Penny Dreadful

The ’ 90s are socking it to the ’ 80s this month with Scream the TV show about to arrive and news of another new sassy- smart metaslasher series on its way, while poor old Poltergeist didn’t do the numbers despite the insistent scary clown leering off the side of buses. But forget nostalgia: for new thrills all you need is a dirty Belgian wolf- boy…

Virtual unreality bites

I didn’t like Insidious 2 so I skipped Insidious 3 ( see p96 for the review). Instead I went to a 4D séance with Leigh Whannell… This was the promo event for I3, where an illusionist pretended to conjure the spirits while we held hands in the dark ( gripping paws with the man who co- created Saw is a terror indeed…). Several beers later and we got to try the Insidious 3 Oculus Rift experience which involves sitting in an armchair strapped into eyewear and earphones and venturing to the other side. Gimmicky it may be, but effective it definitely is. I’m not a gamer but horror is making leaps and bounds in this sphere, including the recent Alien Isolation, which I’m reliably told is almost too scary to be fun. I don’t game because I’m crap at it but the immersiveness is a massive draw – Oculus Rift was like a very highend portable scare maze. Imagine a whole arcade of these – punters strapped into recliners screaming as terrors assault them. There’s a horror movie in that…

Be prepared

Movie of the month: Cub – a Belgian cross- breed where a group of young scouts get stuck in a forest tricked- out with traps where a wolf- boy called Kai, invented by the kindly leader, might also reside. A young and troubled boy is at the centre of this coming- of- age slasher which pits pack against pack in those years where morality and personality are formed. A confused ending

Notorious video nasty Anthropophagus is getting a rerelease from 88 Films this month. A lurid Italian cannibal gorno set on an island where a crazy killer picks off – and eats! – a bunch of tourists it’s directed by erotic horror maestro Joe D’Amato, though this isn’t in any

way saucy. Unless you mean intestines slathered with red sauce. Only for the strong of stomach and not to be watched

with dinner. disappoints, yet this is a greatlooking piece of dark psychology in psycho’s clothing.

St ars in their eyes

Out on DVD this month three horrors with classy casts. The pick of the bunch is John “Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer” McNaughton’s Can’t Come Out To Play where Samantha Morton is a terrifying matriarch forbidding her sick son to become friends with a local girl. Michael Shannon is her long- suffering husband in a tense, twisty thriller that never matches the grubby highs of Henry. Worth a watch for the performances. Then Julia Stiles, Stephen Rea and Scott Speedman star in Out Of The Dark, set in Colombia where young Americans are out of their depth in a town filled with superstition. Starts well, ends messy. Finally, Stonehearst Asylum, rammed with talent ( Kate Beckinsale, Ben Kingsley, Jason Flemyng) and directed by The Machinist man Brad Anderson. Based on a story by Poe about an asylum where the inmates are all over the shop, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it except the total lack of peril or any sense of who this is for. May send it to my mum, who’ll probably also give it three stars.

I know What You’re Doing Next Autumn

Could it be horror’s perennial obsession with the ’ 70s and ’ 80s is finally moving on a decade? Are we about to see a load of depressing remakes of Urban

Dreadful Old Movie

One Cub who must promise to do best – which his

might not be enough.