Behind the Couch

2011 Dir. Kevin Smith When three teenage friends answer an online invitation for sex, they are kidnapped by an extreme right-wing Christian cult who plan on punishing them for their ‘deviancy.’ The prospect of Kevin Smith addressing extreme Christian hate groups through the conventions of horror cinema is, for this writer anyway, an irresistible one. Smith already addressed the dangers of organised religion in Dogma , which, while rather plodding and uneven, was still an interesting departure for the director, famed for his lo-fi slacker-driven stories. While Red State may be a different beast entirely, it also sadly slides into unevenness of tone as the plot eventually crumbles under weighty speeches and a limp, exposition-heavy finale. Differing from the usual religious horror, the threat in Red State comes not from Satan or the occult, but from a fundamentalist right-wing Christian cult who believe their faith entitles them to carry out brutal acts of violence in the name...

2009 Dir. Lawrence Gough A quiet cul-de-sac is suddenly plunged into a world of violence, terror and paranoia when a group of heavily armed military personnel storms the area, sealing off the close and ordering the residents at gunpoint to retreat inside their homes. This coincides with the discovery of a mysterious container washed ashore nearby. Unsure if this is the first sign of a terrorist attack, or something worse, one local resident, Beth (Neve Mcintosh), mounts increasingly desperate attempts to save her estranged daughter, Jodie (Linzey Cocker), who is visiting her for the holiday but is now stranded across the street in a neighbour’s house. With growing dread, the trapped residents soon discover that the imminent threat is far more monstrous than any of them could possibly imagine. Whatever was in the container has reached the cul-de-sac, and it is seriously depleting the numbers of the military unit and residents alike… Salvage is a taut, tightly constructed and rel...

John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness is an underrated, highly moody horror flick from 1987. After the discovery of a giant canister containing an eerie green and swirling mass under a church, a group of students specialising in philosophy, science, theology and linguistics are invited by a troubled priest (Donald Pleasance) to investigate. They realise that the canister will act as a doorway to hell but the only way to open the canister is from the inside… Soon, the liquid begins to seep out and possess the students, one by one. Meanwhile outside, a group of menacing vagrants led by Alice Cooper surround the church and the remaining students must barricade themselves in, unaware that their colleagues are gradually becoming possessed by the evil in the canister. The collective dream shared by the students is, for this reviewer anyway, incredibly creepy and unsettling. A static-hewn shot of a shadowy figure lingering sinisterly in a doorway backlit with spectral light, is perhaps th...