Manhattan Baby (1982)

After watching Italian horror director and gore-meister Lucio Fulci’s ‘Gates Of Hell’ trilogy last year for spooky movie Halloween season, the collapse of logic was definitely understood as an auteur trademark across all those movies. Manhattan Baby (1982) is Fulci’s Exorcist rip-off, which follows an archaeologist digging around a haunted tomb in Egypt whose family […]

The Blood On Satan’s Claw (1971)

When it comes to the genre of folk-horror, there are three titles often referred to as key canonical texts: Witchfinder General, The Wicker Man (original) and The Blood On Satan’s Claw (1971). The latter was also used as the main promotional imagery for the recent documentary about folk horror, Woodlands Dark And Bewitched directed by […]

Lord Of lllusions (1995)

Occult neo-noir is a sub-sub genre that has few big screen entries and Clive Barker’s Lord Of Illusions (1995) has always intrigued me, even though it has a mixed reputation with some defenders. Much like the loopy people in the Mojave desert, where this film opens, who pledge their sanity to a man named Nix […]

Curse Of The Demon (1957)

“It’s in the trees! It’s coming!” A familiar sample from the start of Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds Of Love’. Where it’s taken from is the British horror movie, Curse Of The Demon (1957) also known as Night Of The Demon, another entry in Danny Peary’s Cult Movies 2 that I’d never seen. I remember seeing the […]

Harlequin (1980)

I remember either my parents or a member of the family had the video of Harlequin (1980), and it always fascinated me, that painted harlequin face on the cover. Shot in Western Australia but the film’s producers keep it vague for the international markets: all the cops and security guards talk with American accents. The […]