Yesterday was Friday the 13th, and I took the opportunity to maximise my school holidays by sitting down with a few beers to watch the entirety of the Friday the 13th slasher series. Well, the first eight films at least: I left out Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, Freddy vs Jason and the execrable…
After a fortnight of emotional, stirring pictures at the Brisbane International Film Festival, it seemed only fitting to return to the warm, blood-stained blanket of a dumb ‘80s slasher movie. My Bloody Valentine’s strongest elements aren’t particularly dumb. The setting of an industrial coal-mining town provides a welcome reprieve from the pretty, wealthy teenagers that…
You don’t have to look at a calendar to recognise that it’s Halloween: I don’t know about you, but the trickle of horror reviews and features on my WordPress Reader has become a flood over the last week or so. Any regular readers of ccpopculture know that horror is a regular feature here, but I…
Martyrs is a unique horror movie. It dabbles in the tropes and traditions of the torture-porn genre (to adopt a misleading descriptor), but inverts the tone and structure. Instead of establishing characters and gradually accumulating dread, it opens in media res with a pre-pubescent girl fleeing in terror from unexplained imprisonment. Instead of giving the…
It’s difficult to find one redeeming quality in I Spit On Your Grave 2, sequel to the 2010 remake of the controversial, memorably-titled 1978 film. The original wasn’t a “good film,” but it did have a savage relentlessness to it that left an impact. The remake’s modifications to the original were limited to a grimier…
As provocation, it’s hard to deny the success of Tom Six’s Human Centipede series (which awaits its final segment’s release next year). In a genre defined by mimicry and repetition, the horror concept that launched these films has clearly resonated as a fresh, frightening notion. The idea of a “human centipede,” human victims grafted together…
Piranha, an undisguised Jaws ripoff from the late ‘70s, is no match for the Spielberg’s blockbuster phenomenon (which makes a cameo appearance as a video game). This Roger Corman creature feature, helmed by Joe Dante (of Gremlins fame) is nonetheless a surprisingly good B-movie. It contains all the B-movie trappings: skinny dipping teenagers, unconvincing special…
I’ll give Texas Chainsaw this – it’s a very different take on remaking a classic horror film. The 2003 remake of Tobe Hooper’s classic was essentially a repackage of the main plot points (basically: Leatherface kills people), modernized with a higher budget and more attractive cast but none of the twisted charm of the original…
Cannibal Holocaust is advertised as “the most controversial film ever made,” and the claim is not without justification. Its director was arrested upon release under suspicion of making a snuff film, and the film features real animal mutilation. It uses the characteristics of the found footage genre better than the majority of its successors; despite…
Hatchet III continues the escalation that Hatchet II began: where the first sequel replaced unarmed tourists with armed hillbillies, the second sequel upgrades to an entire SWAT platoon (and consequently, even fewer female characters). The same intensification is evident in the gore, which is more excessive but less imaginative than the earlier films. Where Hatchet…
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