by Keri O’Shea  At this time of year, you invariably hear a great deal about keeping the ‘true meaning’ of Christmas: it’s too schmaltzy, it’s too commercial, it isn’t what it was… well, it certainly isn’t what it was, but the idea that Christmas has always been a peaceable Christian festival is just plain incorrect. [...]

by Ben Bussey To wrap up our 80th birthday celebrations of Universal’s Frankenstein, I thought we could just take a moment to reflect on how deeply ingrained Frankenstein’s monster is in our collective consciousness. The name Frankenstein alone has long since become a byword for any fears about breakthroughs in science and technology that may go beyond our [...]

  by Ben Bussey He was the first great horror director of the talkies era. Responsible for four of the very best 1930s Universal classics,  horror cinema would be a very different place without James Whale. While he will of course always be most remembered for the Frankenstein films, he did a lot more than [...]

by Marc Patterson “The air itself is filled with monsters…” Eighty years ago James Whale introduced the world to the iconic image of the Frankenstein Monster. Boris Karloff’s rendition of Mary Shelley’s creation would forever alter how we view and imagine this creature. With his pronounced high forehead and sharp cutting features Karloff became the [...]

Continuing our celebration of Frankenstein’s 80th Anniversary, Keri O’Shea looks at some of the weird and wonderful Frankenstein films that have come in its wake…  The influence of the Universal Frankenstein movies cannot be underestimated. Boris Karloff’s ‘dear old monster’ has become a horror archetype, crossing the breach into popular culture and staying there, for the best part [...]

Ben Bussey introduces Brutal As Hell’s 80th anniversary tribute to Frankenstein. November 21st 1931 – i.e. 80 years ago today – saw the theatrical release (not that there was any other kind back then) of Universal’s Frankenstein, and popular culture has never been the same since. Yes, that is an absolute, inarguable fact. So often [...]

by Ben Bussey READER ADVISORY: spoilers ahead (though perhaps that’s a given on a retrospective…) 22nd August 1986; a day that will live in… well, I can’t honestly say I have any conscious memory of that particular day. I was six years old and living in North-East England. As such, I certainly wasn’t aware that it was the [...]

by Marc Patterson In a matter of days I’ll be getting my licence to ride and hitting the open road. And it’s about time. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with motorcycles as long as I can remember. (And I’m not talking ‘bout no super slick “crotch rocket”. I’m talking about growling ripped out choppers. I’m [...]

Part Three: Selected Filmography of Coffin Joe by Marc Patterson In part one of this three part series we introduced you to the iconic figure of Coffin Joe and in part two we explored The Trilogy of Terror from Coffin Joe, which will undoubtedly go into the books as his most popular and accessible work. [...]

The Fantastic Evil of Coffin Joe, Part Two: The Trilogy of Terror by Marc Patterson Picking up from part one, where we introduced readers to the character of Coffin Joe, we’ll now look at the three films that have made creator Jose Mojica Marins most famous and together form the Coffin Joe Trilogy of Terror [...]

With the upcoming March 29th release of The Embodiment of Evil, by Synapse Films, Editor-in-chief – and long time Coffin Joe fanatic – Marc Patterson writes a three-part retrospective to this iconic figure of horror, a series that will be topped off with our official Blu-ray disc review of The Embodiment of Evil! Part One: [...]

by Marc Patterson As we’re closing out Women in Horror month 2011 I feel like it wouldn’t be complete for us if I didn’t take the opportunity as the owner and “editor-in-chief” of this website to highlight some of the female archetypes in genre film that, for me, exemplify strength in a female role. In [...]

Essay by Ben Bussey As you may have noted from our contest a couple of weeks back, Arrow Video recently released on Region 2 DVD three films from Dario Argento – Terror at the Opera, The Stendhal Syndrome, and The Card Player. It also wasn’t so long ago that Cine-Excess released the first Blu-ray edition [...]

by Marc Patterson I was recently afforded the opportunity to interview each of the ladies on our crew for Women in Horror month. One question I intentionally left out was the overused “When did you first get turned on to horror?” Not only is that question overused, I tend to think it rather trite and [...]

by Marc Patterson, Owner and Managing Editor This month begins the first of a monthly ongoing series where I’ll select a single film from my personal collection of horror cinema to share with you. Each of these films holds a rather high honor in my collection. They are titles that I’ve become intimately familiar with [...]