Behind the Couch

Cult film and stage director Stuart Gordon has died at the age of 72. Famed for his Lovecraft adaptations, including Re-Animator (1985) , From Beyond (1986) , Dagon (2001) , Castle Freak (1995) and Dreams in the Witch House (2005), Gordon was also a playwright, and began his career producing experimental, frequently controversial stage plays before moving on to film in the 80s. Born and raised in Chicago, Gordon majored in theatre studies at the University of Wisconsin, where he founded the theatre company Screw Theater. Together with his wife and collaborator, actress and writer Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, he formed the Organic Theater, described by a friend of the director’s as “the take-off-your-clothes, scream and bleed theater.” The company quickly garnered a reputation for radical, politically charged, anti-establishment productions, including an anti-Vietnam war re-telling of JM Barrie’s Peter Pan , which actually resulted in the arrest of Gordon and Purdy-Gordon on charges ...

1992 Dir. Stuart Gordon Not so much loosely based on HP Lovecraft’s The Outsider (written in 1921, published in 1926) as it is deeply inspired by it, Stuart Gordon’s Castle Freak tells of troubled couple John and Susan (Jeffrey Combs! Barbara Crampton!) and their blind daughter Rebecca (Jessica Dollarhide), who travel to Italy to sell off an ancient castle John inherited. Not long after they arrive, things start to go bump in the night and strange events occur, not least Rebecca's claims that she is visited in the night by a stealthy prowler. When the mutilated bodies of the housekeeper and a local prostitute are discovered it becomes clear that the castle houses a secret inhabitant… Stuart Gordon is no stranger to the macabre visions of Lovecraft having adapted Herbert West – Reanimator, From Beyond, Dreams in the Witch House and The Shadow Over Innsmouth for the screen. With Castle Freak he didn’t so much adapt The Outsider as take its central themes – and one speci...

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...

2001 Dir. Stuart Gordon Despite its title, Gordon’s film is not an adaptation of Lovecraft’s short story of the same name. While it certainly borrows elements and themes from it, Dagon is an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth , Lovecraft’s 1936 novella which tells of a Miskatonic University student’s fateful visit to the titular dilapidated coastal town to study the architecture and weird folklore. While there, he encounters hostility from the bizarre locals who are revealed to be amphibious mutants; the result of an ancient pact between the towns forefathers and a race of sea dwelling creatures known as the Deep Ones… Gordon had planned to direct an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth back in the 80s, but funding constantly evaded him. When his friend and collaborator Brian Yuzna founded the Spanish production company Fantastic Factory in the early 2000s, Gordon was finally able to realise his project. Dagon is a no nonsense, old-fashioned horror flick that hits the...

"There was something of stolid resignation about them all, as if they walked half in another world between lines of nameless guards to a certain and familiar doom." HP Lovecraft, Color Out of Space. Adapted from a short story by HP Lovecraft,  Color Out of Space  is written by director Richard Stanley and author Scarlett Amaris. It marks the return of the cult director, whose last directorial feature was Dust Devil in 1992, though in the interim he has also directed documentaries, short films and written/doctored screenplays, including creepy doppelganger chiller, The Abandoned (2006). There have been many filmic adaptions of Lovecraft’s work throughout the years, most notably from director Stuart Gordon , who proved quite deft in treading the line between the sort of pulpy exploitation and hallucinatory cosmic horror Lovecraft is renowned for. Lovecraft’s work has often been described as ‘unfilmable’ as his narratives tend to focus on conjuring atmosphere, and descr...

1990 Dir. Frank Henenlotter When his fiancée Elizabeth (Patty Mullen) is decapitated in a freak remote control lawnmower accident (!), medical student Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz from  Street Trash ) sets out to build her a new body made up of parts from Manhattan prostitutes, and zap her back into life... These broads are tough cookies though, and the only way Jeffrey can get what he needs is by using his latest invention, Super-crack: a lethal cocktail of drugs designed to make the user explode (!). In case that synopsis leaves you in any doubt, Frankenhooker  ( very loosely inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel) is a sleazy, trash-fest of splashy splatter effects, ludicrous body-horror, gratuitous nudity and cartoonish violence. In other words, it’s a damn good time. Prior to Frankenhooker , Henenlotter was responsible for such cheap and cheerful grot-fests as Basket Case 1 and 2 , and Brain Damage ; scuzzy, low-budget exploitation flicks boasting freakish, ...

Following on from its well received premiere at the 3rd Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival in Belfast last month, and its award winning stint at this year’s Freak Show Film Festival in Orlando – where lead actor Robert Render picked up the award for Best Actor – George Clarke’s creepy spookfest The Last Light is set to chill the spines of audiences at Belfast’s Strand Cinema on Saturday 29th October… The Last Light is the dark tale of a maintenance man called on to ensure an old derelict house – formerly a psychiatric hospital, no less - is securely boarded up after a reported break-in. On what is supposed to be his last day on the job, he experiences increasingly chilling occurrences. Initially believing that wayward kids are playing a prank on him, it soon becomes evident that something much more sinister is afoot… The Last Light is a moody, atmospheric and old fashioned haunted house yarn – perfect viewing on All Hallow’s Eve… Read more about the film here . Tickets...

2003 Dir. Brian Yuzna Surviving the collapse of the crypt he was cornered in by a horde of his reanimated corpses, Dr Hebert West continues to conduct his grisly experiments. He is eventually arrested and imprisoned but continues his research. When a young doctor named Howard Phillips begins work at the prison, he teams up with West to help bring his experiments to the next level. Hell breaks loose and copious blood is spilled when several of the reanimated corpses break free and wreck havoc in the prison. Creative carnage and grisly mutations ensue. Stuart Gordon’s transgressive and splattery adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s Herbert West: Re-Animator was one of the defining horror films of the Eighties. Fiercely independent, unconventional, awash with splashy effects and boasting the darkest, severed tongue-in-cheek humour imaginable, Re-Animator still wields its grisly power and effectiveness today. It was followed by the Brian Yuzna directed sequel Bride of Re-Animator , which...

The Hills Run Red hit DVD shelves last year. It tells of a group of young film students who venture into the woods in search of a long lost horror film. The film, titled ‘The Hills Run Red’, was considered by the very few that had seen it to be the scariest movie ever made and shortly afterwards its director, Wilson Wyler Concannon, vanished, taking the only reel of the film with him. The students eventually discover however, that the deranged killer from the movie is real and still very much alive – and filming never finished as he is still killing for the sake of his art. And they are his new co-stars. The Hills Run Red combines post- Scream reflexivity with ‘old school’ horror violence, tension and atmosphere, shot through with a grimy aesthetic to create an interesting homage to old slasher flicks. Director Dave Parker was kind enough to chat with Behind the Couch about The Hills Run Red , early 80s slasher movies, Hollywood hypocrisy and the unbeatable thrill one gets when w...