Horror Bites - Black Sabbath

THREE FACES OF FEAR (1963)

Ah the old style horror anthology, it's always one of my personal favourites as a structure for the novelty of each chapter and the variety involved. From the '60s to the '80s there are many to choose from. They do tend to vary in scope (and sometimes quality) whether it's something like Creepshow with a lot of stories, or the smaller scale Two Evil Eyes which as the title suggests is split down the middle. The original name here also gives this one away as it's a trilogy of horror tales. They're bookended by a great intro and ending from Boris Karloff, who also features as a character in the second of these.

Horror Bites - Swamp Fever

THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES (1966)

With the over saturated zombie genre still shambling forward, sometimes it's refreshing to go back and look at the kind of thing that was around before 1968. A simpler time when reviving the dead was still all about voodoo magic, and nobody had to eat the flesh from anyone else's bones. Despite George A. Romero's reinvention of the whole revived corpse idea being just couple of years ahead in the same decade, it manages to feel worlds apart from the sort of stories that came before. However that isn't to say that John Gilling's film about occult rituals in rural Cornwall is bad, it's just very different. In fact it's one of the best Hammer horror releases in their catalogue.

Horror Bites - Hopping Mad

QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1967)

The classic Hammer archive is full of what you might consider remakes and new versions of old material, which is particularly true of earlier the Universal properties. But they also had their a hand in adapting TV serials which the BBC had produced several years before. Taking an older story and giving it the full colour big screen treatment might not seem like most creative endeavour but the result is one of their best science fiction releases. It's a bit of a leap from the usual Gothic horror, but they retain a few recognisable elements including cast members from the likes of Dracula Prince of Darkness and director Roy Ward Baker who would go on to make a few of his own vampire features for the studio. This is hardly a big budget adaptation and some of the sequences are laughable, but there's plenty to like. It's story with a lot of atmosphere no matter how ropey things look at times.

Horror Bites - The Witch

SUSPIRIA (1977)

Dario Argento's baroque tale of ballet and blood is a kind of a crazy fork in the road when you consider the films he made which came before. The straightforward detective mystery elements which were so strong in his earlier films have been almost thrown out entirely. Some stylisation was always present of course, but even the telepathy subplot in Deep Red was nothing compared to the madness which would follow. The whole strangers in a foreign land idea is still present, but the rest of the familiar ingredients are almost gone. The shift in colours and sounds alone as American student Suzy (Jessica Harper) passes through the airport doors are just a hint of what is to come. It's a surreal journey into the occult in which reality is almost completely absent. Let's take a look at why this nightmarish journey is such an enjoyable ride.

Review Roundup - Spore

ANNIHILATION (2018)

Interesting, small scale science fiction stories are something I often harp on about. There's just something appealing about features which are cold and clinical in their approach whether the subject matter is alien life or artificial intelligence. So, it's typical that this sort of thing is given an extremely limited release and then the freshly minted 'dumped on Netflix' treatment. Why this was deemed necessary is a mystery beyond some vague notions that it lacked broad appeal, but in an age when low budget horror films are often successful I fail to understand why a few marketing tricks wouldn't have solved the problem. But I digress, this is a follow-up to Alex Garland's Ex-Machina. Where his 2015 film looked at life being developed in a robotics laboratory, this is all about the creeping dread of unknowable organisms from outer space. It's a shift in theme but the result is just as successful.