Posts Tagged Horror
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October 28, 2018 by Simon Sweetman
Wellington Film Society: Preview – Daughters of Darkness (October 29)
The Wellington Film Society is back tonight – after last weekend’s pause for Labour Weekend. Here we are now with Halloween almost at the doorstep, as it were. And so…to Daughters of Darkness. Re-released more than a decade after its 1971 debut, Daughters of Darkness has lost none of the eerie, subterranean fascination it held for its […]Archive
August 15, 2018 by Simon Sweetman
John Carpenter: Anthology – Movie Themes 1974-1998
John Carpenter Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998 Scared Bones Records John Carpenter – like John Waters – finds himself at 70 years of age and with one of the sideline aspects of his filmmaking career now being the new main revenue stream. For Waters it’s writing and delivering his one-man-show, for Carpenter it’s music. They’re both […]Archive
October 26, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 480
Ennio Morricone, The Thing [OST] (1982) I’ve always been into John Carpenter films – and a big part of it is the music, whether it’s by Carpenter or not. I love his scores. I saw The Thing when I was about 12 or 13 – one summer, a trip to Gisbourne; we’d rent loads of […]Archive
September 14, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
Mother: Film
Mother! Director: Darren Aronofsky Paramount Pictures/Protozoa Pictures Making Black Swan look like a perfect rom-com for any date-night, Darren Aronofsky here sets up a taut, psychological horror that you at first think might play out along the lines of Don’t Look Now or – as is more oft-referenced – Rosemary’s Baby. There’s touches of Polanski […]Archive
September 21, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
The Neon Demon: Film
The Neon Demon Director: Nicolas Winding Refn Amazon Studios/Broad Green Pictures/Scanbox Entertainment Taking the colour scheme of his previous films – a palette that extends beyond lighting to the hue cast by the film’s score (Cliff Martinez with another, nearly film-saving soundtrack) – Nicholas Winding Refn now has a default-setting. The Neon Demon follows Only […]Archive
June 20, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 682
Geoff Love and His Orchestra, Big Terror Movie Themes (1976) I didn’t know he was Geoff Love at the time – or rather didn’t know who he was, whoever was at the helm of so many of these things, but I loved the records I found in my grandparents’ collections. Both sets of the grannies […]Archive
April 13, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Hush: Film
Hush Director: Mike Flanagan Intrepid Pictures/Blumhouse Productions/Netflix Hush is being praised, and deservedly so, for being a trim, taut horror-thriller. There’s nothing new in the story – a stalker/home-invasion set-up with a remote location. But this doesn’t rely on being some overt homage either. There are nods – the film opens with a shot that […]Archive
March 24, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
The Diabolical: DVD
The Diabolical Director: Alistair Legrand Campfire Probably we have I Know What You Did Last Summer and the remake of The Ring to blame. Yes, in a way, Scream was the fire, but what really drew the moths to that flame was when the low-budget, hackneyed horror flicks arrived on the back of the stylised […]Archive
December 7, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
Shaun Tan: The Singing Bones
The Singing Bones: Inspired by Grimms’ Fairy Tales Shaun Tan Allen & Unwin Australian artist and writer Shaun Tan creates worlds you fall into; places and spaces you must revisit. Whether working wordlessly (The Arrival) or telling a story through words and images (The Red Tree) his work is memorable, brilliantly evocative and he is […]Archive
August 31, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
R.I.P. Wes Craven
Sad news in just now that Wes Craven has died. He’s one of my heroes when it comes to the modern horror movie (his Nightmare on Elm Street series) – and then of course the meta-horror film (the hugely popular Scream series). I was such a Craven fan I even bought – and read (and […]Archive
June 18, 2015 by Simon Sweetman