Behind the Couch

2008 Dir. Jim Donovan In a bid to finish her thesis, psychology student Cassie (Clea Duvall) accepts a job at an isolated fire watch tower. The solitude and stress of finishing her thesis – on post-traumatic stress, no less – take their toll on Cassie, who begins to suspect the area may be haunted… Could she be suffering from a nervous breakdown? Or is she really being targeted by a tragic spectre? Or , is something equally sinister but much less supernatural afoot? So many possibilities... As mentioned in the previous review , I enjoy catching random horror films on late night TV. If said random horror flick features Clea Duvall, even better. Boasting a rather similar story to Deadline , The Watch also tells of a troubled young woman attempting to get her life back on track after a traumatic incident in her past. What better way to do that than head out into the middle of nowhere to finish your thesis on childhood psychology, and have a few ghostly encounters that push you t...

2009 Dir. Sean McConville When a screenwriter travels to a house in the middle of nowhere to finish her latest project, sinister occurrences ensue. Given that said screenwriter is recovering from a recent nervous breakdown, staying alone in a big old house in the middle of nowhere, probably wasn’t the greatest idea ever. However it means that director McConville can play that old ‘is she really seeing ghosts or just imagining things’ card... I enjoy catching random horror films on late night TV. Sometimes you’re rewarded for idly flicking through the channels until something catches your eye – favourite films I’ve discovered this way include Cat People , Halloween , The Pit and the Pendulum and Night of the Living Dead . When you see that a horror film starring Brittany Murphy as a writer staying alone in a creepy house has just started – you just have to watch it. Deadline seemed to me to have a lot of potential; a nice (if not wholly original) idea, a pace and tone that ...

Back in 2007, an independently produced magazine focusing on all things ‘genre cinema’ modestly made its way onto the shelves of various indie retailers across New York City. Six years later and said independently produced magazine is still going strong and, more importantly, has still managed to retain its unique perspective. Each lushly produced issue of Paracinema mines the depths of genre cinema by way of a series of essays and features on niche cinema, examining, celebrating and promoting films all too often relegated to the side-lines. Films deemed difficult, dangerous or just plain dire by more mainstream publications, are lovingly dissected and discussed without prejudice or delusion. Issue 20 (!) of Paracinema is now available to pre-order and includes the likes of: A Serbian Film: Transgressive Horror in the Internet Age by Thomas Duke Juice Dogs & Erotic Trauma: An Exploration into Stephen Sayadian’s Nightdreams and Dr. Caligari by Heather Drain The Vehi...

1977 Dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark The removal of an ancient menhir from a family’s back garden unleashes a blood curse upon an unwitting woman. This was the seventh and last instalment of A Ghost Story for Christmas to be directed by Gordon Clark, and the first to feature an original story – not an MR James adaptation – in a then contemporary setting. Written specially for television by Clive Exton, Stigma is also much more graphic than any of the other Ghost Story for Christmas films and features a bleak and doomful tone that, while perfectly in keeping with the sombre tone of the earlier James adaptations, also echoes Exton’s prior work such as Doomwatch (1972) and Survivors (1975–1977) . That the horror plays out within the cosy home of a middle class family enhances the impact. Like all good horror stories it features very ordinary people, mundane even, caught up in an incomprehensibly extraordinary situation. The blending of the ancient (the standing stones) with the t...

Barbara Steele, Daria Nicolodi and Edwige Fenech are but several women that spring to mind when contemplating Italian genre films. Moving behind the camera though, women are much less represented; in fact their presence is downright scant. There are however a few notable individuals who have proved they’re just as able to create cinematic shocks as the boys. One such woman is composer Nora Orlandi. Orlandi’s jazz-infused score for Sergio Martino’s dazzling giallo The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh , enhances the decadent story, and mirrors the dark sensuality pulsing at the heart of it. Head over to Paracinema to read my review. While you’re there, why not pick up issue 19 of Paracinema Magazine. Inside you’ll find the likes of Aural Enigmas: Sound Design in Ti West’s The Innkeepers by Todd Garbarini, and  Corpse Fucking Art: A Guide to Necrophilia in Horror Cinema by Samm Deighan. It also includes my own feature, What’s In A Name? The Rise and Decline of Hollywood Fall Guy ...

2013 Dir. Neil Jordan Byzantium sees Neil Jordan return to vampire territory for the first time since Interview with a Vampire ; echoes of which abound throughout this compelling story of a mother and daughter whose dependency upon human blood, and each other, threatens to become their undoing. Adapted for screen by Moira Buffini, and based on her play, A Vampire Story , the film follows bawdy Clara (Gemma Arterton) and introverted Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) as they seek sanctuary in a rundown guesthouse in a quiet English seaside resort. Not your typical vampire film, its character driven narrative dispels many of the usual traits associated with cinematic bloodsuckers. Dreamily filmed, Jordan’s careful direction beckons us into the story and immerses us within it. Odd and wonderful things are done in the reconstruction of vampire lore - there are no fangs, only thumbnails that become talons - and while a few conventions remain – blood dependence, immortality, needing to be invi...

2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the The Wicker Man's original release. In celebration of this, and continuing its project to conserve, restore and release for future generations the best of Classic British cinema, STUDIOCANAL announced its intention to release the most complete version of the film possible. The now widely lauded film was released with minimal promotion in 1973 as the second feature of a double bill with Don’t Look Now . The version exhibited to audiences was significantly shorter than director Robin Hardy's original vision. In what has now become an apocryphal episode in British film history, the negatives disappeared from storage at Shepperton Studios, and were then allegedly ended up in a landfill, lost forever. STUDIOCANAL are now appealing worldwide to film collectors, historians, archivists, programmers and fans to support the campaign and come forward with any information relating to the potential whereabouts of original materials. Director Robin...

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...

The Hills Have Eyes (2006) 2013 Dir. Calum Waddell Backwoods: pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) 1. Heavily wooded, uncultivated, thinly settled areas. 2. An area that is far from population centres or that is held to be culturally backward. “ West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs. ” HP Lovecraft The backwoods has long held a strange place of morbid fascination in the collective mind of city dwellers. It represents escapism – somewhere to go to negate the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle; a place which grants...

2013 Dir. Calum Waddell Ever since Alfred Hitchcock filmed Janet Leigh being stabbed to death in a shower in Psycho (1960), stories of knife-wielding madmen - stalking and slaughtering unsuspecting victims - have become a permanent fixture in horror cinema. Hitchcock humanised the monster and made audiences think twice about being alone in the company of that nice looking, quiet guy from next door. You know, the one who lives with his mother?    Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever takes an often irreverent look at the often maligned and misunderstood slasher films which came in the wake of Hitchcock’s masterpiece. Made by Calum Waddell and Naomi Holwill of High Rising Productions, who have been widely acclaimed for their work with Arrow Video and other labels, it is a knowing love letter to stalk and slash cinema. Amongst those discussing the appeal of the slasher are the likes of Tobe Hooper ( The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ), Adam Green ( Hatchet ) Jeffrey Reddic...

Issue 16 of Diabolique is now available to pre-order. In this issue we celebrate what would have been Peter Cushing’s one hundredth birthday, and inside you’ll find an overview of Mr Cushing's career, memoirs of people who knew him and highlights of some of his finest moments in genre cinema. Cushing appeared in dozens of classic horror films and is known for no less than three major character roles: Van Helsing, Dr. Frankenstein, and Sherlock Holmes. Widely acknowledged as a kind and humble soul, Cushing’s personality seems at odds with the lurid horror titles that dominated his career. It’s fitting then that he gained the reputation as ‘the gentleman of horror.’ This issue also includes: The Dying Game – a look at Neil Jordan’s new Gothic vampire film, Byzantium . On The Cutting Edge: Visions Quest – in which Nigel Wingrove talks to Max Weinstein about his 23-year crusade against censorship. Victor Frankenstein – Creator And Monster - Bruce G. Hallenbeck’s examin...

Set in the remote highlands of Scotland, and inspired by the unsettling and bleak tales of H. P. Lovecraft and the creepy Slender Man mythology, Lord of Tears is a forthcoming gothic chiller that, if these striking images are anything to go by, should prove to be an immensely atmospheric and nightmarish yarn indeed. Written by Sarah Daly, it tells of James Findlay, a teacher tormented by childhood memories of a strange and unsettling entity – an owl-headed figure dressed in Victorian attire and sporting elongated limbs and sharp talons. After the death of his mother, the nightmares return and with them, a familiar, watching presence. As James faces a descent into madness, his only hope to fight his tormentor, to banish the evil that haunts him, is to return to his childhood home. He travels to the lonely mansion in the Scottish Highlands, a place notorious for its tragic and disturbing history. There, he must uncover, once and for all, the chilling truth behind the immortal stalker...

Anyone familiar with the irresistibly beautiful, yet devastatingly violent Italian giallo films of the Seventies – made popular by Mario Bava, Dario Argento and Sergio Martino – will no doubt have wept tears of joy while watching Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s breathlessly sensual Amer . Many of the now iconic motifs, visual codes and stylistic traits from the vivid archives of the giallo were present and correct throughout Amer ; a virtually dialogue free film revolving around concepts of obsession, sexual desire, psychological trauma and murder… Following on from their contribution to The ABCs of Death - O is for Orgasm – the duo are currently making their sophomore feature, tantalisingly titled The Strange Colour Of Your Body's Tears ( L'Etrange Couleur Des Larmes De Ton Corps ). They have released a teasing synopsis, describing the film thus: The Strange Colour is the story of a man who investigates the weird conditions of his wife's disappearance. It's ...

Director Sean Hogan is known to fans of horror cinema for his quietly unsettling and eerily atmospheric tales, usually set against a backdrop of urban gloom and featuring desperate characters with shady secrets. Lie Still followed the increasingly nightmarish experiences of a lonely young unemployed man staying in a creepy, strangely deserted old boarding house. House and Home , Hogan’s contribution to the controversial British horror anthology Little Deaths , focused on the exploits of an upper-class couple with peculiar sexual tastes, who invite a homeless girl into their depravity. With horrific consequences. His most recent title, The Devil’s Business , tells of two hit men sent to murder an old associate of their underworld boss. To their increasing horror, they gradually realise that things are not all they seem to be in their would-be target's house. The discovery of a Satanic altar - and its shocking sacrifice - sends the pair on a descent into the shadowy darkness of...