Wednesday 27 March 2013

The Orphan Killer on Friday Night Frights


Over at my podcast at Starburst Magazine, I talk to Matt Farnsworth, the director of The Orphan Killer about making and marketing his transgressive mini-masterpiece. The Orphan Killer is an agreeably nasty little slasher with an intriguing anti-Catholic theme that put me in mind of some of those 1970s classics like Alfred Sole's Communion and Pete Walker's House of Mortal Sin. But with more blood and guts. Listen to the podcast here.

Monday 4 March 2013

Friday Night Frights 18 - I Didn't Come Here To Die


I remember as a kid being traumatised by those Central Office of Information safety films that used to show on children's television in the 1970s, warning of the perils of playing in dangerous places. The most memorable was Lonely Water (1973) and featured the voice of Donald Pleasence as the Grim Reaper culling off the foolhardy and the unwary. Another, more elaborate, but no less terrifying, effort was Apaches (1977) directed by John The Long Good Friday Mackenzie. This little nasty depicted a group of children who ignore all safety precautions while playing on a farm, and as a result die horribly under the wheels of tractors and so forth. What was so horrific about these films was that they proved that fate had it in for us kids, no matter what, and their gritty presentation made them all the more real. Final Destination re-imagined by the Children's Film Foundation.

All this is by way of introduction to my guest on this week's podcast - Bradley Scott Sullivan, whose debut I Didn't Come Here To Die comes on like some deranged version of those 1970s public information films.

Don't play with chainsaws, kids!

To listen go here.