The Eye (2002)
On one level it feels quite patronising and imprecise to refer to “Asian horror” as a genre, at least from a critical perspective; one would hesitate to bracket “European horror” and expect to find useful common ground between, say, Terence Fisher and Lucio Fulci. But on another such a generalisation is actually pretty indicative of the lack of differentiation in the gold-rush that saw Hollywood ransacking the back catalogues of directors from countries such as Japan, China and Korea in the early 21st century. Read more
The Innocents (1961)
20th Century Fox were vexed by how to market The Innocents even before it was released. After the recent successes of Hammer Horror, it was recognised that there was a lot to be gained from promoting it as a good, old-fashioned spook-fest. However, even the densest of studio executives were aware that Jack Clayton had crafted something all together more sophisticated than The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula or The Mummy (no disrespect intended). Succour might therefore be found in jumping on the then-rumbling Hitchcock bandwagon, and drawing on the popular clamour for films in the Vertigo and Psycho mould. Read more
Silent Hill (2006)
Computer games have something of a chequered history when it comes to big screen adaptations. Actually I suppose that’s not quite true as their heritage is quite consistent; basically, they’re usually very bad indeed. I’d still like to know who decided that Bob Hoskins would make a good Super Mario, or that Kylie Minogue’s heart-warming portrayal of quintessential Australian suburb-dweller could only be followed by a part in Street Fighter. More recently we’ve had the slightly more accomplished Resident Evil series which wasn’t as bad (no really) as a lot of people feared.
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
It’s always instructive to watch a few movies by the same director in quick succession, so after the joy that is the Masque of the Red Death I was very much looking forward to moving backwards in Roger Corman’s Edgar Allen Poe series to his second offering, Pit and the Pendulum. You don’t watch any of the films in the cycle if you’re looking for a true to the text adaptation of Poe’s stories, and Pit is no different in this respect. In Masque, Corman departed from the story only in order to enhance the movie experience (especially with the brilliant ‘brothers of death’ scenes) to great success. In comparison here he seems almost bored with the story, picking out the bits that seem to fit together well and leaving the viewer to fill in the gaps. Read more
The Fog (1979)
There seems to be a thing for John Carpenter remakes at the moment, with this year seeing a big-budget version of ‘Assault on Precinct 13′ and next year the (British) release of The Fog. There were high-hopes of The Fog at the time of it’s release, following as it did Carpenter’s seminal classic, ‘Halloween’ (readers will forgive me for overlooking his immediate successive offering - Elvis: The Movie - in this regard, though I suppose Kurt Russell as The King might conceivably be described as a form of horror). To be fair to Carpenter he doesn’t do a bad job here, and though The Fog lacks the searing impact of Halloween it suceeds in offerering up a more contemplative and developed story, with the trademark atmospherics and effects that you’d expect from his (early) offerings. Read more