Behind the Couch

Newly married Bea and Paul (Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway) decide to take their honeymoon at her family’s secluded lakeside cabin deep in the forest. Their bliss is shattered after Paul finds Bea wandering disorientated in the forest at night and soon after she begins to seem less and less like herself. To begin with, it’s little things, like forgetfulness, but before long, her personality changes and even her grasp of language diminishes, while she insists everything is fine. As Paul’s attempts to get them to leave and go back home become increasingly desperate, he realises that they are not as alone as they thought, and something lurks in the surrounding forest, its insidious grip on Rose becoming ever more powerful…  Directed by Leigh Janiak (who co-wrote the screenplay with Phil Graziadei), Honeymoon unfurls as a deeply haunting and suspenseful two-hander. The unsettling notion that the person you have married and chosen to spend the rest of your life with, suddenly changes ...

Over the past few years Scandinavian horror has been making quite the mark on genre cinema, with filmmakers finding ways to surprise audiences and subvert expectations with titles like Let the Right One In, Not Like Others and Cold Prey . Some even mine spooky Nordic folklore for frights — think Marianne and Trollhunter — lending their films a unique tone quite unlike anything else around. The latest Scandiwegian chiller, Wither , has been touted as the Swedish Evil Dead , and with good reason. Gratuitous splatter FX aside though, it fails to offer much in the way of ingenuity, its set-up all too familiar to horror audiences. Head over to Exquisite Terror to read my full review . While you're there, why not check out our coverage of other titles screening at this year's Fright Fest.  

Paranormal Entity tells of a family who are increasingly disturbed by a presence that may or may not be demonic, but is certainly most active in the middle of the night. They decide to videotape the ‘activity’ on a series of strategically placed cameras throughout the house. And on handheld cameras when events need to be conveyed with a sense of immediacy or urgency. It is impossible not to make reference to Paranormal Activity while talking about Paranormal Entity . It's essentially the same story but told in a very different way. Whereas Activity drew its audience in with slow-burning chills and intrigue, Entity switches tension for tedium, and slow-burning terror for jump shocks, and becomes repetitious and predictable too early on. In the grand tradition of Transmorphers, I Am Ωmega and The Day The Earth Stopped, Paranormal Entity is the latest mock-buster from The Asylum, a production company famed for producing cheap and cheerful titles that basically capitalise ...

2009 Dir. Sam Drog A motley crew of bumbling Satanists kidnap a waitress to offer her up as a bride to the Devil and to become the mortal mother of the antichrist. However, her boyfriend and no-bullshit-taking Highway Patrol Officer brother have other ideas and set out to rescue her and give the Satanists an ass kicking of Biblical proportions. Unfortunately, their ill-planned intervention merely serves to botch the unholy ritual in progress and all the power of hell is inadvertently transferred into an unlikely host: a recently sacrificed chicken. Now, as the forces of good and evil battle it out between themselves, a demonic, flesh-eating barnyard animal is threatening to engulf their very souls and recruit them in its growing army of the living dead! Dear reader, is it possible to imagine anything more fearsome and terrifying than an undead chicken, possessed by the devil and intent on killing innocent human victims ? I thought not. As incredible as it may sound, a Satanic Kil...

1977 Dir. Mario Bava AKA Beyond the Door II, Transfert-Suspence-Hypnos, Shock Dora (Daria Nicolodi), her son Marco (David Colin Jnr) and her new husband Bruno (John Steiner) return to live in her old family home – the site of her first husband’s supposed suicide. Recovering from a nervous breakdown, Dora’s already fragile state of mind is pushed further towards the brink of sanity by strange occurrences in the house and the increasingly sinister behaviour of her young son. Dora begins to suspect that her former husband has returned from the dead to continue abusing her as he did in life. Is this the case, or has Dora just slipped quietly into madness? Schock was director Mario Bava’s last film. Co-written by his son Lamberto and Dario Argento’s regular co-writer Dardano Sacchetti, certain segments of the film were also directed by Lamberto as Mario was in poor health. The writers tread a fine line throughout the film and the story is enshrouded in ambiguity and suggestion. ...

1974 Dir. Mickey Lion (Mario Bava) When she separates from her tour group to look around an old antiques shop, Lisa (Elke Sommer) encounters a man (Telly Savalas) who bears a striking resemblance to a depiction of the Devil she saw in a fresco. Making her way back to the town square, Lisa is suddenly struck down by a mysterious and somewhat disturbing ailment that causes her to spasm uncontrollably and to spout obscenities. She is visited in hospital by a Priest (Robert Alda) who surmises that she is possessed by the Devil and sets about trying to exorcise her. During the exorcism she reveals to him how she came to be in this unsavoury situation… Due to the success of Bava’s prior film Baron Blood , he was given ‘carte blanche’ by his producer Alfredo Leone to write and direct another film. Bava had apparently waited his whole career for such artistic freedom and the resulting film, Lisa & the Devil is amongst his most accomplished, beautifully surreal and engaging films. D...