Behind the Couch

When Julia moves with her husband to Bucharest, she notices a stranger always watching her from the building across the street. She begins to suspect this same stranger is following her and is the serial killer who has been terrorising the city and preying on women after dark. Written and directed by Chloe Okuno, Watcher is a tightly-wound, highly effective chiller; a truly modern horror that takes a simple premise - and universal, relatable anxieties - and expertly spins it into a web of paranoia and quiet terror. From the outset, Julia (Maika Monroe) is rendered an outsider. In the taxi from the airport, her half-Romanian husband Francis (Karl Glusman) and the driver converse in Romanian, unintentionally excluding her. When they get settled in their new flat, she finds herself alone much of the time. Her husband works long hours, she doesn’t yet have a job (we learn she left behind a promising acting career in the States), she doesn’t know anyone in the city. She begins to feel adri...

Held captive by a serial killer since the age of 8, a teenaged boy must choose between escape or becoming his captor's unwilling protégé. Written and directed by Jennifer Lynch (based on a screenplay by Damian O'Donnell) Chained is an unflinching exploration of how monsters are made. As with her earlier titles Boxing Helena (1993) and Surveillance (2008), Lynch invites us to explore the darkest corners of human psychology, and the violent depravities people inflict upon one another. Shot in two weeks on a very low budget, Chained at times resembles a stage play, with its singular location and story driven by two characters. After a queasily suspenseful opening in which a woman (Julia Ormond) and her young son are abducted in broad daylight, the story, like its young protagonist Rabbit, becomes bound to the grim interior of the killer’s house, with its boarded-up windows, yellowing wallpaper, and harsh lighting. Lynch conjures a moody, ‘homey nausea’* which speaks to the rot...

On the surface, handsome investment banker Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) appears to have it all. Behind the façade of his immaculately groomed and besuited physique, however, lurks a narcissistic psychopath with an increasingly uncontrollable bloodlust. Directed and co-written by Mary Harron and based upon the controversial 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho is a dark, satirical examination of the heartless, capitalist excess of 1980s America. Harron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Guinevere Turner, opts to tone down the intense violence of the novel and up the satire, as they focus attention on ridiculing the Wall Street executive lifestyle, social conformity, toxic masculinity and the mindless consumerism of the time. Harron’s cool, detached direction not only ensures the seemingly disparate elements of horror, comedy and satire effortlessly blend, but allows the excess of the period to speak for itself. Violence, when it occurs, is either offscreen or shocking en...

1973 Dir. Nicolas Roeg Based on the short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier, Don’t Look Now is from a collection of stories revolving around the intrusion of the supernatural/paranormal upon the lives of everyday, normal people. Released on a double bill with The Wicker Man – whose protagonist’s death is, in hindsight, also very much pre-conceived and signposted throughout the film's narrative - Don’t Look Now ripples forth as a devastating and often terrifying study of grief. When their young daughter drowns in a pond in the family garden, John and Laura (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie), attempt to come to terms with their loss and reconcile their relationship by travelling to Venice. John throws himself into his work and denies the possibility that their daughter could be trying to communicate with them from the afterlife. After befriending a spooky psychic and her sister, Laura opens herself up to the possibility that their daughter is trying to reach o...

2013 Dir. Marcus Dunstan When a young woman is captured by a masked psychopath after attending an underground warehouse party, where the revellers were mowed, sliced and crushed to death by a macabre series of contraptions, a group of mercenaries are dispatched by her rich father to track her down. Aiding them is Arkin, a former captive of the killer who somehow managed to escape. Can they get to Elena before she becomes part of his gruesome 'collection'? Attempting to do for The Collector what Aliens did for Alien, The Collection ups the scope of the first film from the get-go, lurching into gear immediately with a series of jaw-dropping bloody spectacles that set the scene for the large scale carnage that follows. The introduction of a group of bad-ass mercenaries, who are attempting to hunt down the mysterious serial killer and do what 'the police can't', also establishes the action-packed ante. These guys mean business. Too bad they’re all two-dimens...

2012 Dir. Ryan Haysom Italian giallo films, made popular by the likes of Dario Argento, Mario Bava and Sergio Martino, are renowned for their brutal violence, dazzling style and convoluted ‘whodunit’ narratives. Immensely popular in Italy throughout the late Sixties and early Seventies, they eventually fizzled out of fashion. Throughout the past couple of years however they have appeared to make something of a comeback; specifically in terms of their influence on a new generation of filmmakers. Recent films such as Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s Amer , Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio , Guillem Morales’ Julia’s Eyes and Federico Zampaglione’s Tulpa , highlight the impact the giallo has had on contemporary horror cinema, with its combination of exploitative violence and art house aesthetics. Another notable title to proudly wear its giallo influences on its blood-spattered sleeve is the short film, Yellow (directed by Ryan Haysom and produced by Catherine Morawit...

1943 Dir. Jacques Tourneur When a publicity stunt backfires, a domesticated leopard escapes from a New Mexico nightclub prompting a desperate search to re-capture it. An ensuing series of grisly deaths is blamed on the animal; however nightclub performer Kiki and her agent Jerry soon suspect that it isn’t the leopard responsible for the violent deaths; but a deranged serial killer who uses the escaped animal as a cover for his heinous crimes. After the success of Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie , producer Val Lewton reteamed with director Jacques Tourneur for their next collaboration, the RKO-assigned title of which was to be The Leopard Man . Rather than churning out a hackneyed variation on the werewolf film, in which a man transforms into a slathering beast before claiming his prey, the exceedingly literate Lewton chose to adapt Cornell Woolrich’s mystery-thriller ‘Black Alibi’: a twisted tale about a killer in a Mexican city using the fear caused by an escaped wild a...

1959 Dir. Crane Wilbur Murder-mystery author Cornelia van Gorder rents a country mansion for the summer while its owner, bank manager Mr Fleming, is on an extended hunting trip. Unbeknownst to Cornelia and her faithful PA Lizzie, Fleming has been embezzling bank bonds worth one million dollars, and hidden them in the manor. The two women and their guests are menaced by a notorious killer dubbed 'The Bat' - who uses steel-clawed gloves to tear out the throats of his victims and will stop at nothing to get his hands on the loot! The Bat is based on the 1920 Broadway play of the same name by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart. It was previously filmed by Roland West in 1926 as The Bat and as The Bat Whispers in 1930. Its stage origins are evident in the sets and locations, mainly limited to a couple of rooms in the sprawling mansion. The premise of a feisty mystery writer renting an old, dark house in the middle of the countryside, while the surrounding area is grip...

2004 Dir. Paco Plaza Spain, 1851. The inhabitants of a small village are terrorised by a savage serial killer. Ravaged corpses bear both animalistic mutilation and precise surgical incisions. As the village is plunged into panic-ridden chaos, travelling salesman Manuel Romasanta eventually confesses to the crimes, but claims that he is not responsible for his actions because he is a werewolf… Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt is a sensual, unusual, boldly original and, at times, rather uneven take on the werewolf film. It is based on the true story of Spain’s first documented serial killer, Manuel Blanco Romasanta, who confessed to thirteen murders in the mid-nineteenth century. Writers Elena Serra and Alberto Marini (who specialise in lo-fi, brooding horror such as Darkness, The Machinist and The Fragile ) have written a screenplay that concentrates more on presenting the story as a historical drama allegedly based on facts, than a typical monster movie, while director Plaza adop...

1996 Dir. Matthew Bright When Vanessa witnesses her mother and stepfather being hauled off to jail on drugs and prostitution charges, the teenage tearaway goes on the run from a social worker who wants to put her into care. She sets off to seek sanctuary at her grandmother's house. Along the way however, she encounters a sadistic serial killer who she discovers has been preying on vulnerable young women on the freeway… Matthew Bright’s cult indie hit Freeway is a thoroughly twisted take on the tale of 'Little Red Riding Hood’; a tale that has consistently proved it is ripe for reinterpretation time and again. Much like the original tale not just being a story about a girl eaten by a wolf (it’s actually a rite of passage story warning young women of the dangers of rape), Bright’s take isn’t just the tale of a girl who has a terrifying encounter with a serial killer – it actually unravels as a damning indictment of the US justice system and its inhumane treatment of the...

1975 Dir. Andrea Bianchi When a fashion model dies during surgery to perform an abortion, a slew of violent murders ensue, starting with that of the doctor who tried to cover up her death. The killer’s victims are all connected to a fashion modelling agency where the dead woman worked. As the body count rises, a couple of scantily clad amateur sleuths try to discover the killer’s identity before they too are struck off. “ I feel too hot to be a corpse, baby .” To describe Strip Nude For Your Killer as trashy and exploitative would really be a fantastically obvious understatement. Hey, with a title like that, one should really know what to expect. Of course, there are films with truly exploitative, titillating titles that can never hope to live up to the lurid promise their monikers suggest – Strip Nude is not one of those films. It does exactly what it says on the tin. The surprising thing is that it is actually pretty enjoyable, in a trashy, campy, exploitative and deliri...

2003 Dir. David Morwick The grisly murders of several students at a quiet college campus coincide with recent sightings of a red-hooded figure creeping around the local woods. Student Peter Bloom decides to investigate, and before long he realises that the killer, who has a connection to the school library, is also obsessed with fairy tales. Peter must act quickly to figure out the bizarre modus operandi and stop the killer before they strike again… 'A flash of red... Then you're dead. ' I bought Little Erin Merryweather for £1 in a local discount shop. I wasn’t really expecting much; so was pleasantly surprised when it actually turned out to be not half bad. It certainly has its fair share of interesting moments and startling imagery. And it was £1. An intriguing opening sets the fairy tale-image drenched scene, as a young college student is lured into the woods by a mysterious figure in a red cape, only to be pounced upon and gutted. Even though we don’t see ...