Behind the Couch

Akin to titles such as Cujo (1983), Crawl (2019) and Bait (2012), Burning Bright is a high-concept horror about a young woman and her autistic brother who are trapped in a house with a ravenous tiger during a hurricane. After a brief set up, which establishes the fraught family dynamics (mother recently died, stepfather is struggling financially, daughter Kelly desperately wants respite from her responsibilities so she can attend college) director Carlos Brooks cuts straight to the chase. From the moment Kelly (Briana Evigan) realises there is a wild animal in the house and finds herself in a situation that threatens to eat her alive, the tension never abates. Using low-level camera work to suggest the POV of the stalking predator, Brooks exploits the limited space of the family home to crank up the claustrophobic suspense and offer some incredibly striking imagery. Kelly not only needs to evade the tiger herself, but also keep safe her younger brother who can’t fully comprehend th...

With Haute Tension ( Switchblade Romance [2003]), director Alexandre Aja supplied one of the most intense and stressful home-invasion horrors of the 21st century and instigated a wave of transgressive, brutally violent French films collectively known as New French Extremity cinema. Crawl , while nowhere near as searing as Aja’s early work, does see him return to home-invasion territory; albeit with an irresistible man vs nature element. Truly refreshing in its minimalism and back to basics approach, it boasts a rollicking and extraordinarily simple premise (it’s a concept movie, basically): when a massive hurricane hits their small Florida town, Haley (Kaya Scodelario), her father Dave (Barry Pepper) and their dog Sugar (Cso-Cso) find themselves trapped in their basement and have to contend with rapidly rising floodwaters and several giant alligators. The screenplay by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen takes what is familiar, mundane and even sentimental (a family home, full of memo...

2010 Dir. Adam Green Hoping to spend some quality time at a tranquil ski resort, a trio of twenty-something friends Joe (Shawn Ashmore), Dan (Kevin Zegers) and Parker (Emma Bell), instead experience a chilling nightmare when they are unexpectedly stranded on a ski-lift shortly after the resort closes for the week. Unknowingly left dangling high above the ground and with no apparent safe way down as night begins to set in, with increasing panic they soon realize that the threats of frostbite and hypothermia are the least of their worries. Forced to take extremely desperate measures in order to survive the bitter cold, overcome unexpected obstacles and attempt to reach safety, the three friends are driven to ask not only if they have the will to survive, but also to consider what are the worst ways to die… Having already caused quite a stir on the festival circuit, prompting responses from critics such as “terrifying… will do for skiing what Jaws did for swimming” Frozen is ...

2008 Dir. Jamie Blanks Suburban couple Peter and Carla (Jim Caviezel and Claudia Karvan) take a weekend vacation in the hopes of repairing their crumbling relationship. The couple show an absolute lack of respect for their surroundings and amongst other things, drop litter, constantly spray insecticides, accidently kill a baby dugong, bicker with each other and are generally unable to conceal their utter contempt for one another. As the tension between the two escalates, nature itself seems to strike back against them. Is something supernatural afoot, or is the squabbling, insular couple losing their grip on reality? Australian horror movies have been making quite an impact on the horror genre recently, though the country has a history of genre movies including classics such as Mad Max, Razorback and Picnic at Hanging Rock . More recently with films such as Wolf Creek, Rogue , Lake Mungo and Undead , filmmakers have begun to explore the darker recesses of the outback once more....

2000 Dir. Tobe Hooper A group of teenaged friends having a party on a boat are menaced by a giant crocodile. Written by Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson (who also wrote Toolbox Murders and co-wrote Dario Argento's Mother of Tears ), Crocodile is a low budget, by the numbers creature feature. While it certainly has the potential to be a grimy, taut throwback to exploitation flicks of the 80s, particularly with Tobe Hooper directing, it sadly emerges as more of a ripple, rather than the tide of terror it could have been. Featuring a buffed and polished cast of thirty-somethings playing teens, and some very tedious dialogue and partying scenes, the screenplay paints the characters with the broadest of strokes. Sure, they’re having fun, but we just aren’t invited to care, even remotely, about them. When they steal crocodile eggs, we know their fates are sealed, so it doesn’t seem to matter if we still can’t tell them apart. Brief sojourns to other parts of the bayou where we see th...