The Conjuring feels very old-fashioned. That’s not surprising, given the 1971 setting and accompanying huge sideburns, but (aside from some obvious J-horror influences) this is a film that could have been produced decades ago, with the personality and pacing of classic horror. Director James Wan has commendable patience, slowly developing an ominous atmosphere before breaking…
Watch the first half hour of Orphan, and you could be forgiven for thinking you’re watching a family film about a mother overcoming a miscarriage through the adoption of a nine year-old orphan girl. Early scenes are brightly light, full of primary colours. The titular orphan, Esther, seems perfect – bright, talented, friendly – if…
Everyone should be able to relate to Roman Polanski’s Repulsion – after all, who hasn’t gone a little crazy when their flatmates went out of town? Spending the week in the same dressing gown, killing time (and maybe some other things) … we’ve all been there. Repulsion is a dizzying spiralling descent into psychosis, crafted…
Ju-On: The Grudge is apparently the scariest Japanese horror film ever, and it’s certainly filled with memorably creepy images: children’s hands running through someone’s hair in the shower or ghostly figures emerging from beneath the bedsheets to drag people away to oblivion. The film has a scrappy, low budget feeling which is actually an asset…
The Collector comes from the writers of a handful of Saw sequels, was originally intended to be a prequel to Saw, and the influence of those films is very apparent. It’s not a particularly original film, but if you’re looking for a well-executed home-invasion-meets-Home-Alone horror film it hits the spot. The colour palette is confined…
When you hear the best zombie films of all time discussed, David Cronenberg’s Shivers is rarely mentioned. This is an injustice, as the film deserves to stand alongside the greats. Perhaps it’s because the mindless hordes of Shivers aren’t technically zombies, but people overcome by a virulent parasite that amplifies sexual urges to the detriment…
It’s difficult for ghost stories to maintain the careful balance of tension and release across the length of a feature length film. Most feature some good scares, but thin characterisation necessitated by poor decisions leads to boring, uneventful stretches. James Wan overcomes this problem with Insidious by breaking the film up into three sections: a…
Hannibal’s early episodes demonstrated an affinity for horror, realised in thick brushstrokes of sumptuous gothic tableaux and direct references to horror classics like The Shining. That horror focus has diminished, but not disappeared, as the season has continued, fleshing out both its characterisation and serialisation. “Buffet Froid” serves as a return to elegant, unnerving horror;…
I watched Lifeforce with high expectations. After all, it’s a sci-fi/horror B-movie written by the director of Return of the Living Dead, from the director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and adapted from a novel called … Space Vampires. But the first hour of the film lowered those expectations dramatically. Sure, there’s a gorgeous, completely naked…
Frailty is the kind of film that poses challenging, ambiguous questions and then, unfortunately, answers them. Director Bill Paxton stars as the deeply religious working-class father of two young boys. He believes that God has delivered him a message: that he must destroy – not murder – “demons” in the local community. He enlists his…
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