Behind the Couch

1935 Dir. Stuart Walker While travelling through Tibet in search of a mysterious flower that only blooms in moonlight, renowned botanist Dr. Wilfred Glendon (Henry Hull) is attacked by a werewolf. When he returns to London, Glendon begins to undergo a terrifying transformation, the only antidote for which appears to be the plant he is researching... Produced by Universal in the wake of the success of Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy , Werewolf of London was the first mainstream Hollywood werewolf film. It established several precedents which later became significant mainstays of werewolf cinema, such as the idea of lycanthropy as a contagious disease, the influence of the full moon on the werewolf’s transformation, and the spiritual torment suffered by the tragic male protagonist as he desperately attempts to find a cure for his monstrous condition. As the eponymous beast, Hull delivers a performance that invites much sympathy; prior to his encounter with a werewolf, Dr Gl...

Who’s the Fairest of Them All by Bernie Wrightson Myths survive as long as they speak to something fundamental in the human psyche, and notions of humans transforming into animals and monsters have fascinated and terrified us for millennia. It is an idea that speaks of the primal, animalistic impulses that lurk within all mankind, and it nestles in the dark corners of most, if not all cultures around the world. Throughout folklore and archaic literature the figure of the werewolf is depicted as a cursed and shunned individual, thought to have no control over his or her bestial urges which accompany the dreadful transformations from man to monster. A person was believed to become a werewolf if they were excommunicated from the church, or if they were born on Christmas Day. They could also become a werewolf if they were cursed, or if lycanthropy ran in their family (tainted bloodlines), or by performing certain black magic rituals or sometimes, just through sheer force of will. ...

Just taking a quick break from writing (procrastinating) about The Company of Wolves to share some good news. I've just had my first short story published! In a book! Carnacki: The Lost Cases is an anthology that takes the mysterious cases hinted at by ‘Ghost-Finder’ Thomas Carnacki (a fictional occult detective who appeared in a collection of supernatural stories written by William Hope Hodgson between 1910 and 1912) and expands them into their own stories. My story, 'A Hideous Communion', is based on a line from 'The Horse of the Invisible', in which Carnacki remembers a particularly terrifying case in which ‘ the hand of the child kept materialising within the pentacle, and patting the floor. As you will remember, that was a hideous business .’ Carnacki: The Lost Cases is published by Ulthar Press , an independent, small press dedicated to promoting, reading and understanding many authors of horror/fantasy/speculative fiction, such as William Hope Hodgson...

Artwork by Jim Perez 1913 Dir. Henry MacRae A Navajo witch-woman believes her husband has deserted her, but unbeknownst to her, he has actually been killed. When she is rejected by his family, she raises her daughter to hate all white men. The daughter grows up to become a werewolf and she seeks revenge on those who killed her father and wronged her mother. While now believed to be a lost film, destroyed in a fire in 1924, The Werewolf is thought to hold the honour of being the first ever werewolf film. It also marks the first cinematic appearance of the female werewolf, a figure who, until relatively recently, was often overlooked (in cinema) in favour of her male counterpart. Interestingly, The Werewolf can also be seen (perhaps rather tenuously) as the first Universal horror film, though at the time, the distributor was still known as the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. It was directed by Canadian filmmaker Henry MacRae, who, amongst other things, is credited as ...

While researching all things lycanthropic for my book on The Company of Wolves , I came across a marvellous old tome by Elliott O’Donnell, entitled ‘Werwolves.’ O’Donnell (1872-1965) was the author of countless books concerning the supernatural and the occult, and when he wasn’t writing accounts of his own experiences as a real-life ghost-hunter battling spectres, spooks and banshees, he authored several novels, including ‘For Satan’s Sake’ (1904) and ‘The Sorcery Club’ (1912), and myriad short stories and articles. O’Donnell once claimed “ I have investigated, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other people and the press, many cases of reputed hauntings. I believe in ghosts but am not a spiritualist .” ‘Werwolves’ (1912) was intended as a scholarly, encyclopaedic study of, funnily enough, werewolves, and it contains first-hand accounts of O'Donnell’s personal encounters with lycanthropes. While the facts contained within its pages are a wee bit questionable, it certainly re...

Edited by Paracinema Magazine co-founder and former editor, Christine Makepeace , and C. Rachel Katz , the Women in Horror Annual (WHA) is a collection of horror fiction and nonfiction written by women. The WHA counts as one among a scant handful of women-only anthologies in the horror literature landscape. The annual promotes and celebrates women's voices in horror, and the stories and papers contained within - penned by new and emerging literary talent - represent a diverse group of writers, each with their own unique vision and voice. Some of these writers have published previously, while others are just starting out. Women's voices can be under-represented in horror, and this anthology is another step towards providing them with the opportunity to be heard/read. The nineteen original stories featured in the annual run the gamut from melancholic to erotic; some are violent, brutal affairs, and others are more psychological. The essays include cinematic and literary a...

2015 Dir. Jaron Henrie-McCrea AKA The Gateway The humble shower curtain holds a rather iconic place in horror cinema. Its presence in one of the most shocking and undeniably influential moments in all of cinema helped to create tension and a sense of vulnerability; a thin layer separating normality from chaos and carnage, a veil between life and death. Since Psycho (1960), countless horror films have featured scenes in which shower curtains are whipped back to reveal murderous marauders poised to thrust sharp implements into the naked flesh of the unfortunate showerer. In Jaron Henrie-McCrea’s low-budget, oddball delight, the presence, or to be more precise, the disappearance of the shower curtain once again serves as a harbinger of foreboding doom. But in a very different way indeed… Head over to Exquisite Terror to read my full review . 

If you heard it ringing, would you be prepared to answer what lies at the other end of the telephone?  The Telephone is a brand new psychological horror short from Nine Ladies Film. Written and directed by Stuart Wheeldon, it stars Nigel Barber ( Mission Impossible 5, Spectre ), Bern Deegan ( Hideaways, The Honeymooners ) and Rachel Prince. Shot on location at The Black's Head pub in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, over three days in February 2016, The Telephone follows the story of Richard, a reporter, who, after receiving a strange letter and an ornamental glass fish, travels to a remote small town to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a young woman. While staying in a room in the local pub, the last place the woman was seen alive, Richard is disturbed by an old telephone that seems to ring endlessly. A chance encounter with the spectral image of a young woman follows, plunging Richard into psychological mayhem. Is the ghostly figure seen late at night the missing girl? W...

2015 Dir. Levan Bakhia Landmine Goes Click is one of those films best viewed without knowing anything about it.* Echoing the likes of Phone Booth (2002) and Buried (2010), and indeed Levan Bakhia’s own debut feature, 247°F (2011), it holds much promise with its high-concept premise. Boasting a constantly twisting plot which intrigues as much as it infuriates, the film explores how the lives of three American friends are altered forever when, travelling through Eastern Europe, one of them steps on a landmine... Unable to move for fear of detonating it, he and his friends are the captive audience of unveiled secrets, shifting dynamics and the darker side of human nature. Head over to Exquisite Terror to read my full review .  *My review is spoiler free and I've tried to be as sensitive as possible regarding plot details. Well, beyond the obvious, anyway. 

The X-Files FAQ by John Kenneth Muir (author of, amongst a staggering array of other titles, The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi, Eaten Alive At A Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven: The Art of Horror , and Terror Television: American Series, 1970-1999 ) is an in-depth exploration of Chris Carter's phenomenally popular cult 1990s science-fiction TV series. Muir's book explores the series in terms of its historical context - the Clinton era - and how this influenced the myriad story-lines involving conspiracy theories and a deep mistrust of the US government. The author looks at the show on a season by season basis, explores its key episodes, overarching themes and concerns, its creators, antecedents ( Kolchak: The Night Stalker ), descendants ( Fringe ), spin-offs ( The Lone Gunmen ) and cinematic outings.  The X-Files FAQ is an indispensable tome, not only for new fans of the series, but for established aficionados and anyone considering revi...

2015 Dir. Bernard Rose An unflinching modern-day re-imagining of a timeless classic, Frankenstein tells its tale entirely from the point of view of the Monster (Xavier Samuel) as he is created by a husband-and-wife team of eccentric scientists (Danny Huston and Carrie-Anne Moss) and then left for dead. Confronted with aggression and violence as he attempts to make his way in the world, the Monster must get to grips with the horrific nature of humanity as he searches for his own. Like his previous genre offerings, including Paperhouse (1988) and Candyman (1992), Bernard Rose’s Frankenstein is a compelling, fascinating and immensely thought-provoking yarn. Head over to Exquisite Terror to read my full review and win a copy of Frankenstein on DVD. 

2015 Dir. Stanton Barrett With its elementary plot-by-numbers, pallid execution and rudimentary story, Navy SEALS vs. Zombies is a highly unremarkable film indeed. It tells of a crack team of Navy SEALS charged with extracting the Vice President from a situation gone bad in New Orleans. What the team doesn’t know is that the ‘situation’ is a viral outbreak that turns the infected into flesh-hungry hoards of ravenous zombies. Even the appearance of Eighties action legend Michael Dudikoff, who features in a glorified cameo, can’t save the day, as this film ultimately possesses no discernible qualities to elevate it above, or even help tell it apart from any other mediocre straight-to-DVD zombie flick. Head over to Exquisite Terror to read my full review .

The horror community has suffered a sad and sudden loss with the death of Richard Gladman, founder of the Classic Horror Campaign and editor/publisher of Space Monsters . Richard was battling cancer and undergoing treatment when he passed away in hospital at the weekend. Perhaps best known to some by his online username, Cyberschizoid, Richard was, amongst many other things, a huge advocate of the UK horror scene; he founded the Classic Horror Campaign, which sought to reintroduce vintage horror double bills to BBC 2, and Frighten Brighton , an annual horror film festival based in, you’ve guessed it, Brighton. A life-long fan of horror and sci-fi cinema, Richard contributed to myriad print publications such as Shock Horror, Scream and Rue Morgue, as well as many online publications like Haunted and Spooky Isles, and he hosted various film screenings in London, Manchester and Brighton.  While I never met Richard personally, we exchanged emails over the years and I was always...

Diabolique is a bimonthly magazine covering every aspect of the horror genre, including film, literature, theatre, art, music, history and culture. Lavishly illustrated in full colour, each issue is packed with entertaining and thought-provoking articles. Issue 25 is now available. A very special issue indeed, it is entirely devoted to celebrating the life and work of Sir Christopher Lee . Inside you’ll find essays and features such as: A WICKER MAN’S MAN - Jennifer Blair examines Christopher Lee’s iconic role as Lord Summerisle in Robin Hardy’s 1973 folk horror masterpiece, The Wicker Man . COUNT PERVERSION, THE WHIP AND THE LIVING DEAD - Kat Ellinger champions Christopher Lee’s oft-overlooked mainland European genre films, from Uncle Was A Vampire to Horror Express and everything in between. CHRISTOPHER LEE: METALHEAD - Joseph Schafer speaks with Luca Turilli of the symphonic power metal band, Rhapsody of Fire, on Christopher Lee’s headfirst dive into the world of ...

Dario Argento’s Suspiria needs little introduction. A nightmarish, hallucinatory carousel of a film, it is known to admirers of horror cinema for its exquisite cinematography, ear-shattering score, opulent production design and fiendish violence. Any sense of conventional narrative or characterisation takes a back seat to a full-on assault on the senses as the viewer is plunged head-first into a neon-Gothic nightmare of light, colour, sound and shadow. Regarded (and rightly so) as a horror classic, Suspiria is the subject of a new book by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, a film critic from Melbourne, Australia. No stranger to extreme cinema, Alexandra is the author of ' Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study ' (2011), and ' Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality ' (2014). She is also co-editor of the film journal Senses of Cinema , and a critic on Radio Triple R’s film programme, Plato's Cave . Alexandra very kindly agreed to a quick chat ab...

Released just days after the end of the Second World War and a dozen years ahead of the first full-blooded Hammer Horror, the Ealing Studios horror anthology film Dead of Night featured contributions from some of the finest directors, writers and technicians ever to work in British film. Since its release it has become evermore widely regarded as a keystone in the architecture of horror cinema, both nationally and internationally. A new book from Auteur Publishing, written by Jez Conolly and David Owain Bates, marks the first time a single book has been dedicated to an analysis of the film. Co-author Jez Conolly has also written a monograph on John Carpenter’s classic chiller The Thing and is co-editor, with Caroline Whelan, of three books in the World Film Locations series (Dublin, Reykjavik and Liverpool) published by Intellect. He regularly writes for The Big Picture magazine and website and has contributed to numerous other cinema books and journals. He very kindly agreed...

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house  Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...  I recently stumbled upon this beautifully old-fashioned advice* on the proper way to consume ghost stories at Christmas: "If during the Yule-tide you wish thoroughly to enter into the spirit of the season, procure a good tumblerful of creature-comfort, steaming, with a trifle of powdered nutmeg in it, some thin lemon peel, and a grain of sugar, place it on a small stand beside your old arm-chair, in which you will have comfortably deposited yourself, and well gently inhaling the Virginian fumes in the presence of a cheerful Yule-log fire commence reading the 'Ghost Stories of an Antiquary', by M.R. James… On rising to retire to bed, say, when the clock is striking the hour of midnight, you will be heartily glad of a brave companion, who will assist you in ascertaining that all bolts and bars are scrupulously fastened, that all doors are locked, that t...

Behind the Couch turned seven years old this month. Celebrations have been somewhat sedate though, as it’s been a pretty quiet year in terms of blogging. That said, looking back over the last twelve months, it looks like I enjoyed some damn fine slasher films and rejoiced in some new titles which were lauded as ‘ future classics ’. Away from blogging, I reviewed DVDs aplenty for Exquisite Terror and was lucky enough to interview a couple of fantastic film composers for Paracinema : I chatted to Rich Vreeland (aka Disasterpiece) and Jonathan Snipes about their scores for It Follows and Starry Eyes , respectively. I also contributed essays to the likes of Eurohorror magazine Fang of Joy and was nominated for a Rondo Hatton Award in the Best Article category. The article, 'Family Man' (a look at Tobe Hooper’s meaty representations of the family unit in all its deadly, dysfunctional and dynamic forms), was published in issue 20 of Diabolique Magazine in March/April, ...

As a literary genre, horror was primarily written for and read by women. As a cinematic genre, horror has always drawn a large female audience. And yet, in popular media and culture, horror is often branded 'male'. The Women in Horror Annual is an anthology of horror fiction and non-fiction authored by women writers. While there are of course plenty of horror anthologies out there, none are exclusively authored by women writers, meaning this annual is a first-of-its-kind. The goal of its editors - Christine Makepeace (author and former editor of Paracinema Magazine ) and Rachel Katz (former contributing writer for Paracinema Magazine ) - is to celebrate female voices, scholarship and opinion, and to provide a showcase of women’s contribution to horror literature, culture, and entertainment.  The works have been submitted, selected and edited. The next step is publication, and that's where you come in. With your assistance, the WHA will be made available in electronic ...

Filmmaker Lawrie Brewster once claimed he was “committed to making serious, alternative horror films that aim to tell genuine, emotionally-driven stories with intriguing characters set against backgrounds filled with mysterious lore and mythology.” With his feature debut, Lord of Tears , he lived up to this promise, co-creating, with writer Sarah Daly, one of the most atmospheric, strangely moving and unsettling filmic ghost stories in quite some time. His latest film, The Unkindness of Ravens - which tells of an army veteran besieged by a legion of demonic ravens in the highlands of Scotland - looks set to further establish him as a creator of unique and striking horror cinema… You’ve just completed filming The Unkindness of Ravens . When will it be released?  Using Kickstarter, we're hoping to get some finishing funds to complete the soundtrack for the film, produce DVDs and launch a marketing and distribution campaign. All going well, the film should be complete and ready...