Reviews & features: Horror
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The Innkeepers
11 May 2012A genuinely involving and disconcerting chiller that thankfully eschews any trendy post-modernism
Having established his credentials as a serious genre fan with a spot-on homage to 80s horror movies in The House of the Devil, writer-director Ti West reaches even further back into the past with this slow-burning thriller. Like all good haunted house…
Trailer for The Lucifer Effect marries found footage with hyper-viral marketing
10 May 2012
Cinema has had its fair share of found footage thrillers recently. While some have had some success on a semi-stale horror circuit (such as the almost genre-defining Blair Witch Project and the Paranormal Activity series), others have failed massively…
666: The Prophecy
18 Apr 2012By-the-numbers horror from Darren Lynn Bousman, inspired by calendar numerology
(15) 90mins The current public appetite for horror barely excuses the eventual, much delayed release of 666: The Prophecy, which was opportunistically released in the US in November last year on the date (and under the title) 11-11-11. The idea that…
The trailer for Lovely Molly, the new film from Blair Witch director Eduardo Sánchez
3 Apr 2012
More close-up crying from the found footage pioneer
Since pretty much inventing the found footage horror genre with The Blair Witch Project back in 1999, Eduardo Sánchez has been keeping kind of a low profile, with only a couple of (poorly-received) horrors to his name. The trailer for his newest…
The Divide
19 Mar 2012A nasty and nihilistic portrait of rapid decline of civilisation
(18) 108mins Rarely will you see a film as nasty and nihilistic as Xavier Gens’ The Divide. The Frenchman scored a cult hit with 2007’s Frontier(s) before making his first foray into the studio system with the by numbers video game adaptation Hitman.
Guy Pearce delivers futuristic TED talk for Ridley Scott's Prometheus
29 Feb 2012
Pearce stars as the founder of Weyland Industries
We appreciate a well-thought out viral online campaign here at List HQ. We're also fans of the inspirational TED talks, where the leading lights of culture, technology and industry come together to deliver talks based on their chosen field of expertise.
GFF 2012 - Day planner
6 Feb 2012
Our highlights for each day of the Glasgow Film Festival
It can be difficult, when any festival rolls around, to decide which events to skip in favour of others. Searching rigorously through the programme, referring back to the calendar, trying to fit in as much as possible - it's a painstaking piece of work…
GFF 2012 - Frightfest highlights
2 Feb 2012
A round up of the best films showing as part of the Glasgow Film Festival's horror strand
FrightFest is back once again to terrorise the Glasgow Film Festival. Now taking over the GFT for two full days, this year (as with every year) it’s a vibrant snap shot of the state of horror cinema. It’s been so successful the organisers have launched…
GFF 2012 - Italo-horror artist Umberto
1 Feb 2012
The soundtrack specialist fits comfortably into the Glasgow Music and Film Festival strand
Horror-score revivalist Matt Hill channels the creepyass compositions of Goblin, John Carpenter and Fabio Frizzi in his eerie synthjams, conjuring up a sonic witches brew. A member of drone-merchants Expo 70, Hill has, in his Umberto guise, explored the…
Steven Severin: Vampyr - Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Thu 12 Jan
1 Feb 2012Ex-Banshees bassist delivers brooding live score to 1930s horror classic
The man with the flowing white hair walks towards a small table and chair to one side of the Cameo’s big screen. Sporting a long black winter coat and carrying a glass of red wine, the man looks as if he’s stepped in from another, altogether darker age…
The Woman In Black
23 Jan 2012Daniel Radcliffe's first post-Potter film lacks the requisite scares for a classic ghost story
(12A) 95mins Susan Hill’s Victorian ghost story has been terrifying theatre audiences for the best part of twenty-five years, second only to The Mousetrap as the longest running show in the history of London’s West End. It has already been…
Intruders
5 Jan 2012Derivative, moderately engaging paranormal horror starring Clive Owen
(15) 110min Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has never quite delivered on the promise of his clever debut feature Intacto. Retro chiller Intruders is cleverly constructed and suspenseful but fades when pitted against superior genre fare like…
The Awakening
15 Nov 2011Superior British period ghost story sets a tone of creepy unease
There’s been a glut of cinematic ghost stories this year. The likes of Paranormal Activity 3 and Insidious often relied on jump scares and cheap parlour tricks, whereas The Awakening goes in the opposite direction letting the story unfold to reveal the…
Paranormal Activity 3
21 Oct 2011Surprisingly effective third instalment of found footage suburban ghost story
(15) 84min Now Saw has relinquished it’s stranglehold on the multiplex each and every Halloween, Paranormal Activity has stepped up to fill the void. And it’s impressive that they’ve managed to mine this much back-story from the simplicity of the…
Shark Night 3D
6 Oct 2011Dumb fun as big fish chow down on stereotypical college kids
(15) 91 min The avalanche of 3D releases may be slowing down but there’s still a few chuckles to be had with the format. Shark Night 3D has the flimsiest of plots as seven college kids head out for a weekend at a luxurious lake house in Louisiana…
Red State survey reveals loss of morals in UK
29 Sep 2011
A questionnaire promoting Kevin Smith's Republican-skewering horror flick has interesting results
Kevin Smith is well-known for baiting controversy - his apocalyptic comedy Dogma drew massive complaints for its depiction of a shallow Catholic church, while latest release Red State focuses on a group of serial-killing Christian fundamentalists.
The Woman
28 Sep 2011Challenging horror from the minds of Lucky McKee and Jack Ketchum
(18) 98 min There has been a spate of interesting indie horror recently, films like Dead Girl, The Loved Ones and Red, White & Blue have brought a real intelligence to the genre. A challenging leftfield take on the idea of what is horror. The Woman…
Red State
14 Sep 2011Uneven political horror-thriller from Kevin Smith
(18) 88min Outspoken filmmaker Kevin Smith hit a creative and commercial low with his last studio-backed production, the Bruce Willis-starring flop Cop Out, but before that film was even released Smith had shifted focus to this long-gestating…
Don't be Afraid of the Dark
Unimaginitive reboot of 70s cult horror film
(15) 99min Looming large in the childhood memories of many US pop culture aficionados, the original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark was a minor but effective 1973 TV movie in which Jim Hutton and Kim Darby played a couple menaced by demonic creatures in…
Profile: Melissa George
1 Sep 2011
Aussie actress Melissa George tells us all about her new film A Lonely Place to Die
Born 6 August, 1976, Perth, Australia. Background Yet another Aussie soap alumni done good, after starring as Angel in over 300 episodes of Home & Away. ‘I’m a very good quitter, I always quit a job at the right time,’ explains George. ‘I was…
Final Destination 5
Horror franchise gets back on track with some suitably gory bloodshed
(15) 92 min In many ways the Final Destination series is the ultimate streamlined horror franchise, they have dispensed with a villain and it is death itself that stalks our victims. And FD 5 returns the glorious gory yucks to the screen after the…
A Lonely Place To Die
Tense and riveting Brit-thriller set in Scottish Highlands
How far would you go to save a stranger? Would you risk your life? And your friends’ lives? It’s a question Alison (Melissa George) and her fellow climbers must answer after they stumble across a young girl (Holly Boyd) buried in a wooden box while…
The Skin I Live In (La Piel Que Habito)
Almodovar's adaptation is measured, playful and spellbinding
(15) 120min The Skin I Live In has all the elements of a campy Vincent Price B-movie. There is a meddlesome scientist driven mad by grief, a grisly revenge plot and a hapless victim, not to mention multiple murder, kidnap and rape. In the hands of…
Kill List
Genre-schizophrenic crime spree lacks clarity
(18) 95min Down Terrace director Ben Wheatley second feature is another tale of crime, skullduggery and mystery. Kill List is one of those movies that starts off in one genre (kitchen sink drama) and turns into another (horror). Robert Rodriguez…
DVD reviews: The Kingdom, Giallo, The Pack, Bloodrayne 3, Evil Rising and Lake Mungo
18 Jul 2011
Summer horror DVD round-up
Forget Hollywood – this month we embark on a European horror odyssey. First up, Lars von Trier's superlative haunted hospital drama The Kingdom (Second Sight ●●●●). Collecting both of his four-part Danish TV series into one boxed set for the first time…


