50 Years of Zombies (and Cenobites) - in SCREAM #52

In SCREAM #52 I take a look at the many meanings that critics have read into NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD over the years; go behind the scenes of HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II; and chronicle George A. Romero's struggles with distributors, the MPAA and the British censor (the BBFC's James Ferman actually re-edited the film) over his zombie epic, DAWN OF THE DEAD!

Blood, Guts, Gore and More!

In shops December 20th.

In The Dark Side #196 - THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

In The Dark Side #196 I take a look at THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932), a fascinating example of how studios in the pre-Code era were able to sneak graphic screen content into their movies...

Why not treat yourself to a copy for Halloween?

SCREAM #51 - out now!

How cool is this cover???

In SCREAM #51 I write about DAWN OF THE DEAD and THE REDEEMER: SON OF SATAN!

Pick up your copy for Halloween - while stocks last!!!

My love letter to Night of The Living Dead for the BFI.

'Premiering 50 years ago, on 1 October 1968, George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is often spoken of as a manifesto for the modern horror film. 

Taking its inspiration from the racial and political strife of late-60s America, it created, as a BFI programme booklet put it in 2004, "a verite nightmare which overturned the conventions of fantastical horror".

Romero took the genre out of its gothic castles and swept away the cobwebs. Night of the Living Dead marked a transition in horror cinema: from the classic to the modern. Less remarked upon, though, is how Romero effects this transition within the film itself, it its opening scenes.'

To read the rest of my BFI article on Night of the Living Dead, go here

HALLOWEEN - Wednesday 10th October at City Screen, York!

I'm introducing HALLOWEEN at City Screen, York!

In 10th October, I'm introducing a fortieth anniversary screening of the digitally restored and remastered HALLOWEEN at City Screen Picturehouse, York. There's also a pre-recorded introduction by John Carpenter!

For tickets and information visit the City Screen Picturehouse website

SCREAM 50! Out Now!

Inside the latest SCREAM I take a close look at Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY...

Peter Bogdanovich's TARGETS is fifty years old this week.

Fifty years ago this week Peter Bogdanovich released his outstanding debut feature, TARGETS. In The Quietus I take a look back at TARGETS and its commentary on U.S. firearms culture.

Follow the link here.

Folk Horror in The Basement!

SCREAM is 50!

This month the marvelous SCREAM magazine celebrates its 50th issue! I take a close look at Polanski's adaptation of ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968).

Out August 29th!

THE DARK SIDE #194 - IN SHOPS AUGUST 2ND!

In January 1934 screenwriter John L. Balderston adapted Bram Stoker’s 1914 short story ‘Dracula’s Guest’ into an outline for producer David O. Selznick as an intended sequel to Universal’s DRACULA (1931). Balderston’s original storyline was designed, as he himself said, to capitalise on the ‘great box office value of torture and cruelty’: Dracula's Daughter was written by Balderston as a S/M dominatrix(complete with whips and chains)who draws the blood of virile young men.

Balderston’s vision of the female vampire was not to be realised in the film that eventually emerged two and a half years later. In its development from script to screen, DRACULA’S DAUGHTER would fall to tighter restrictions placed on screen content by the industry’s regulating body, the Production Code Administration (the ‘Hays Code’) under Joseph Breen, and to increasing opposition to the horror film by state and overseas censors. Although the version of DRACULA’S DAUGHTER that Universal produced in 1936 is now often praised by keen-eyed critics for its risqué undercurrent of lesbianism, its graphic content in terms of sex and violence is very much tamer than Universal had originally planned. 

My article in the latest THE DARK SIDE (out August 2nd)reveals the extent to which the PCA and BBFC managed to defang DRACULA’S DAUGHTER!

The Dark Side- issue #194

In DARK SIDE #194 I take a close look at the censorship of DRACULA'S DAUGHTER (1936). In shops August 2nd!

I am teaching a course on FOLK HORROR at City Screen York in October! 

MORE INFO SOON!

THE REDEEMER SPEAKS! An interview with T.G. Finkbinder.

Before Freddy, before Jason and Pennywise the Clown, there was The Redeemer, a double-thumbed shape-shifting prankster as handy with a blowtorch as he was waith a shotgun and a scimitar. To mark the 40th anniversary of THE REDEEMER: SON OF SATAN (aka CLASS REUNION MASSACRE), I tracked down the Redeemer himself - actor T.G. Finkbinder - for a little class reunion of our own.

Read the interview HERE

Watch out for my 40th anniversary retrospective of THE REDEEMER: SON OF SATAN - coming soon!

DR. TERROR in the new issue of SCREAM!

In the new issue of SCREAM MAGAZINE I look back at classic Amicus anthology DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS. In shops June 13th!

THE UNKNOWN at Hyde Park Picture House, May 20th.

I am introducing Tod Browning's silent classic THE UNKNOWN at Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds, on May 20th, as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival.

Info and tickets HERE.

I'm introducing FRANKENSTEIN & THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN at the DERBY QUAD

As part of their Universal Monsters season, and tying in with my one-day course on Universal Horror, on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd June, I'm introducing a double-bill of the James Whale classics FRANKENSTEIN (1931) and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN at the Derby Quad.

For more information and to book tickets go HERE.

To see the full line-up of the Universal Monsters season go HERE.

For more details of my Universal Horrors course go HERE.

My retrospective of FREAKS in SCREAM magazine!

Issue #48 of SCREAM includes my retrospective of Tod Browning's classic FREAKS. Out now at W.H. Smiths and other retailers. Or you can buy a copy HERE.

CANDYMAN now on Kindle!

My book on Candyman is now out on Kindle!

You can preview it HERE

UNIVERSAL HORROR one-day course!

Come along to the Derby Quad cinema on Saturday 2nd June and join my one-day course in Universal Horror!
Full details here.

My book on CANDYMAN is now in stock!

Now in stock at AMAZON.COM

10 Great Spaghetti Westerns

Italian exploitation cinema has traditionally drawn on American genres, and never more popularly than in the spaghetti western...

Read my BFI list of 10 great spaghetti westerns. 

50 Years of Planet of the Apes

The astonishing ending of Planet of the Apes (1968) with Charlton Heston screaming in despair as the camera lingers on the shattered remains of the Statue of Liberty is unremitting in its bleakness. And even watching it 50 years later, we can hardly rest easy.

Go here to read my tribute to Planet of the Apes on the BFI website.

Candyman - now available to pre-order!

When Candyman was released in 1992, Roger Ebert gave it his thumbs up remarking that the film was “scaring him with ideas and gore, rather than just gore.” Indeed, Candyman is almost unique in 1990s horror cinema in that it tackles its socio-political themes head on. As critic Kirsten Moana Thompson has remarked, Candyman is ‘the return of the repressed as national allegory’: the film’s hook-handed killer of urban legend embodies a history of racism, miscegenation, lynching and slavery – ‘the taboo secrets of America’s past and present.’

In this book in the Devil’s Advocates series, Jon Towlson considers how Candyman can be read both as a ‘return of the repressed’ during the George H. W. Bush Sr. era, and as an example of nineties neoconservative horror. He traces the project’s development from its origins as a Clive Barker short story (‘The Forbidden’) through to finished picture; discusses the importance of its gritty real-life Cabrini-Green setting; and analyses the film’s appropriation (and interrogation) of urban myths. Included in the study are the two official sequels (Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh [1995] and Candyman: Day of the Dead [1999]) plus a number of other urban myth-inspired horror movies such as Bloody Mary (2006) and the Urban Legend franchise. The book features an in-depth interview with Candyman’s writer-director Bernard Rose. 

ORDER HERE