November 2009

REVIEW – My Bloody Valentine

Published on: 29th November, 2009

Without the gimmick of 3D, George Mihalka’s 1981 Canadian slasher My Bloody Valentine was forced to rely on suspense, character and gore, or at least until the MPAA got their hands on it. Produced by John Dunning and André Link, former collaborators of David Cronenberg, the thriller followed a wave of low budget slice [...]

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REVIEW – Amityville II: The Possession

Published on: 29th November, 2009

Whilst The Amityville Horror was a huge success upon its initial release, sparking the usual ‘cursed production’ rumours and catering towards the crowd that had previously flocked to see The Exorcist and The Omen. Another year, another haunted house movie, bur its popularity at the box office almost guaranteed a second film. Yet [...]

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REVIEW – Re-animator

Published on: 28th November, 2009

Having been dead and buried for several years, 1985 saw the revival of the zombie genre. Alongside George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead and Dan O’Bannon’s The Return of the Living Dead, Stuart Gordon made his feature debut with Re-animator, an over-the-top gorefest loosely based on a story by cult writer H. P. [...]

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REVIEW – Braindead

Published on: 28th November, 2009

By the end of the 1980s ‘horror’ had become a dirty word and so studios were re-branding their products as ‘psychological thrillers’ or ‘supernatural dramas.’ The zombie genre had also come to a standstill, with the final offerings of the decade including such misfires as The Dead Next Door and The Dead Pit. [...]

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INTERVIEW – ULLI LOMMEL talks Boogeyman II

Published on: 28th November, 2009

Not only did Ulli Lommel’s 1980 supernatural slasher The Boogeyman find its way onto the DPP’s ‘Video Nasty’ list but so did its sequel.
With a co-directors credit by Bruce Starr, Boogeyman 2 (alternatively known as Revenge of the Boogeyman) was soon removed from the DPP list but would not be re-submitted to the BBFC until [...]

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INTERVIEW – MATT CIMBER talks The Witch Who Came From the Sea

Published on: 28th November, 2009

Continuing on with our ‘Video Nasties’ retrospectives, filmmaker Matt Cimber discusses how his movie The Witch Who Came From the Sea caused controversy during the 1980’s. Amongst the first to be added to the DPP’s list of offensive videos, the film was soon removed but would not be passed by the BBFC until 2006.
What kind [...]

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INTERVIEW – JAMES BRYAN talks Don’t Go in the Woods

Published on: 27th November, 2009

One ‘Video Nasty’ that many splatter fans now consider a ‘guilty pleasure’ is James Bryan’s Don’t Go in the Woods, an extremely low budget slasher flick that mixed DIY effects with a camp score. Now often dubbed ’so bad it’s good,’ the movie has recently been discovered by a new audience thanks to the Code [...]

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INTERVIEW – LUIGI COZZI talks Contamination

Published on: 27th November, 2009

If one pattern has emerged throughout our continual coverage of the ‘Video Nasty’ scandal it is that a large portion of these ‘obscene’ films were of Italian origin. One such feature was Contamination (read our article here), a science fiction horror that was released in the wake of the success of Alien. Shot by cult [...]

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REVIEW – Saturday the 14th

Published on: 27th November, 2009

You could be forgiven for thinking when the name Saturday the 14th is mentioned that the filmmakers were simply trying to rip off Jason Voorhees and the successful Friday the 13th franchise. You may also be forgiven for dismissing the movie as slasher schlock and a waste of VHS. But, truth be told, [...]

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REVIEW – The Gruesome Twosome

Published on: 27th November, 2009

Herschell Gordon Lewis had never been known for his subtly. Having conquered the ‘nudie cutie’ genre with Living Venus (loosely based on the life of Playboy’s Hugh Hefner), Nature’s Playmates and Boin-n-g in the early 1960s, Lewis and his producing partner, David F. Friedman, then turned their attention to gore with Blood Feast, supposedly [...]

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