There is a very particular sub-genre of fiction, which we can refer to as small-town noir or pastoral gothic, and which we often find occurring in a lot of European and American cinema in the years following the end of the Second World War, whereby filmmakers ventured out of the cities and chose to explore…
Tag: horror
Mother, Couch (2024)
They say home is where the heart is, but domestic despair tends to be carried with you wherever you go, lingering like a spectre ready to emerge at the most inopportune moments. This is a realisation that many who have ever experienced any kind of familial strife, even only marginally, will immediately recognise as an…
The Comedy of Terrors (1964)
The blurring of comedy and horror is not always an easy process, but it is one that has yielded some of the most brilliant and provocative works in the history of cinema. It takes quite a special writer and director to combine two wildly different emotions – laughter and fear – and create an atmosphere…
Nightbitch (2024)
There are few concepts simultaneously as comforting and disturbing as placid suburbia – the irresistible push-and-pull of a life defined by white picket fences and perfectly maintained lawns contrasted with the underlying knowledge that not everything is quite as it seems beneath the surface. David Lynch perhaps said it best when he stated “I discovered…
The Fly (1958)
There comes a moment in every film lover’s life when they put away the prestige work and stop pretending that the only true cinematic giants were those consolidated into the mainstream through high-quality filmmaking, and instead start to realise that the industry is as much built on these works of artistic integrity as it is…
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Allow me, if you will, to gush about a certain Sam Raimi horror film. Not The Evil Dead, but instead his 2009 masterpiece, Drag Me to Hell. In a world where horror is defined by slashers and demons, Sam Raimi dares to create a combination of gothic horror and gory violence, much like The Evil…
Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)
I don’t want to undermine their efforts or talents, but you won’t very easily get me to watch an independent Australian drama. It is not because they are untalented or unremarkable or just plain bad, it is just the sensibilities of a lot of independent Australian filmmakers call for a lack of limit or boundaries…
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)
Very seldom does one find a film so absolutely obscure and strange that they feel a combination of shock, amazement and sheer damn excitement. Hobo With a Shotgun is just that. A brilliant film that is so shocking and odd, it would be wrong to call it anything other than an experience. First of all,…
The Conjuring (2013)
When one of your favorite films is The Shining, it will take quite a film to terrify you. The latest in a rapidly rising trend of possession films is a wonderful little horror film that combines shock horror and period drama to create quite an entertaining film that hearkens back to late period Hitchcock. What makes The…
Scary Movie 5 (2013)
Parody, satire, spoof – these are words commonly thrown around by filmmakers and comedians in regards to their art that lampoons various subjects in one of the most beloved forms of artistic expression. The Scary Movie series of films warrant no artistic merit. They are just plain terrible. But like you can’t stop touching a…
The Postmodern Pelican 