Behind the Couch

2012 Dir. Jonathan Zarantonello Featuring a strong female cast comprised of renowned veterans of the genre, The Butterfly Room is headed by the fabulous and formidable Barbara Steele ( Black Sunday, Nightmare Castle, Pit and the Pendulum, Silent Scream , Shivers ), who delivers a mesmeric performance as maniacal matriarch Ann. Mentally unstable yet strangely vulnerable, her vanquished relationship with estranged daughter Dorothy (Heather Langenkamp) drives her to weave maternal bonds around a young girl called Alice (Julia Putnam). It turns out enigmatic Alice is not what she seems though, and has a few dark secrets of her own. Shocking revelations push an already unstable Ann over the edge as she seeks to preserve her relationship with Alice at any cost... With its mix of melodrama, Grand Guignol camp and tragic pathos, and its casting of a sensational older star in the role of a severely unhinged recluse, The Butterfly Room echoes 'hagsploitation' creepers such as C...

2013 Dir. Andrés Muschietti Imagine, if you will, that Hansel and Gretel were too little girls who were saved by the wicked witch before their father – distraught after losing his fortune in the 2008 recession – could kill them in a raving fit of pique. Surviving for five years in the witch’s house deep in the dark woods, they are eventually discovered by their uncle and his girlfriend, who bring them back to civilisation and attempt to lovingly reintegrate into society. Imagine then, that the witch, who had reared them as her own and loved them dearly, followed them into suburbia to claim them back. This is the central premise of Andrés Muschietti’s darkly beautiful fairy tale horror, Mama .  The figure of the mother has always held a significant place in fairy tales. Fiercely protective and loving, or wicked and cruel, she can be a guiding force of goodness, or a figure of evil intent on harming her young. The central antagonist of Mama - the feature-length expansion of a ...