The director Jimmy Sangster is a man who gained high praise and admiration for his Hammer productions. Movies like ‘The Quatermass Xperiment’, ‘The Mummy’, ‘Brides of Dracula’, ‘Deadlier than the Male’ and ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ had displayed his talents as a writer and director. Taking leave of the classic horror mantle for an altogether [...]
Attitudes towards women in Hammer movies tend to be divisive at best. They tend to be subjected to a lot of hardships, yet balance it with a strong degree of weakness and frailty of mind. This could well be a clever writing device, as it sets our empathy levels high whilst concurrently creating doubt in [...]
It’s a title that will be familiar to any worthwhile music fan, but the inspiration behind the Misfits classic is far less well known or acknowledged. Released in 1965, the same year as the Bette Davis classic The Nanny, Die! Die! My Darling! shares the connection of a sadistic and crazed older woman who is [...]
I set myself tasks occasionally; the most recent one is to watch every movie that Hammer studios have ever produced. No small feat, but on which I truly think will be a worthwhile one. Hammer movies are synonymous with a certain style, one which is almost instantly definable. I wanted to begin, however, with a [...]
It doesn’t usually take much to sell me on a horror movie, but the words ‘Tony’ and ‘Todd’, when placed together, will have me salivating and reaching my arms out like one of the undead masses he fought off in Tom Savini’s Night of the Living Dead remake. The Candyman himself makes an appearance in [...]
Australian horror is a funny one, it’s very easy to forget that it exists and then every so often something comes along which blows your mind, before you forget that it exists once again. The thing that most Oz based horror does exceptionally well is brutality. Sheer, stark, relentless, unforgiving brutality and it was a [...]
Because the world is crying out for yet another unsolicited review of Kick Ass I bring you; an unsolicited review of Kick Ass. I was wary. There had been far too much internet hype about this one for me to approach it with my guard down. Scars still exist from the last Mark Millar adaptation, [...]
You’ll find out about how this is an adaptation of the DC Vertigo comic by Andy Diggle & Jock on some other site, like Wikipedia. Or alternatively, here, because you’ve just read it. If you would like to discuss how faithful it was to the original issues, or how one of their hats is a [...]
I had drifted from horror movies over the last few months. Like an ageing player, I was losing the initial thrill of acquisition. Mundanity drenched routine left me hollow and uncaring enough to temporarily leave the game. That was it, a lifetime hobby, discarded. When I say a lifetime, I mean it as well. Horror [...]
I was startled when I discovered this recently. I was never aware up to now that our old friend Dwain Esper (Reefer/Sex Madness) was the man who acquired the rights to ‘Freaks‘ in the late 1930′s. I always knew that it was initially disowned by Tod Browning’s studio. In fact, it had a very damaging [...]