Right thinking film fans and home video collectors will doubtless by excited by the upcoming Blu-Ray edition of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, one of the most beloved films ever to destroy a career and cause a moral panic.

Moral Panics of the kind that engulfed Powell and his...

When the Hollywood mainstream can turn the multiplexes into a mire of torture porn and Saw-style sadism and you can go and sit with an audience and see...

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NOW IN GHOULISH STEREO!

TURN OF YOUR MIND. RELAX AND FLOAT DOWNSTREAM...

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CLIPS FROM THIRST

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Just noticed this new feature on Facebook, which allows people to post a fan page widget to their site.

Here's the Masters of Giallo page...

FB.init("15d589ef3630088fc4982daba9644a69");Arrow Video's Masters of Giallo on Facebook

From the annals of DVDisgo and DVDresurrections



Murder Rock







You've got to hand it to those crazy Italian exploitation directors, they knew how to churn out a watchable rip off of mainstream cinema's hit movies in double quick time. Conan The Barbarian inspired numerous spaghetti-fantasy movies like Fulci's Conquest and D'amato's Ator series. Dirty Harry kicked off a spate of right wing fantasies in which...

From the pages of the sadly defunct DVDisgo and the happily active DVDresurrections



La Cabina







This amazing short film was directed by Antonio Mercero for Spanish television in 1972. It's a wonderful example of efficient, lean horror story telling which squeezes in plenty of thrills and shocks in its 40 minute running time.

Essentially a European riff on a Twilight Zone style format, the film...

The Uncanny





The lowly house cat; cherished pet, cute furry fluff ball, loyal companion...

Or are they part of some vicious and malignant plot to destroy humanity as they gather in hairy packs under streetlights, looking for trouble. The rather naff kids film, Cats and Dogs, put forward the proposition of a global feline conspiracy in which Machiavellian moggies plotted man and canine downfall but a small British horror anthology picture...

The Red Shoes





Not to be confused with Powell & Pressburger classic of the same name, The Red Shows is an excellent work of high drama horror, The Red Shoes continues Korea's run of quirky hits with a movie that piles on the gory shocks, sometimes to a ridiculous degree, while still focusing on character, in particular a riveting mother -daughter relationship at the heart of the movie that explodes into raw physical and verbal violence as the film moves...

Fright Night





After the early 80s slasher cycle in which mysogynistic murder scenes and extremes of gore were the name of the game, the latter part of the decade saw comedy-horror ruling the video store roost with even Freddy Kruger lapsing into corny one-liners. The fact that Kruger became almost cuddly as the numerous sequels took their toll on his sinister reputation always annoyed me. Did no one ever ask whether producing cuddly toy versions of a...

Medusa Touch





A forgotten classic starring Richard Burton at the height of his late 70s hamming, it combines the horror and disaster genres to great effect and then hits the viewer with a killer downbeat ending, as was the fashion for horror flicks at the time.

Burton plays Morlar, a man who is recovering in hospital after being battered round the head in his home. The police are investigating the assault and also how he may be implicated...

Dementia (Daughter of Horror)





A real oddity, Dementia (also known by it's alternate title, Daughter Of Horror), started life as a 10 minute short before Director John Parker expanded this essentially silent movie into a 60-minute feature.

The movies only real dialogue comes from a narrator, a trick used in a lot of sleazy sex pictures in the 60s such as the Olga series of S&M movies. He welcomes us in the horrific depths of a fractured...

Rosemary's Baby





"This isn't a dream... This is really happening!"


Mia Farrow stars with John Cassavetes in Roman Polanski's timeless chiller about Guy, a jobbing actor, and his elfin wife, moving into an old fashioned apartment building in New York City*. The filmmakers used the Dakota Building, which became infamous later on as the place outside which John Lennon was shot. The loving couple soon become friendly with the apparently...

Thirst





Deep Red and Blow Up actor David Hemmings stars in this amusing late 70s Australian vampire offering that predates the Blade movies in it's portrayal of blood drinkers as a well organized society, building human farms for harvest.

Returning readers may have read about my love of Near Dark, which portrays vampires as trailer trash predators in contrast to the high born sophisticates of most vampiric cinema. Normally, I'd side with...

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari





Enjoy the movie!


An asylum inmate reveals the story of Dr. Caligari, who has a sleeping walking slave called Cesare who is murdering the townsfolk of Holstenwell. Is the tale a product of one mans twisted imagination or the grisly truth...

A vital entry both in the history of horror cinema and film as a whole. Made in Germany in the 1920s, the film is a surreal masterpiece. Cabinet... is...

Dementia 13





Roger Corman gave a leg up to a great many of Hollywood's biggest directors including ex Happy Days star Ron Howard and Francis Ford Coppola who made his directorial debut in Ireland on Corman's production, Dementia 13.

The Haloran family are gathering to carry out a morbid ritual to remember the demise of a drowned relative. The family bicker and plot while an axe murderer begins to stalk the grounds. Soon the family members...

Carnival of Soul





This was a one off movie by a company who specialized in industrial and educational films for businesses and schools. The producers obviously didn't realize they were making a classic that would go on to influence many genre filmmakers, including Romero who was clearly influenced in his choice of zombie make-up for "Night of the Living Dead"

A teenage drag race goes horribly wrong causing a car to plummet from a bridge...

The Phantom of the Paradise





Carrie director Brian De Palma turns in a truly bizarre 70s oddity from the decade when studios were green lighting all sort of wacky projects.

A recording mogul, the diminutive Swan, makes a deadly enemy when he steals some music from Leach, an aspiring songwriter, to use at the launch of his new rock venue/palace of dreams, The Paradise.

Leach is a sensitive singer-songwriter type in the typical...

Haze





Short claustrophobic horror movie from Shinya Tsukamoto, director of such genre-bending shockers a Tetsuo 1 & 2, Tokyo Fist and the brilliant A Snake Of June. The director himself stars in this strange fever dream of a movie in which a man wakes up locked in a cramped, lightless concrete room in which he can barely move.

Why is he there and where did he come from? We can see that he has a horrific stomach injury and that he is gradually...

Three on a Meathook





A lonely country boy called Billy lives on an isolated farm with his smothering and slightly mental father. Billy needs to be hidden away because he can't be trusted around other folks...especially women.

Billy is convinced that he murders them in a blind frenzy but has no memory of the crimes afterwards. This terrible fate will befall four young women who have car trouble and seek shelter at the farm. Soon each will...

Death Walks at Midnight





A Great Example of the Italian Giallo horror genre that flourished in sleazier European cinemas during the late 60s/early 70s. A fashion model is drugged as part of a publicity stunt and while tripping out witnesses a nasty murder involving a masked man with a spiked glove. When her story is published she finds that the evil fiend is now stalking her and taking out her friends.

Typically stylish but nonsensical...

Phantasm





Phantasm: the delusion of a disordered mind, a phantasm, a spirit, a ghost!


Early outing from Don Coscarelli (Beastmaster, Bubba Ho Tep) in which a sinister undertaker known as "The Tall Man" steals people, shrinks them down and sends them through a portal into a hell dimension where they work as dwarf slaves. Anyone getting in the way gets chased by his silver death balls, shiny spheres with spikes that attach to your...

Danger Diabolik





Well, here it is, one of the greatest slices of kitsch 60s pop-art cinema ever produced.

Directed by Italian genre expert Mario Bava, this comic book tale of crime capers and daring heists is the source the Beastie Boys video for Body Movin', in which they use footage from the movie.

Telling the OTT story of Diabolik (John Phillip Law), a masked international thief and his blond bombshell girlfriend as...

If I was 30 years older I'd marry Ingrid Pitt...

Countess Dracula





Hammers most voluptuous Scream Queen, Ingrid Pitt stars in a film loosely based on the notorious Countess Bathory, a genuine character from the darker annals of medieval European history, although I wouldn't want to vouch for the veracity of Hammer's take on here story.

She is a withered old crone who longs for the erotic attentions of a young stud who has...

I really rate these odd Spanish oddities. These are from "that high street retailers" site that I used to pen reviews for. So there's some repetition. Don't let that spoil the wonky euro-trash fun though...


Tombs Of The Blind Dead





Classic low rent zombie action, a product of the prolific Spanish horror industry of the 70s. As the countries dictator Franco's power faded in that decade new generation of exploitation film makers...

Hell gate





This is one of those weird low budget 80s horror movies that helped to fill the shelves of video store horror sections back in the day. Treading a strange line between the horrific, the dreamlike and the comedic, it's definitely a product of it's time featuring lots of splashy gore , rubbery monster effects and soft focus dreamy bits. Like so much 80s US horror product, it's seems to steal it's surreal, fever dream atmosphere from Suspiria,...

Hellraiser





Clive Barker's seminal horror movie Hellraiser, is a gore drenched yarn about a man, Frank, who becomes trapped in a hell dimension of perfect pain when he messes around with a cursed mechanical box. On solving the puzzle of the cube he his dragged into the realm of the Cenobites, a race of S&M demons who pierce and tear at his flesh with spiked chains, torturing him to a state of agonizing ecstasy. Our violent anti-hero returns to the earthly...

Night of the Eagle

A sensible university academic played by Peter Wyngarde is looking forward to a bright future until he finds out that his wife has been concealing magical charms around their home, believing that they will protect and bring good luck. He tells her to destroy them but this turns out to be a grave error as his luck is about to change, bringing a whole mess of trouble.

A quirky old fashioned little spook show, Night of the Eagle plays up to the old cliches...

Dreaming of Screaming

Sam@Shameless writes...

"My friend's Lee & Tuesday Burgess along with John Ninnis have made a movie. Hopefully I can persuade them to post regularly on Cult Labs, as they're always busy with some weird movie or other, but until then, here's Lee's piece on their project..."

"Well hello all perverted gore fans.

I have been asked to write a few words on the debut feature from Lee Burgess, John Ninnis and Tuesday Burgess,...

The Blood Beast Terror





A shaky but fun slice of British Schlock from the Tigon studio, who brought such classics as Witchfinder General and Blood On Satan's Claw to the screen. Although this cheap programmer isn't in the same league as those movies, it's still a good watch for fans of the ropier end of Brit horror thanks to the ridiculous concept of a "were-moth" on a killing rampage, combined with Peter Cushing, as ever remaining quietly dignified...

Cold Eyes of Fear





London set Giallo thriller with a great funky score form Ennio Morricone. A head scratching mess of a film featuring some truly horrendous London accents dubbed into the mouths of bottom rung actors. This shouldn't put of the trash cinema fan however, as the tacky plot and wacky ideas come thick and fast in this deliriously silly shocker. Gang fights, sexy murders staged for clapping audiences and hilariously executed threats from...

Iron Rose





A rather more obscure entry in the Jean Rollin's canon of arty 70s horror movies that drops the dreamy lesbian softcore and vampiric Gothic of his more famous efforts for fog shrouded, creeping menace and bloodless terror. Following a tiring bike ride a young couple on a romantic date sneak into a abandoned tomb to make love but they find themselves trapped for the night surrounded by the graves and crypts of a huge cemetery. They frantically...

Salvation/Redemption Capsule Reviews

From my time writing for a "well known high street chain"...

I won monthly prizes for the sheer volume of reviews I posted to their website. Bearing this in mind, please allow for some repetition in these pieces as they were meant to be viewed by customers browsing individual titles rather than en masse.

Requiem For a Vampire





Vampiric eroticism from French Sapphic bloodsucker...

City of the Living Dead





Judging a Lucio Fulci movie by the usual standards of a mainstream film magazine or academic criticism is a useless exercise. You either get these flicks or you don't. Fulci's movies are weirdly paced, shoddily dubbed and, in a lot of cases, hard to love, but, whatever genre he was working in (and he covered the whole range of Italian B picture trash), he always bought a certain flair and imagination to his low budget enterprises...

The Video Recording Act and How it Empowered a Generation!

Jaded horror fans like myself will sit through endless permutations of the genre, looking for new twists or artfully presented cliches. But why? Ever ask yourself what makes you seek out all this strange, sick stuff?

For me, a lifetime of cult viewing started in the early 80s when a vast and unwieldy top loading VCR landed like an alien presence in the family living room.

My Dad had brought two...

Flavia the Heretic

Delving into the mire of Euro-sleaze and exploitation can dredge up some reprehensible, taboo busting sub-genre's of film and there's nothing quite so troubling than the Catholic baiting wonder of a full bodied Nunsploitation flick.

At their best these glorious examples of sacrilegious cinema attack the church on an intellectual level as well as filling their running time with enough sex, nudity and torture as possible. It's little wonder that the...

Rosemary's Killer





This trailer is under the alternate title: The Prowler




This film is a minor classic of the Stalk 'n' Slash genre and is going to praised accordingly. However, the positive points I'm going to raise depend on the reader enjoying the cliches and archetypes of the style. So, If you hate any of these stalwart slasher features, please disregard this write up...

* Leering, lurching Point-of-View...

The Sorcerers








Michael Reeves died tragically in the late 60s from an overdose of Barbiturates having completed only three films, films that singled him out as a major talent in the industry. Had he lived, then most of those who worked with him agree that he would have gone on to be a Hollywood major player.

He first directed She-Beast, a rather amateurish low budget B flick that showed he had the tenacity in getting...