Dracula [Spanish version] (1931)

I’ve always been pretty clear about the fact that Universal’s 1931 adaptation of Dracula is the best I’ve seen and ranks as one of my favourite horror films of all time. For this reason I’ve been hoping to watch the Spanish version-which was shot simultaneously with the English/US version, and with George Melford directing both- for a long time now. Read more

Scream (1996)

With hindsight, can you blame a film for the poor imitations that followed? Received wisdom among horror aficionados states that Scream, Wes Craven’s 1996 mega-hit, is where it all went wrong for the genre, ushering in a series of sub-par slashers and refocusing major-studio horror almost exclusively on teenagers: nearly all the big horror hits of recent years have been neutered, 15-certificate fare or under. All legitimate charges, of course, and when faced with the prospect of Scary Movie 5 next year, it’s hard not to feel some degree of antipathy towards the film that started the ball rolling. Read more

Freaks (1932)

In the decades since its initial release, Freaks has lost none of its power to shock. Regardless of whether or not the film is any good it is a unique experience to behold. Tod Browning spared no effort in tracking down real circus and carnival performers to appear in his movie, with predictably genuine results. The problem is that he seems to have spent rather less time in deciding what he would do when he actually found his misfits. Read more

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, aka The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, aka any other number of titles you care to throw at it (including, perhaps strangest of all, Don’t Go Near the Window) definitely belongs to the upper tier of the many, many zombie movies made on the cheap following the success of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. It tells the story of George, a Londoner, who travels north to the Lake District to meet a business associate. Following an accident on his bike, he accepts a lift from Edna, who is heading the same way to help admit her heroin-addicted sister to a clinic. Things go awry when Edna is attacked by a man who supposedly died the previous week, and when a string of other grizzly deaths take place, the local police are quick to point the finger of blame at George. Are the dead really coming to life, and can it have anything to do with the experimental crop treatments being carried out nearby? Read more

Village of the Damned (1960)

There was a time, if oft-quoted legends are to be believed, when an Englishman could leave his home unlocked without fear of being robbed blind by hoards of smacked-up hoodies. Indeed, so pervasive were English good-manners that we managed to conquer a third of the globe with them. Nations cowered not before our fleets and armaments but in deference to our irresistible gentility. Is it coincidental that the arrival of The Beatles and the ‘permissive society’ heralded the decline of our Empire? I think not. Read more

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