horror
Wake WoodMonday, 21 March 2011
In Wake Wood, Aidan Gillen and Eva Birthistle play a married couple who lose their nine-year-old daughter in horrific circumstances. In mainstream cinema, this would lead to the earnest soul-searching and Oscar-bait performances of films like In the... Read more... |
In a Forest, Dark and Deep, Vaudeville TheatreMonday, 14 March 2011
Dark this new one-act drama by American playwright Neil LaBute may be; deep, not so much. It has all the author’s usual hallmarks: an accumulation of sinister tension, disturbing sexual politics, the threat of violence. And in a taut, pacey... Read more... |
DVD: Let Me InThursday, 03 March 2011
If you’ve seen Tomas Alfredson’s remarkable Swedish adaptation of John Alfrede Lindqvist’s vampire novel Let the Right One In, then this US remake by Matt Reeves is far from required viewing. He shadows the original so closely, you’ll never be... Read more... |
Frankenstein, National TheatreThursday, 24 February 2011
Like the misbegotten monster at its heart, this stage version of Mary Shelley’s seminal novel is stitched together from a number of discrete parts; and though some of the pieces are in themselves extremely handsome, you can all too clearly see the... Read more... |
Q&A: Playwright Nick Dear on Adapting FrankensteinThursday, 10 February 2011
It is one of the most hotly anticipated new productions at the National Theatre in years, for which all but day seats have long since been sold out. Danny Boyle has been lured back to the stage to direct a version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In... Read more... |
Opinion: 3D is as revolutionary as the talkieMonday, 07 February 2011
Tainted by its origins and association with the pulp cinema of the 1950s (classics like Bwana Devil, It Came from Outer Space and House of Wax were pioneers of stereoscopic technology), 3D cinema has remained the province of entertainment cinema, a... Read more... |
Marchlands, ITV1Friday, 04 February 2011
A young girl runs in slow motion through the woods, the cameraman in hot pursuit: this is only the opening seconds of ITV1’s new drama series, and already I was wondering to what degree this new five-parter was going to test my cliché tolerance... Read more... |
Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales, Lyric HammersmithTuesday, 25 January 2011
The spinning roulette wheel, the revolver, the devil’s mask, and above all that lissom semi-naked female gyrating in silhouette against flickering infernal flames: we all remember the opening titles to Tales of the Unexpected, which made its first... Read more... |
Being Human, BBC ThreeSunday, 23 January 2011
Don’t you just hate it when your favourite cult show becomes everybody’s favourite cult show, and then to make matters worse even the damned Americans embrace it? But how could you not love a scarier, bloody version of the sitcom Spaced, or a... Read more... |
Black SwanThursday, 20 January 2011
They’re calling Black Swan BS on some of the dance websites, and while they’re right about the dancing, this is a whale of an enjoyable outing to the flicks: lush, Gothic, psycho and flavoursomely OTT. I don’t much care that Natalie Portman can’t... Read more... |
Hänsel und Gretel, Royal OperaFriday, 24 December 2010
Fairy tales are fear tales really, the sweetening (and sharpening) of every child’s worst nightmares, emotions long buried in adulthood but very easily tapped back into with good theatre productions. The Witch in Hansel and Gretel should be the... Read more... |
MacheteSunday, 21 November 2010
It is not uncommon for opportunistic film-makers to put together a flashy promo in the hope it will attract enough investors to turn it into a full-length feature. When Robert Rodriguez made the Machete trailer for 2007 double-bill Grindhouse,... Read more... |
