingly defeated by teenager Nancy Thompson, a new family move into her house on Elm Street. Jesse, the teenage son, begins to have terrifying dreams of a horribly burned man with knives for fingers who wants to possess him in order to continue murdering the children of Elm Street. The man of your dreams is back! While he was attempting to find a studio to back his script for A Nightmare on Elm Street , director Wes Craven was financially destitute. He lost his savings and his house, and his marriage fell apart. To make ends meet he worked as a script doctor, and when New Line offered to produce A Nightmare on Elm Street , Craven was so broke he had to sign over all the rights to the studio who eventually insisted upon an open ending to the first film in order to set up a sequel. As an indication of what to expect from the Elm Street sequels, just consider that head of New Line, Bob Shaye, famously likened the proc...

2010 Dir. Gregg Araki Director Gregg Araki has never been one to shy away from controversial subject matter. His work usually explores the dark side of teenage life, where bad things happen ‘unexpectedly' and the lines between life and death, reality and nightmare are increasingly blurred. His 2005 film Mysterious Skin looked at sexual abuse and its aftermath through the eyes of two teenage boys – one of whom is convinced he is the victim of alien abduction. The Doom Generation was a gloomy, ultra-violent and nihilistic 'Generation X' for the Nineties. His work usually features various depictions of the apocalypse as an almost mundane, matter of fact event and drugged-out characters wander through hyper-retro, candy-coloured sets and broodingly dark cityscapes. His latest film, Kaboom is a fantastical, mind-altering, sex-charged romp through the fickle world of college life that gradually morphs into an increasingly oddball, horror-tinged and absurd story about the ...

British director Ian Powell’s provocative Queer art-house shocker,  Seeing Heaven, unfolds as an increasingly nightmarish mystery filtered through the candy-coloured aesthetics of classic Italian horror movies. The film revolves around young gay escort Paul (Alexander Bracq), who embarks on a dark and dangerous odyssey through the underworld of male prostitution and the adult movie industry, desperately searching for his long lost twin brother. All the while he experiences bizarre nightmares and orgasmic visions – shared by his clients when they have sex with him – of his brother, and a mysterious masked stranger. Weaving together a striking central mystery, issues facing the gay community, bold visuals, and ideas concerning identity and fate, Powell has concocted a heady brew of sensual chills and provocative ideas. Powell began his filmmaking career directing adult movies and Seeing Heaven  is not only his feature debut, it marks his transition into horror. It demonstra...

2010 Dir. Ian Powell While searching for his twin brother, young escort Paul embarks on a dark and dangerous odyssey through the lurid netherworld of male prostitution and the gay porn movie industry. All the while he experiences bizarre nightmares and orgasmic visions – shared by his clients when they have sex with him – of a mysterious masked stranger… Can Paul find his long lost twin and unlock the riddle of his perplexing visions before it’s too late? Ian Powell’s atmospheric and provocative gay art-house horror unfolds as an increasingly nightmarish mystery filtered through the candy-coloured lens of Mario Bava. High-brow allusions to the likes of Narcissus and various other helplessly self-destructive figures of mythology pepper the narrative, not only in the arresting images, but in the story itself. Figures such as Dorian Grey, the doppelganger and Jekyll and Hyde are referred to as Powell works through a series of complex personal ideas about identity, fate and trag...

2004 Dir. JT Seaton Matthew Coburn is a young man who would like nothing more than to stay young and attractive forever. On the eve of his 30th birthday, he invites David, a guy he meets in an online chat-room, to his home to have sex. In the middle of the night, Matthew wakes up to find himself alone. Or is he? He soon begins to realize that someone, or something , is lurking in the dark in his home. Is it David? Or someone else, skulking in the shadows? As Matthew is plunged into a waking nightmare, he comes to realise that the price of vanity is high… Very high. ‘ Has your past ever come back to haunt you? ’ Nightshadows was produced the same year as Hellbent - the first gay slasher film. With its cast of gay characters falling victim to a devil-masked psycho, that film had fun Queering the usual conventions of the slasher film, while also sticking quite rigidly to them. Nightshadows , a dark tale of obsession and guilt, follows no such rules or conventions. What direct...

Making their way to the biggest LGBT Festival of the year, five couples stop over at a creepy hotel for the night - unaware that the proprietor is a homophobic, fundamentalist, right-wing Republican intent on whittling down their numbers. Mainly by feeding them to her cannibalistic mutant son Manfred... To call The Gay Bed And Breakfast Of Terror  a campy trash-fest, would be stating the obvious. This is not a subtle film. It is brash, outrageous and fabulously perverse. The title alone should alert you to what to expect, really! It serves up  Mommie Dearest -theatrics, a scathing critique of Christian extremist ideology, political incorrectness and every gay stereotype to increasingly hysterical effect. An irreverent and schlocky good time.  Head over to Eye for Film and check out my full review.

2004 Dir. Paul Etheredge-Ouzts A group of friends are stalked and murdered by a masked killer as they party at West Hollywood's Halloween carnival.  Slasher movies can nearly always be relied upon to stick closely to a familiar structure and a set of conventions established by the likes of Halloween  (1978) and Friday the 13th  (1980) - oblivious characters are picked off one by one by a masked killer in an isolated location (summer camp, quiet suburban neighbourhood, sorority house, college campus etc) as they separate and wander off from the group. Eventually only one (usually a young woman - the 'final girl') is left to defeat the killer alone. Scream (1996) shook things up and breathed new life into the slasher film, with its fresh humour, irony and cine-literate characters and dialogue. In a post- Scream landscape however, is there anywhere left for the slasher to go that's new and interesting?  Enter HellBent . Written and directed by Paul Etheredge-Ouzts,...