Penny Dreadful
From highbrow to low culture this month as a fab new body horror takes on Hollywood, a possession movie takes on Arthur Miller and a giant crocodile takes on top secret nanobots. Also coming your way – tingling new television for 2015, a bloke in a dress with a katana and a new challenger to the title of worst movie ever made…
Valentine’s day massacre
A good friend of mine and fellow horror fan thought he’d met the perfect woman when his date was super- impressed by his shelf stacked with video nasties. Thinking it was just the right level of cool/ weird/ obscure to win him geek points he decided to put on ( admittedly great) anatomy dummy mental illness romp Pin and exclaim “this is a good bit” before a boy reads out a sexually charged poem to his sister. Date didn’t end well. With Valentine’s Day on the way, then, the moral of the story? Even if your beloved is a Human Centipede- watching, Tromaloving gorehound – pick your date movie carefully. Salo Or The 120 Days Of Sodom is probably out for example. Similarly I Spit On Your Grave. Or Visitor Q. Or in fact almost anything by Takashi Miike… Perhaps this explains the postVal’s 27 February release date of excellent chiller It Follows, missing out on all the cinephile couples who don’t want to see 50 Shades Of Grey. As mentioned a couple of issues back, it’ll be the horror hit of the year. It is, however, about a sexually transmitted ghost. Stay home and rent Teeth instead.
Deadite and loving it
Horror TV incoming! March sees the US release of the remake of gorgeous French zombie soap The Returned as well as cool meta- undead crime drama iZombie, while Bates Motel is opening its doors for a third season. But more exciting still is the news that Ash Vs Evil Dead is gearing up to begin its New Zealand shoot. Original Deadites Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell are on board for this 10part show with Campbell starring as an ageing Ash, out to pasture post- Necronomicon trauma until a new Deadite plague threatens to destroy humanity. Raimi will direct the first ep, due to air in the autumn/ winter this year. “Bruce, Rob and I are thrilled to have the opportunity to tell the next chapter in Ash’s lame but heroic saga,” Raimi told Variety. Hail to the king, baby!
Witching hour
Ever wondered what a horror film written by master playwright and former husband of Marilyn Monroe Arthur Miller would look like? I’m pretty confident that Where The Devil Hides ( out now on DVD) very much isn’t it. While this religious closed community- set slasher, where a prophecy surrounding six teenage girls born on the same day whips up a witch hunt, would probably like to be The Crucible reinvented as a modern horror story, it plays more like The Village on Halloween where in between the archaic language and the bonnets, sexy teenagers take their clothes off to a rock soundtrack. It is, to be fair, pacey and entertaining, with a decent cast, and the ending ( which would make Miller cringe) is at least audacious. Next month: Undeath Of A Salesman where Willy Loman is a zombie Avon representative