Behind the Couch

Fire Walk With Me marked David Lynch’s return to his beloved Twin Peaks ; albeit a return lovers of the series didn’t quite expect. Not only was it a prequel, charting the bleak and disturbing last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life, but it also marked a drastic shift in tone that left many fans out in the cold. Gone were the cherry pies and damn fine coffees, and in their place was a dark tale of domestic abuse, incest and what lurks in the sick, twisted underbelly of small town America. As it serves as an exploration of Laura’s tragic demise, it isn’t surprising that Fire Walk With Me exhibits some of the most poignant, creepy and nightmarishly bizarre moments and imagery from Lynch’s work to date. All set to the strains of one of Angelo Badalamenti’s most evocative and haunting scores yet. We follow Laura (Sheryl Lee) as she descends into an ever hopeless spiral of drugs, prostitution and ritualistic abuse at the hands of those she’s closest to. Throughout the course of the...

2011 Dir. Peter Ferris Shot in and around Belfast last winter, Cold Blood is the second instalment of an unfinished trilogy of short films. It follows the exploits of vampire Elias Mortenson (Peter Ferris) as he travels the world forcefully recruiting vampires under the guise of an acting coach. Working as a stand alone film, Cold Blood hinges on some fertile ideas – particularly in its exploration of the tribulations of a group of young people, unwillingly turned into vampires and attempting to resist their new blood-thirsty instincts (recalling the chilling plight of Claudia from Interview with the Vampire ). The makeshift family they create echoes that of the clan in Near Dark – and of course the concept of vampires attempting to reform has been explored in the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ,  Angel ,  Twilight and True Blood . Aspects of Oliver Twist  and  Lord of the Flies  swirl throughout proceedings as the youngsters are left to fend for the...

1983 Dir. Mark Rosman After a foolish prank backfires, a group of sorority sisters are stalked and murdered one by one as they attempt to dispose of a body while hosting a graduation party. Talk about an inconvenience! In true slasher style, we open with a prologue set in the not too distant past - to intrigue and set the scene for the bloodbath to come – in which a woman in labour experiences a traumatic birth in a large house during a crashing thunderstorm. Cut to years later, the house is now home to a sorority and the woman is revealed to be the house mother, Mrs Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt) – a formidable, cane-wielding dame who is overly keen for the graduating girls to vacate the premises. The young women have no such intentions though – they want to have a party to celebrate and they decide to play a prank on Mrs Slater. She ends up dead and the friends are left with her body to dispose of. It seems someone knows their secret though and begins to pick them off, one by one.....

1982 Dir. Juan Piquer Simón A killer, attempting to piece together a human jigsaw puzzle made from body parts, starts cutting up students on a college campus. Bad dialogue, terrible acting, gratuitous nudity, sloppy gore effects, and unexpected kung-fu ensue. Warning: may incite guffaws. Directed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Piquer Simón in his native Valencia (though set in the States), the marvellously trashy and overtly sleazy 1982 extravaganza Pieces is a scuzzy slasher that ranks down there with the worst best of ‘em. Notorious when it was released, it has gone on to garner a cult following. Containing no tension whatsoever, the film still manages to be highly entertaining due to it falling firmly into that old favourite category of the so-bad-it’s-good. On my first attempt to watch Pieces (several years ago when I first picked it up on VHS in a bargain bin) I got as far as the first chainsaw attack and was ordered to switch it off by whichever friend had the misfortune o...

2010 Dir. John Asher A group of friends find themselves stranded when their car breaks down while drag racing outside their home town. After deciding to try their luck at a nearby scrap yard rather than risk walking back into town, some careless horseplay with a loaded pistol leaves one of them wounded and in desperate need of medical attention. Meanwhile, the local sheriff’s office has just received notification that a serial killer has escaped from the state prison and is thought to be hiding out somewhere in the area. Alerted to the situation at the wrecking yard, the police and ambulance crew arrive on the scene only to face a long night of bloodshed and mayhem as a mysterious killer stalks the yard determined to slay everyone and leave no witnesses… Beware. The spare parts may be your own… Wreckage unravels as conventionally as the slasher flicks of the Eighties which so obviously inspired it. It even opens with a flashback sporting some gritty domestic drama in which o...

Born from a conversation about film magazines in a small Queens, New York apartment in the summer of 2007, Paracinema Magazine has been steadily garnering a reputation as a distinctive, intelligent, and thought-provoking publication since its first issue almost four years ago. Taking its title from a phrase coined by film scholar Jeffrey Sconce, the independently produced, quarterly magazine focuses primarily on all facets of cult and genre cinema. Each issue contains accessible in-depth analytical pieces, critiques, interviews and academic articles on all manner of genre cinema – from Hitchcock, Herzog and Bergman to the likes of HG Lewis, Wiseau and Ed Wood, to name but a few. All is presented in a strikingly designed and attention-commanding publication. Paracinema is essentially for those who want to delve deeper into the lurid depths of ‘periphery’ cinema; each issue contains pieces on a staggering array of movies and genres including, horror, sci-fi, blaxploitation, exploitati...

Armchair Thriller was a British television series, broadcast on ITV by Thames in 1978 and 1980. It was essentially a horror/supernatural orientated anthology series that specialised in adapting various spooky novels and stories. It consisted of two weekly 25 minute episodes, usually screened at 8pm on a Tuesday and Thursday evening. I’m too young to remember it, but a recent conversation with several ( ever so slightly) older friends alerted me to one particular episode of the series entitled Quiet as a Nun … Adapted from the 1977 novel of the same name by Antonia Fraser, Quiet as a Nun was a six part dramatisation revolving around Fraser's regular sleuth Jemima Shore, who revisits the convent where she was schooled following the mysterious death of one of the nuns. The nun, Sister Miriam, was a former friend of Jemima’s and she apparently starved herself to death in a ruined tower in the grounds of the convent. Jemima soon learns from the girls at the convent about a myste...

1982 Dir. Dario Argento After a detour into Gothic, witchy, fairy tale horror with Suspiria  (1977) and Inferno (1980),  Tenebrae  marked director Dario Argento's return to the gialli which he helped popularise in the early Seventies. Based on the filmmaker’s own experiences of an unhinged fan obsessed with his work, Tenebrae  is generally regarded as one of his finest films. It follows the story of American mystery-thriller novelist Peter Neal, whose arrival in Rome to promote his latest title coincides with a series of violent murders – the perpetrator of which claims to have been inspired by Neal’s latest book. When the author himself begins to receive death threats from the killer he must use his literary know-how to snare the slasher before he becomes the next victim. Unfolding as a cunningly reflexive critique of the Italian giallo, violence in cinema, and indeed Dario Argento’s own body of work, Tenebrae directly addresses the misogyny he has often...

1972 Dir. Aldo Lado When the young daughter of Venice based sculptor Franco is heinously murdered, he and his estranged wife begin an investigation to track down the killer. Meanwhile the body-count continues to grow as the crazed maniac bloodily dispatches anyone who strays too close to discovering the truth about their identity. Set in Venice and featuring the story of a grief-stricken family crippled by the death of their child, Who Saw Her Die? is in many ways uncannily similar to Nicolas Roeg’s startling masterpiece Don’t Look Now , which was released only a year after. Opening with the shockingly frank and brutal murder of a little girl on a snowy mountain in France, Lado’s film pulls no punches, however while its central mystery constantly intrigues as it twists and turns unendingly, it never really manages to repeat the power of this opening scene. Focusing on Franco’s obsession with finding his daughter’s killer, the film unfolds as in typical giallo fashion, with red...

1972 Dir. Sergio Martino Alcoholic writer Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli, Bay of Blood ) and his long-suffering wife Irina (Anita Strindberg, Lizard in a Woman's Skin ) live an isolated, self-destructive existence in their crumbling villa. When Oliviero’s mistress is the first victim in a series of vicious murders, he becomes the prime suspect – and when his niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech, Strip Nude for Your Killer ) suddenly arrives for a visit, things become increasingly complicated as a series of double-crossings and shifting character dynamics add to the air of stifling paranoia. Irina finds comfort in Floriana’s arms – and bed – and the two decide to bump off Oliviero, Diabolique -style. Throw in a few lesbian sex scenes, an ominous and seemingly ubiquitous black cat, lush gothic trimmings, several vicious murders, and you have a fantastically moody giallo that rates right up there with the best of ‘em. Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key – the absurdly extr...