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

"Dirty, Slimy Freaks!"

Read my in-depth article on Tod Browning, Lon Chaney, Freaks and the Eugenics Movement, over at DIABOLIQUE

Counterculture's Cinematic Corpses

Secret Transmissions interviewed me for their Samhain special on Subversive Horror and Counterculture.

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE

Coming soon to a mirror near you...

Pre-Order Here

Close Encounters at City Screen, York, Sept 18.

City Screen Picturehouse York.

 

Monday, September 18 at 8:30 PM - 11 PM

'Steven Spielberg’s genre-defining masterpiece returns to cinemas in a dazzling restoration of the director’s cut to win over audiences all over again. This brilliantly paced tale follows two groups of people driven by the prospect that humans are not alone in the universe. The first is a team of scientists on a trail of mind-boggling evidence that leads them to the eventual landing site of alien visitors; the other a group of ordinary people who gravitate to the same spot, plagued by strange visions after close encounters with extra-terrestrial life. The opening sequences masterfully evoke a sense of foreboding, but as the film builds towards its stunning climax, fear gives way to wonder. It’s a tone shift that set Spielberg’s idealistic vision apart from all other big-screen alien encounters at the time, and raised the bar for every first-contact film that would follow.

We have an introduction by Jon Towlson, critic with Starburst Magazine and author of the recent book Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Auteur/Columbia University Press).

Audiences will also be treated to a short about the making of the film, which includes an all-new interview with Steven Spielberg.'

TICKETS

The Electric Cinema, Birmingham, Wednesday, 2 August

TICKETS

Kunst Gallery, Belper. Saturday 28 October

SYNTHETIC FLESH/ROTTEN BLOOD UK Dates

Following the success of my Miskatonic London talk, SYNTHETIC FLESH/ROTTEN BLOOD, based on my book THE TURN TO GRUESOMENESS IN AMERICAN HORROR FILMS, 1931-1936, I'm delighted to announce more UK dates for the talk.

YORK, CITY SCREEN PICTUREHOUSE - 11 JUNE 2017

BIRMINGHAM, SHOCK AND GORE FESTIVAL -  2 AUGUST 2017

INFO AND TICKETS

BELPER, DERBYSHIRE, KUNST GALLERY - 28 OCTOBER 2017

INFO AND TICKETS

MANCHESTER, FESTIVAL OF FANTASTIC FILMS - OCTOBER 2017 (T.B.C)

NEWCASTLE, NOVOCASTRIA MACABRE - (T.B.C)

"Mad scientists...sadistic torture...maniac killers. Alongside gangster movies and sex pictures, thirties horror films used sensational images to attract thrill-hungry audiences during the darkest days of the Great Depression. From Frankenstein (1931) to Freaks (1932) to The Black Cat (1934) to The Raven (1935), studios ballyhooed the public with ‘supershockers’ that left the moral guardians up in arms. Filmmakers like James Whale, Tod Browning and Edgar G. Ulmer exulted in the gruesome and the brutal, flouting the Hays Code at every turn. Eventually, in July 1934, the censors struck back, banning ‘gruesomeness’ from horror, and the genre lost its fangs. Everyone soon forgot how shocking those 1930s films were.

Until now.

Join author and Starburst film critic Jon Towlson on a graphic journey through 'pre-Code' 1930s horror cinema. Experience the terrors of synthetic flesh, the agonies of rotten blood, and abandon any preconceptions you may have that classic horror cinema is cosy and safe - classics like Dr. X (1932) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1931) may be closer to modern day torture porn than you think..."

Diabolique Interview

James Gracey at Diabolique Magazine interviewed me about thirties horror and gruesomeness. You can read the interview here.