Behind the Couch

2013 Dir. Colin Clarke When a man ventures into the foreboding forest that surrounds his village to seek the help of a witch, their forbidden ritual is interrupted by witch hunter William Thatcher Blake. After sentencing the unfortunate pair to death for fraternising with the Dark Lord, Blake is cursed by the witch, and when he returns home, soon realises the full extent of her dark powers… Colin Clarke’s short film unveils itself as an atmospheric love letter to vintage Gothic horror. Witches, ancient rites, dark woods and violent revenge are swirled together in a cinematic cauldron that expertly conjures the spectres of bygone horror. With a distinctly old fashioned feel, there are nods to the likes of vintage Hammer, Michael Reeve’s Witchfinder General and the gloomy dread and sadism of classic Italian Gothic horror. One moment in particular - the scene depicting the unfortunate witch’s demise - pays homage to Mario Bava's Black Sunday/Mask of Satan ; right down to th...

Magheralin, from the Irish Machaire Lainne , meaning "Plain of the Church", is a tiny village and civil parish in County Down, Northern Ireland. In the centre of the village an ancient stone tower casts its shadow over an equally ancient graveyard. The church that originally stood on this site was identified with Lann Ronan, or the Church of Ian, and is cited in the taxation of Pope Nicholas of 1306 - although no traces of the medieval structure remain today. In 1400 a new church was built incorporating parts of the previous building, and in 1442 a stone tower was added. By 1657 however, the church was described as being in a state of decay and ruin, and was later completely rebuilt along with the existing tower, which still stretches out of the earth and above the olden trees surrounding it. The practice of burying the dead within the church itself was stopped in 1773, but damage to the structure had already been done. In 1839 the decision to build a new church was take...

Issue 18 of Diabolique  is now available to order. Throughout its pages we take a look at horror’s unparalleled ability to provide a window onto the myriad ills of contemporary society. With a political climate marked by division and pre and post-2012 fears about the apocalypse, as well as the sheer amount of underground and mainstream filmic and literary offerings about the End Times currently available, it would seem that the concept of the end of the world is resonating with audiences like never before. We wrestle with these themes and their depictions in everything from The Omega Man to 28 Days Later to The World’s End and everything in between, featuring interviews with acclaimed author David Moody; comic book artist/illustrator Arthur “Zombie King” Suydam ( Army of Darkness, Marvel Zombies, The Walking Dead ); and Before Dawn co-writer/co-stars Dominic Brunt and Joanne Mitchell. This issue also contains my own piece on the three cinematic adaptations of Richard Mat...

He locked away the Necronomicon with a shudder of disgust, but the room still reeked with an unholy and unidentifiable stench. 'As a foulness shall ye know them,' he quoted. Yes - the odour was the same as that which had sickened him at the Whateley farmhouse less than three years before. He thought of Wilbur, goatish and ominous, once again, and laughed mockingly at the village rumours of his parentage.  'Inbreeding?' Armitage muttered half-aloud to himself. 'Great God, what simpletons! Show them Arthur Machen's Great God Pan and they'll think it a common Dunwich scandal! But what thing - what cursed shapeless influence on or off this three-dimensional earth - was Wilbur Whateley's father? Born on Candlemas - nine months after May Eve of 1912, when the talk about the queer earth noises reached clear to Arkham - what walked on the mountains that May night? What Roodmas horror fastened itself on the world in half-human flesh and blood?'  Despite...

2005 Dir. Andrew Leman "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." H.P. Lovecraft First published in Weird Tales in 1922, Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu concerns Francis Wayland Thurston, a young man who is attempting to piece together the circumstances of his great-uncle's death. While looking through the dead man’s possessions he finds a weird manuscript pertaining to an ancient and alien slumbering deity, and the despicable ...

The People Under the Stairs is an atmospheric and tightly coiled horror film with themes that remain relevant, and a dark sense of unease that is still incredibly palpable, unravelling as a compendium of recurring themes and motifs that run throughout much of Wes Craven’s work; race, class, familial strife, generational conflict and the idea of man-made monsters all swirl together in an unhinged and feverishly claustrophobic tale. With its myriad allusions to the likes of “Hansel and Gretel”, the film unfurls as a nightmarish urban fairy tale complete with mutilated innocents imprisoned by wicked parental figures... To read my full review, and for a chance to win a copy of the film on Blu-ray, head over to Exquisite Terror . While you’re there, why not pick up an issue or two of Exquisite Terror the periodical . 

Guest post by Christine Hadden One of the biggest issues that H.P. Lovecraft fans have is the lack of acceptable translation to film of his work. Many films teeter on the edge of the dark precipice of his brilliant stories, but fail to capture the weird yet exceptional storytelling and sinister themes the author is so famous for. The Resurrected (1992), aka Shatterbrain , while certainly not a celebrated film, is one of the most faithful adaptations of a Lovecraft story. Based on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward , this low-budget, direct-to-video release has the distinction of being directed by the late, great Dan O'Bannon ( Alien, Return of the Living Dead ) and though apparently it got edited without O'Bannon, it still remains a relatively close conversion from story to film. Charles Dexter Ward (Chris Sarandon, reason enough to see the film) has alienated his new wife by occupying his time first in the family's carriage house, and then an old family estate well r...

1985 Dir. Stuart Gordon When the eccentric Herbert West (a manic Jeffrey Combs) arrives at Miskatonic University, Arkham, he and a fellow medical student become embroiled in strange experiments to reanimate dead tissue. With horrific consequences. Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West – Reanimator , Stuart Gordon’s film is perhaps one of the most successful adaptations of the author’s work, and it triggered a resurgence of cinematic interest in the work of Lovecraft throughout the 80s and 90s. The film is an outrageous blend of splattery special effects, pseudo-sci-fi concepts, comic violence, pitch black humour and vivid horror. At times it boasts a similar madcap tone to Sam Raimi’s earlier splat-stick classic, Evil Dead , as Dr West’s increasingly desperate and ludicrous attempts to reanimate corpses reach feverish intensity. The idea to make Re-Animator stemmed from Gordon’s belief that there were not enough Frankensteinian stories. He believed pop-culture had...

Guest post by Aaron Duenas It should be said that I'm not an expert on H.P. Lovecraft by any means, but, like every horror buff, I know of, enjoy, and appreciate his work for being so far ahead of its time, and essentially paving the way for many horror authors whose works have affected pop culture, literature, and cinema. I went into this film, and I'm approaching this review, mainly as a fan of director Albert Pyun, who recently retired due to health problems. He's a filmmaker who's primarily worked in the straight-to-video market. Some of his more notable films include Cyborg (a favorite of mine), The Sword and the Sorcerer , and Vicious Lips . So when I found out that Pyun directed a Lovecraft adaptation, to say that I was curious would be an understatement. Cool Air , which was apparently produced back in 2006 but sat on the shelf for seven years before being released in 2013, is based on Lovecraft's short story of the same name. There have been other a...

The terrifying paranormal events that allegedly took place at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, inspired Jay Anson’s 1977 book The Amityville Horror: A True Story and the 1979 film The Amityville Horror - and its seemingly unending barrage of sequels and remakes. Over the years the validity of the alleged occurrences has been the centre of intense debate and scrutiny, with the Lutz family branded opportunistic frauds. Prominent figures involved in the investigations, from journalists and parapsychologists, to news producers and psychologists, have since weighed in with their opinions, accusations and theories regarding the family and what they claim happened in the house. Eric Walter’s recent documentary is interesting because it features a subject who has remained silent about the whole debacle since his involuntary involvement in it as a child. Daniel Lutz was 10 when he moved to 112 Ocean Drive, and what becomes obvious from the outset of My Amityville Horror is that, regardless...

2013 Dir. Lawrie Brewster After the death of his estranged mother, school teacher James Findlay returns to his childhood home, a lonely mansion in the Scottish Highlands, in an attempt to lay to rest the ghosts of his past. Tormented since a boy by dreams of a strange and terrifying entity – a figure dressed in Victorian attire, with elongated limbs, sharp talons and an owl head - James faces a descent into madness and his only hope is to banish the evil presence that haunts him. With the help of Eve, a mysterious young woman who lives on the grounds of the house, he begins to uncover the chilling truth behind his immortal stalker… Set in the remote Highlands of Scotland, and inspired by the unsettling and bleak tales of H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen and the creepy Slender Man mythology, Lord of Tears is a gothic chiller that slowly unfurls in an immensely atmospheric and nightmarish manner. Writer Sarah Daly and director Brewster seamlessly fuse together an array of influenc...