[Film Review] FrightFest: The Ghost Station (2023)
Based on the legendary Korean webtoon Oksu Station Ghost by author Horang, Jeong Yong-ki’s The Ghost Station made its UK premiere at FrightFest to a crowd keen for some fresh and terrifying Asian horror.
[Documentary Review] FrightFest: The J-Horror Virus (2023)
Why is Japanese horror so scary? What is the ‘J-horror boom’? Is The Ring the first J-horror film? What makes J-horror a distinct cinematic movement outside of the broader ‘Japanese horror’ umbrella?
[Film Review] FrightFest: New Life (2023)
John Rosman’s New Life takes this distillation of the subgenre to create an impressive, emotionally-charged debut that weaves together veins of horror and drama to create a unique take on a well-trod path, one that will leave its audience both moved and uncomfortably in touch with their own mortality.
[Film Review] FrightFest: Good Boy (2022)
One of the most anticipated features among attendees to this year’s FrightFest, Viljar Bøe’s Good Boy, is a bizarre and unsettling Norwegian thriller that will have even the most ardent of dog lovers think twice before letting their pooch sleep in the same bed.
[Film Review] Tokyo Horror Film Festival: Idol Never Dies (2023)
Comedy splatter legend (and the mastermind behind such Criterion classics as Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead and Mutant Girl Squad) Noboru Iguchi’s IDOL NEVER DiES played as the main feature of the inaugural Tokyo Horror Film Festival, which took place on July 1 in Tokyo’s Nakano ward. The festival also featured an exclusive Q&A with director Iguchi himself.
[Film Review] New York Asian Film Festival: Back Home (2023)
Despite what a particularly vocal subset of haters might crow online, horror has always explored the well-solidified connection between familial trauma and the supernatural. Countless horrors spanning all eras, from Don’t Look Now to Relic, have propounded the idea that far scarier than any ghost, ghoul or demon are the scars your family can leave on you - in the case of Nate Ki’s Back Home, both literally and physically.
[Film Review] New York Asian Film Festival: The Abandoned (2023)
One of the standout Taiwanese features played at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival was Ying-Ting Tseng’s The Abandoned, a bleak police procedural thriller that shone an uncomfortable spotlight on the harrowing realities faced by a country’s most vulnerable occupants.
[Film Review] New York Asian Film Festival: Home Sweet Home (2023)
Star of last year’s NYAFF hit Shin Ultraman, actor and filmmaker Takumi Saitoh returned to the fest this year with his second directorial feature Home Sweet Home – a slick and sinister thriller that subverts the image of the haunted house from dusty old mansion to something far more enviable.
[Event Review] GASP! Horror Film Festival 2023
The first ever GASP! horror film festival, Manchester’s only horror film festival dedicated entirely to minority filmmakers, took place last month from June 17 - 18 at cult cinema CULTPLEX. Six feature length films and two short film showcases celebrated and elevated the work of female filmmakers, foreign language filmmakers, people with disabilities, people of colour and the LGBTQ+ community.
[Film Review] New Religion (2022)
Since premiering at last year’s FrightFest, Keishi Kondo’s New Religion has been at the top of every Japanese horror fan’s watchlist. In his directorial debut, Kondo has created less of a straightforward horror movie and more a living, breathing thought experiment, fluttering in the midst of moral philosophy and asking an enraptured audience to reckon with the timeless, unanswerable question: what makes a human? Spine? Collarbone? Ribs? Hair? History?
[Ghouls Podcast] Antiviral, Possessor & Infinity Pool with Zoë Rose Smith, Amber T and Iona Smith
In July we have been looking at all things body horror! Which is why for our final episode of the month we visited the films of director Brandon Cronenberg with a look at Antiviral (2012), Possessor (2020) and Infinity Pool (2023).
[Film Review] The Sound of Summer (2022)
There are certain sounds that encapsulate life in Japan. The gentle 'beep boop' of the pedestrian crossing signal. The lighthearted arrival jingles that signal the approach of your commuter train.
[Book Review] Manhunt (2022)
Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt, a novel that holds both horror and heart in equal regard, a biting and brilliant debut from one of horror-fiction’s most exciting names.
[Editorial] Director Mark Jenkin Talks Identity and Ambiguity in Enys Men
Ahead of Enys Men’s US release, I got to chat with BAFTA-award winning director and writer Mark Jenkin about ambiguity, Cornish folklore and the importance of identity.
[Editorial] The Stone Swallows You Whole: Reconciling A Self Through Enys Men [2022]
It was about halfway through my inaugural viewing of Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men that I burst into tears for the first time.
[Ghouls Podcast] Good For Her Horror Film Recommendations
In this episode host Ariel Powers-Schaub is joined by Ghouls Magazine contributors, Liz Bishop and Amber T, to embrace the on-screen women who make getting revenge, necrophilia and being drawn to bloodlust look damn cool. From Excision to Nekromantik 2 to Captivity to Prevenge and more...
[Film Review] The Outwaters (2022)
The Outwaters, the disturbing feature debut from Robbie Banfitch, with its Mojave setting of glaring sun and blood-stained sand is stylistically worlds apart from the — very real, very tragic — incident.
[Film Review] V/H/S/99 (2022)
Last year’s V/H/S/94 breathed new life into the found-footage franchise that had lain dormant since 2014’s poorly received V/H/S: Viral, becoming Shudder’s biggest premiere ever and reigniting the spark that burned in the first two V/H/S movies.
[Film Review] Incantation (2022)
Well wishes and blessings are not only culturally expected, but are expressed without a second thought, even by those who don’t believe in any form of divine energy.
[Book Review] You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood (2022)
‘You should never judge a book by its cover (or title)’, may be true for a lot of authors - but not for Eric LaRocca.