In 1950s rural Idaho, eight-year-old Seth Dove lives at a lonely gas station with his brittle mother and withdrawn father. After a vile prank on the English widow next door, Dolphin Blue, he decides she is a vampire. Children start to vanish. Then his brother Cameron comes home from the Pacific, where he worked on …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 18- The Reflecting Skin (1990)
I remember the first time I ever saw any scenes from The Brood was in the excellent documentary, Terror in the Aisles. I then went on to see the film from start to finish in a Film Studies lecture at university. There's a sinister institution within The Brood that's called The Somafree Institute of Psychoplasmatics. …
John and Laura Baxter travel to Venice following the death of their daughter in a pond outside their home. John has taken a job there restoring a church. Whilst in a restaurant, Laura meets two sisters, one of whom is blind but has the gift of second sight and can speak with the dead. She …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 16- Don’t Look Now (1973)
A beautiful woman prowls the streets of Glasgow at night in a van, picking up men and luring them to a deadly fate. But who (or what) is she? A film about a sexy but murderous alien set in Glasgow and starring Scarlett Johansson, you say?! Sign me up. This film really did get under …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 15- Under The Skin (2013)
A scientist invents a teleportation machine. It needs some tweaks before it’s ready (we saw what happened to a poor baboon earlier in the film) but when a second baboon isn’t turned into dog food, Brundle is convinced his device is ready. He decides to prove it the ultimate way- with himself. Unfortunately, a fly …
Philip returns to his childhood home and his wicked uncle. Past traumas come to the surface here. I was surprised that I had never heard of this film made by Matthew Holness and starring Sean Harris as Philip. But, on beginning to watch it, I realised why. The BFI logo came up and I soon …
Mark Lewis is a focus puller at a film studio who tops up his wages taking glamour photographs in a room above a newsagent. By night he films women as he kills them, chasing a look of pure fear. The habit comes from a childhood spent as his scientist father’s subject. Downstairs live Helen and …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 12- Peeping Tom (1960)
This 1965 Roman Polanski film centres on the character of Carol, a beautiful woman who works at a beauty parlour whilst living with her sister Helen in South Kensington, London. She's very childlike and seems to be not only sexually repressed but actually repulsed by men. Matters aren’t helped by a persistent young man called …
The blurb- ‘A brilliant yet tortured plastic surgeon creates a type of synthetic skin which is resistant to any damage. But his guinea pig is a mysterious woman who holds the key to his past and obsessions.’ For this movie, director Pedro Almodóvar said he wanted to create a ‘horror story without screams or frights’. …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 10- The Skin I Live In (2011)
An all-female group of scientists investigate a ‘shimmer’, a zone created when a meteor hits the earth which has a mutating effect on vegetation and animals within. This is an interesting plot which, unfortunately, feels like it’s been completely wasted. Unlikeable characters (all different but not one who I could empathise with), bad CGI which …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 9- Annihilation (2018)
Meathook Cinema 