The Brutal As Hell Team

Ben Bussey – Editor-in-Chief
Ben Bussey has been churning out reviews for Brutal As Hell ever since Marc Patterson launched the site on New Year’s Day 2009. After a while Marc decided to throw him a bone by naming him UK editor. As of September 2012, with Marc taking a back seat, Ben’s now the editor-in-chief. There’s a lesson there, kids: perseverance. Further strings to his bow include an MA in Cult Film and Television from London’s Brunel University, and a short story collection, From The Gut. A child of the 1980s through and through, he maintains that The Monster Squad is the single greatest film ever made.

Marc – Owner / Editor
Marc hails from the Northeast coast of the US, but makes it a point to get out and travel as much as he can. Marc’s taste in horror is wildly eclectic. He loves old exploitation and grindhouse era films, blaxploitation, Japanese pink films, and grisly 80’s slashers. He can switch gears on a dime though, enjoying narrative driven horror such as Let the Right One In and Repulsion. At least twice annually he is overcome with an incurable seasonal addiction to Lucio Fulci films, resulting a week long hiatus into the land of the undead. Among his favorite directors are Gaspar Noe, Lucio Fulci, Jose Mojica Marins, Robert Rodriguez and Park Chan-wook.

Annie Riordan – Staff Reviewer / Founding Member
Annie Riordan, not sane, stands by herself in the direct-to-video horror aisle, holding darkness within. She has stood for 41 years and might stand for 41 more. She is a woman without kindness, not fit for people or for love or for hope. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of an embittered film reviewer: Annie Riordan will stay as she is until she is destroyed. (with apologies to Shirley Jackson). You cannot find her on Twitter or elsewhere. Annie has no use for the playthings of mortals.

Keri O’ Shea – Editor and Staff Writer
As a kid who kept her Halloween decorations up all year round, Keri was always bound to be a horror fan. Now, powered by beer and metal, she has attained her destiny. A sucker for the classics, she also loves innovative indies (i.e. no one tied to a chair, not ever) and has a soft spot for the oeuvre of Jess Franco. She is unembarrassed by this fact. She’s a regular contributor to sites such as Horror-Extreme, and she’s also written several features for Diabolique Magazine. Find her propping up the bar at a few of the UK horror festivals: she doesn’t bite, honest.

Stephanie Scaife – Contributing Writer
Stephanie Scaife, current occupant of London but born and bred in Scotland, has always had a penchant for horror movies, perhaps from growing up in the 80’s and being wooed by the fantastic VHS covers that always promised far more than they ever delivered. She still lives in hope today and continues to be both equally enthralled and dismayed by the genre. Stephanie’s likes include, but are not restricted to; Harold and Maude, John Waters, David Lynch, dystopian and post-apocalyptic cinema, Harry Dean Stanton, exploitation, trash, extreme cinema, Joy Division, feminist film theory, David Cronenberg, baking cupcakes, getting tattooed, consuming alcohol and anything involving Nick Cave. She does not however enjoy talking about herself in the third person. Find Stephanie on Twitter: @goregoregirl.

Comix – Contributing Writer / Comic Book Reviewer
Comix has been reading comic books since she was a wee issue number one. She is now a grown graphic novel with sever volumes that….wait….do you hear that? What is that? Shhh, quiet. What is that noise? Where’s Billy? Billy! BILLY! OH MY GOD, BILLY! Holy shit, he’s dead! HE’S DEAD! He’s completely torn up! Why did he have to take that shower? Why?! Oh my god, what is that? It’s coming this way, quick, into the woods! Run! Holy crap! Damn these sexy heels! Oh no, I’m going down, I’m going AAAAUUGGH! AAAUGH! AAAAAHHHH! MY SPLEEEN! AAAUUuuuugghhh……..

Nia Edwards-Behi – Contributing Writer
Nia is a doctoral student in Aberystwyth, UK, where she’s researching the marketing and reception of controversial films from the 1970s and their remakes. When she’s not thinking about that, she’s usually thinking about some other aspect of films, be it horrific or otherwise. In addition to her academic pursuits, she also helps organise Abertoir, the National Horror Festival of Wales, which takes place every November. She can be found on Twitter (though she rarely shuts up): @stonecypher

Tristan Bishop – Contributing Writer
Tristan’s interest in the darker side of cinema began when, aged 4, he discovered his sister’s VHS copy of House By The Cemetary left unguarded. He didn’t get around to watching the film for another 16 years but the artwork alone sparked an obsession. His understanding mother let him tape the late night BBC horror double bills from the age of 9 (Scars Of Dracula was a real education!), and whilst devouring these classics he also started to read books on horror films by the likes of Alan Frank. During his teenage years he briefly became lost to the lure of arthouse cinema, but a chance encounter with a magazine with Peter Cushing on the cover rekindled his fire at the age of 18, and soon after he started to explore the wide world of genre cinema, taking in blaxploitation, spaghetti westerns, gialli, sexploitation and all manner of groovy things inbetween. When he isn’t waxing lyrical about Donald Pleasance, Godzilla and Spanish horror he can be found moonlighting as a DJ (under the name Dellamorte) and as the founder of internet radio station Barricade Radio.

Kit Rathenar – Contributing Writer
Kit Rathenar was raised on heavy metal and trashy horror and has never recovered from these formative experiences. She loves dead things, monsters, loud guitars and stories where the bad guys win, and hates cheap CGI, torture porn and anything that looks too much like normal reality. She lives in Whitby, England, where she divides her time between reviewing, writing, and wandering the streets at night striking terror into the hearts of the peasantry, and is an occasional dinner guest of Count Dracula when he happens to be at home. We’re fairly sure she’s not a vampire herself though… yet.

Dustin Hall – Contributing Writer
Dustin Hall is a megalomaniac from the small town of Baldwin in Kansas, now wandering the deserts of Las Vegas in search of new victims. He was probably conceived at a Van Halen concert and raised on a diet of sci-fi and horror movies, fed to him from a disturbingly young age by his uncle. Somehow, this led to a career in writing and collecting unemployment checks. He is also the Senior Editor at video game site Padinga.com, and is working with PMP Productions on making a few horror films of his own.