Some horror films have the look of what is thought to be yesteryear. Many employ this for the story, the actors to be a certain style of the time for nostalgia. One of the moments you notice when viewing these is the Directorial choices that often are too modern for the time. The lighting is not for black and white photography that was often done by Europeans fleeing trouble in their countries. Casting your mind back to the days of Dead Of Night (1945), and The Ghost Train (1941) and sprinkling in the crime work of Director Basil Dearden you have the wonderful experience of Sean Hogan’s folk horror short film To Fire You Come at Last (2023)
Evocatively photographed in early Mario Bava ‘Black Sunday’ style in black and white you find a group of men who have been coerced into walking a coffin to the local graveyard for burial. However,...
Evocatively photographed in early Mario Bava ‘Black Sunday’ style in black and white you find a group of men who have been coerced into walking a coffin to the local graveyard for burial. However,...
- 10/17/2023
- by Terry Sherwood
- Horror Asylum
What good is a canon? It's a question that hovers in endless debate near cinephile culture. The idea of distilling cinema down to its "best" or "most essential" films is like a game or a thought experiment, and whether it be the AFI or Sight & Sound or a group of Young Turks looking to rattle conventional wisdom, canon-making demonstrates nothing so much as a desire to assemble an expansive, fragmented, and still-evolving sense of film history into some sort of definitive order. Canons, each with its own biases, are useful chiefly as a starting point or a basecamp. The best answer is to always be looking, always curious. And cinema has barely more than a century to keep up with. I wonder how bibliophiles cope.One of the virtues of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, which begins on May 28th, is how it mixes classics and arcana on a level plane.
- 6/3/2015
- by Duncan Gray
- MUBI
We look at the scary films you can get your teeth into this Halloween Week.
Aberdeen 31st The Exorcist, the Vue.
Belfast 30th Little Shop Of Horrors, Odyssey Cinema. 30th The Lost Boys, Odyssey Cinema. 31st Beetlejuice, Odyssey Cinema. 31st A Nightmare On Elm Street, Odyssey Cinema.
Birmingham 31st The Cat And The Canary, with live music, Town Hall. 31st Nosferatu, Town Hall. 31st The Exorcist, the Electric Cinema. 31st Ring, the Electric Cinema.
Bristol 31st Frightfest All Nighter: ABCSs Of Death 2, The Pact II, The Editor, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, Last Shift, Watershed.
Brynmawr 31st Halloween all-nighter: The Shining, Scream, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Howling, Night Of The Demon, Market Hall Cinema.
Cardiff 31st Alien and Aliens, the Vue. 31st Motley Movies: Ring, Portland House.
Derby 31st Dead and Breakfast: Hellraiser, Psycho Beach Party, Torso, Wolfcop and An American Werewolf In London.
Dundee 30th Dundead: The Ghost Train,...
Aberdeen 31st The Exorcist, the Vue.
Belfast 30th Little Shop Of Horrors, Odyssey Cinema. 30th The Lost Boys, Odyssey Cinema. 31st Beetlejuice, Odyssey Cinema. 31st A Nightmare On Elm Street, Odyssey Cinema.
Birmingham 31st The Cat And The Canary, with live music, Town Hall. 31st Nosferatu, Town Hall. 31st The Exorcist, the Electric Cinema. 31st Ring, the Electric Cinema.
Bristol 31st Frightfest All Nighter: ABCSs Of Death 2, The Pact II, The Editor, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, Last Shift, Watershed.
Brynmawr 31st Halloween all-nighter: The Shining, Scream, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Howling, Night Of The Demon, Market Hall Cinema.
Cardiff 31st Alien and Aliens, the Vue. 31st Motley Movies: Ring, Portland House.
Derby 31st Dead and Breakfast: Hellraiser, Psycho Beach Party, Torso, Wolfcop and An American Werewolf In London.
Dundee 30th Dundead: The Ghost Train,...
- 10/26/2014
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
International Women's Day | Under The Skin + Jonathan Glazer Q&A | 1982 Rulez | The Hippodrome Festival Of Silent Cinema
International Women's Day, Bristol & London
Bristol's Translation/Transmission takes International women's day at face value with a documentary survey of women's activism around the world. The scope is equally diverse, from a 1970s deconstruction of Rapunzel to poet Audre Lorde's Berlin years. Each screening is accompanied by discussions and/or introductions. Taking a different tack, April's Birds Eye View film festival launches with a BFI screening of doc Wonder Women! The Untold Story Of American Superheroines, a celebration of female super-empowerment taking in the likes of Xena, Riot Grrrl and, of course, Lynda Carter.
Watershed, Sun to 30 Mar; BFI Southbank, SE1, Sat
Under The Skin + Jonathan Glazer Q&A, London
Blending his visual virtuosity with a mystifying Scottish sci-fi story, Glazer's latest movie is beguilingly strange and highly anticipated. But the questions just...
International Women's Day, Bristol & London
Bristol's Translation/Transmission takes International women's day at face value with a documentary survey of women's activism around the world. The scope is equally diverse, from a 1970s deconstruction of Rapunzel to poet Audre Lorde's Berlin years. Each screening is accompanied by discussions and/or introductions. Taking a different tack, April's Birds Eye View film festival launches with a BFI screening of doc Wonder Women! The Untold Story Of American Superheroines, a celebration of female super-empowerment taking in the likes of Xena, Riot Grrrl and, of course, Lynda Carter.
Watershed, Sun to 30 Mar; BFI Southbank, SE1, Sat
Under The Skin + Jonathan Glazer Q&A, London
Blending his visual virtuosity with a mystifying Scottish sci-fi story, Glazer's latest movie is beguilingly strange and highly anticipated. But the questions just...
- 3/8/2014
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Above: Spectacular full-scale derailment from the 1931 version of The Ghost Train (and also the 1941 version).
Arnold Ridley is fondly remembered in the UK as one of the stars of seventies sitcom Dad’s Army, about an incompetent and mainly superannuated group of volunteer soldiers in the WWII home guard, a show which made Ridley a national star at age 72 (it continued until he was 81). His sweetly doddering persona made a brilliant foil to the petulant Arthur Lowe, the dithering John Le Mesurier and gloomy Scot John Laurie.
One day, shooting on location in a graveyard, one of Ridley’s younger co-stars mused, “Hardly worth your leaving, is it, Arnold?” A rather harsh bit of humor: if you find it too mean, take comfort in the fact that the young thesp predeceased Ridley by some years, owing to liver failure. What larks!
But looong before Dad’s Army, Arnold Ridley found...
Arnold Ridley is fondly remembered in the UK as one of the stars of seventies sitcom Dad’s Army, about an incompetent and mainly superannuated group of volunteer soldiers in the WWII home guard, a show which made Ridley a national star at age 72 (it continued until he was 81). His sweetly doddering persona made a brilliant foil to the petulant Arthur Lowe, the dithering John Le Mesurier and gloomy Scot John Laurie.
One day, shooting on location in a graveyard, one of Ridley’s younger co-stars mused, “Hardly worth your leaving, is it, Arnold?” A rather harsh bit of humor: if you find it too mean, take comfort in the fact that the young thesp predeceased Ridley by some years, owing to liver failure. What larks!
But looong before Dad’s Army, Arnold Ridley found...
- 9/9/2013
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
The Ghost Train
Directed by Walter Forde
Written by J.O.C. Orton, Val Guest, & Marriott Edgar
Starring Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Kathleen Harrison, and Carole Lynne
UK, 85 min – 1941.
“I say, I wonder if I could teach you to talk. I wonder if you could say ‘Heil Hitler.’ Eh? No, not with a beak like that.”
A train speeds down the railroad, with nothing but dark, shadowed tracks ahead. Suspenseful nondiegetic music plays. The train accelerates, approaches and passes through the names of people involved in making the film – producers, stars, writers, and the director. This continues, until the audience no longer sees the journey from the train’s perspective. The train materializes out of a tunnel and the audience is placed at a safe distance from the suspenseful ride. These are the opening credits of Walter Forde’s The Ghost Train.
The basic plot follows the story of a group of train passengers,...
Directed by Walter Forde
Written by J.O.C. Orton, Val Guest, & Marriott Edgar
Starring Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Kathleen Harrison, and Carole Lynne
UK, 85 min – 1941.
“I say, I wonder if I could teach you to talk. I wonder if you could say ‘Heil Hitler.’ Eh? No, not with a beak like that.”
A train speeds down the railroad, with nothing but dark, shadowed tracks ahead. Suspenseful nondiegetic music plays. The train accelerates, approaches and passes through the names of people involved in making the film – producers, stars, writers, and the director. This continues, until the audience no longer sees the journey from the train’s perspective. The train materializes out of a tunnel and the audience is placed at a safe distance from the suspenseful ride. These are the opening credits of Walter Forde’s The Ghost Train.
The basic plot follows the story of a group of train passengers,...
- 3/11/2013
- by Karen Bacellar
- SoundOnSight
It's pretty amazing how Lego has gone from a connectible block set to a marketing phenomenon complete with video games, etc. Now we take a much closer look at their line of Monster Hunters. Dig it!
The Wolf Man - Seems to have mini figures of a werewolf and an old school adventurer or scientist...you know the kind with a pith helmet? Center pieces include a launching tree and a little buggy for the professor.
The Swamp Creature - Includes a water craft with two rockets to fire and a hunter to drive it into battle against the Creature with his harpoon! There's also a little alter-looking configuration for the Creature with a dead fish at its base.
The Mummy - A female monster hunter rides a sort of gyro-copter in pursuit of the Mummy on his chariot pulled by a skeleton horse. The Mummy has a whip and...
The Wolf Man - Seems to have mini figures of a werewolf and an old school adventurer or scientist...you know the kind with a pith helmet? Center pieces include a launching tree and a little buggy for the professor.
The Swamp Creature - Includes a water craft with two rockets to fire and a hunter to drive it into battle against the Creature with his harpoon! There's also a little alter-looking configuration for the Creature with a dead fish at its base.
The Mummy - A female monster hunter rides a sort of gyro-copter in pursuit of the Mummy on his chariot pulled by a skeleton horse. The Mummy has a whip and...
- 2/14/2012
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
I'm always amazed at how casually monsters and horror have worked their way into media seemingly made for "kids". The Pirates of the Caribbean films (from Walt Disney) have had zombies, fish monsters And unkillable skeleton pirates. Hell, those lovable Ewoks from Star Wars set out to Eat our heroes when they first met. Never forget what the "Luka Luka Luuuuka" song really means.
Lego has obviously always had an appreciation for the macabre, whether it be the inclusion of a zombie in the first series of Mini Figures or the extra bits that come with the Star Wars Hoth Wampa Set ... like the pile of bones, human skeleton and Tauntaun leftovers. Family Fun!! Now Lego is taking things up a notch, replacing its awesome salute to Mars Attacks (Alien Conquest) with a line called Monster Fighters!
Since the New York Toy Fair is actually three weeks away, all we've...
Lego has obviously always had an appreciation for the macabre, whether it be the inclusion of a zombie in the first series of Mini Figures or the extra bits that come with the Star Wars Hoth Wampa Set ... like the pile of bones, human skeleton and Tauntaun leftovers. Family Fun!! Now Lego is taking things up a notch, replacing its awesome salute to Mars Attacks (Alien Conquest) with a line called Monster Fighters!
Since the New York Toy Fair is actually three weeks away, all we've...
- 1/27/2012
- by Nomad
- DreadCentral.com
Pete Postlethwaite's autobiography reveals his total commitment to his craft
The hell-for-leather pace of this memoir by the maverick actor Pete Postlethwaite is explained by the fact that death was knocking fairly insistently at the door as he put it together. When, finally, the film star's luminous energy began to wane last year, he invited the writer Andy Richardson to help him finish the project. This means that many of the earlier chapters – those dealing with Postlethwaite's youthful adventures and his career in subsidised theatre – have the speed and sketchy detail of anecdotes remembered in the pub. Undoubtedly, this was a man who spent a lot of time in pubs. But after reading this book, you come away with a sense that, given more time, Postlethwaite would have chosen a more completist approach to his own story.
Certainly, his attitude to acting was always perfectionist, if not obsessive. At one point,...
The hell-for-leather pace of this memoir by the maverick actor Pete Postlethwaite is explained by the fact that death was knocking fairly insistently at the door as he put it together. When, finally, the film star's luminous energy began to wane last year, he invited the writer Andy Richardson to help him finish the project. This means that many of the earlier chapters – those dealing with Postlethwaite's youthful adventures and his career in subsidised theatre – have the speed and sketchy detail of anecdotes remembered in the pub. Undoubtedly, this was a man who spent a lot of time in pubs. But after reading this book, you come away with a sense that, given more time, Postlethwaite would have chosen a more completist approach to his own story.
Certainly, his attitude to acting was always perfectionist, if not obsessive. At one point,...
- 7/2/2011
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
In 1986, the city of Lima, Peru, began construction on a set of concrete columns and passways that were supposed to be part the infrastructure for an electric train system. The plan fell through--maybe it was hatched before its time--and its remnants remained as an ugly reminder of the failure. As of this month, however, the remains have been repurposed into a colorful (and free) playground featuring swings, car tires, a zip line, and plenty of climbing structures.
The Ghost Train park was developed by Spanish group Basurama, which has also been involved in trash and waste-related art projects in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Mexico City. According to the group, "Public spaces in Lima sometimes generate insecurity and are besieged by car horns, we want to show that there's also room for people, and that we have to claim that." The same could be said of many American cities that are littered with abandoned structures.
The Ghost Train park was developed by Spanish group Basurama, which has also been involved in trash and waste-related art projects in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Mexico City. According to the group, "Public spaces in Lima sometimes generate insecurity and are besieged by car horns, we want to show that there's also room for people, and that we have to claim that." The same could be said of many American cities that are littered with abandoned structures.
- 2/17/2010
- by Ariel Schwartz
- Fast Company
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