by
M.I.K.
The cover of The Mammoth Book Of Best Horror Comics, claims that it contains “OVER 50 OF THE GREATEST HORROR COMICS AND GRAPHIC SHORT STORIES EVER PRODUCED”.
It doesn’t.
Something being the “best” or “greatest”, is of course, a matter of opinion, (and there is some good stuff in here), but that doesn’t alter the fact that whether you agree with that part of the claim on the cover or not, there are only 48 stories in the book. This is probably a genuine mistake on the part of the publisher, but it’s an odd one to make, especially since all the stories are quite clearly listed in the contents section. Stranger still, if you google the title of this book, you’ll find it on sale alongside a picture of what is obviously an earlier version of the cover which claims it contains “60″ stories.
This isn’t the only mistake in the book. Two of the stories have their pages printed in the wrong order, which rather messes up the structure of the tales.
However, these are just minor niggles, as overall this is a very well put together and varied collection. The Book is divided into four sections, each devoted to a different era of horror comics and each preceded by a small chapter on the decade in question, all written by the editor, Peter Normanton. Normanton also provides a foreword and notes on each story. He’s no stranger to horror publications himself, having edited the horror fanzine From The Tomb for the last eight years.
The stories are reprinted in black and white and while a few pages of colour wouldn’t have gone amiss, the reproduction is good enough. There’s plenty here to satisfy anyone’s craving for horror.
Overall rating 7.5/10
If you like this volume, as I’m sure you will, The Mammoth Book Of Zombie Comics is out in October and The Mammoth Book Of Best Crime Comics is out in a few days time.
The Mammoth Book Of Best Horror Comics
ISBN : 978-1-84529-641-4
Publisher : Constable & Robinson Ltd
544 pages Price : £12.99
by
Jova
I picked up a rental of ‘Five Across The Eyes’. The story? On coming back from a football game, a group of young women are lost on taking a shortcut through a back road. They are pursued by a deranged driver.
The DVD cover was dotted with “award-winning” blurbs. It must be good if it won awards. It was even described as “smart” and “original”.
Unfortunately, I should have taken a large pinch of salt on reading this “rave” review.
I was bored to tears listening those women talking about inane things. The movie is really about 5 women being hysterical; crying and running all over the place. There were no scary moments nor any suspense.
Yes, there were some scenes of gore which would appease a few horror fans. However, I’m not interested in gore. It seems to me that current horror movies are all about blood-letting and that disappoints me.
I suppose the concept of a group of women being chased by a stranger for no reason can be scary never mind cliched, but it was poorly executed.
Grainy video footage and awkward camera angles. The actresses couldn’t act, in fact they should get a refund from their acting school. The dialog were weak.
For the love of God, please do not waste your time watching this DVD.
(Update)
I rate this movie 3 out of 10. And I’m being too kind.
by
Countess Duckula
I’ve just finished a good read from Ramsey Campbell, a unusual combination of Lovecraftian mythos and English folklore.
Its plot concerns the Price family who live in a small English town near a sinister wood called Goodmans wood, and how they are inescapably drawn in to it by the entity that exists there.
The family consists of Margo, an artist, and Lennox, a professor who is now in a local mental hospital because of his experiences in the woods. Their adult children are Heather, a solid, ‘unimaginative’ type, and her sister Sylvia, who is in many ways her opposite. Sam is Heather’s 23 year old son.
The woods themselves have a history of local folklore concerning the “Good Man”, although as Sylvia points out, “It’s often placatory, that kind of name.” At night, local girls see the “sticky man” outside their windows. And at the centre of the woods lie the remains of a mysterious tower torn down by the locals generations ago…
Throughout the novel, the woods are frequently described as if they are actively moving by themselves, rather than passively being moved by the wind or lit by the sun. Actions are implied and motives for them are suggested. It isn’t too long before you start asking yourself: “What are the trees? What are they, really?”
Campbell heightens this effect by using the somewhat unreliable nature of human perception. It’s a very persuasive technique (since this is what tends to be behind “paranormal” experiences in real life) and works well as we see the woods through the eyes of the characters.
The way in which these strange sights affect their emotions as the story unfolds is also handled very convincingly. At the beginning of the story, the characters only think they see something. Was it just a trick of the light, or was something there? About halfway through the story the characters start to want to deny those perceptions…and towards the end, Heather, the least imaginative one, desperately wishes for the time when she could actually doubt her perceptions.
The Lovecraftian aspects of the story are very nicely done. The woods display intricate patterns and colours which are tantalisingly just beyond the human mind, objects that seem to lack one dimension, and other subtle spatial dislocations. There’s also the fate of one unfortunate mage who, while travelling through the void, is reduced to a disembodied spirit which has suffered some kind of unimaginable damage “… that now cry’d out sans Voice for it import’d not what Manner of Bodie in which to procure its own swift Death”.
I found the conclusion to the tale satisfying, as the woods finally drop the pretense and reveal the sheer size and scope of the entity that was using them to “reach for the world”. There’s also a nice twist as things return to “normal” at the end, and an unexpected use of theme of the crazy person who understands the truth of what really went on…
Recommended 9/10
Read it with some trees around 
by
Countess Duckula
Just a quick contribution for now…
I found this enjoyable article on the classic Hammer Horrors while looking up some stuff about the new Hammer studios. It comes from a site called “Obsessed With Film”.
It’s got a bit of the history of the original studio, good summary of the impact of the movies in their time and place, and some great pictures.
“More Sex and Violence, Please, We’re British”
by
Ghastly McNasty
Funny Games (2007) is an English language remake of Michael Haneke’s 1997 Austrian film of the same name. I’ve not seen the original so I can only give you my opinion of this version. However, this film is a direct shot by shot re-make of the original, the director wanting to bring his film to a new audience, without losing any of he impact that made Funny Games a highly acclaimed hit in Europe.
The hapless victims in this film are Naomi Watts and Tim Roth who play a happily married well off couple who are taking their yearly boating holiday with their young son. Pretty decent names for a film that is clearly too dark for mainstream America. The happy couple have retreated to their summer home on the lake and while Roth’s character George is out the back checking over the boat an unusually dressed polite young man has dropped in to the house to borrow some eggs. Initially Ann, played by Watts, is more than happy to oblige but it soon becomes clear that the unexpected visitor isn’t really after any eggs, he and his similarly dressed companion are more interested in playing their sinister funny games.
What follows is the physical and psychological torment and torture of the couple and their child by these two charming, polite and thoroughly evil strangers. While you might think you’ve seen a hundred of these types of films already Funny Games does enough to stand out from the rest.
Opinion
Although the original was made over 10 years ago its message is just as relevant today. Maybe even more so as Haneke’s movie is commentary on our current obsession with violence in the media and our voyeuristic attitude to on-screen sadism. Cleverly the director manages to keep most of the violence off-camera using the threat of violence to induce the fear in the viewer.
The audience isn’t allowed to develop a connection with the annoyingly smug bourgeois family. Instead we are placed on the side of the 2 protagonists, Peter and Paul, who are playing a giant sick prank for no other reason than it’s fun to torture people. Throughout the film Paul makes unusual statements like ‘You can stop anytime you want’ and ‘You’ve brought this upon yourself’. He’s not just referring to the the victims but to the audience themselves, reminding them that they chose to watch this film but they can switch off any time they want.
The camera work is fairly intense as well. There are some lengthy scenes which use only 1 camera shot to drag out the terror for longer portions. It’s an unusual film with some quite unique moments. I don’t really want to give away some of the tricks of this film but it does step outside the boundaries of reality at times that makes you wonder just who Peter and Paul really are.
Rating
As a word for word, shot for shot remake of a film it’s up to you whether to watch this or the original. It is just another home invasion film but the movie’s 2 anti-heroes are both interesting and strange enough to warrant 2 hours of your time. 7/10.
Ξ June 9th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ TV |
by
Ghastly McNasty
The latest season of Supernatural kicked off on British TV last night and it was one of the best episodes i’ve ever seen. It’s one of four specials to celibrate the new season and based on this episode i will be making an effort to catch them all.
The plot was the usual ghost slaying affair but interestingly told via Blair Witch style camera work. The film crew, known as the ‘Ghostfacers’, are caught up in some un-worldly happenings at a local haunted house but fortunately for them Dean and Sam Winchester are on the scene to save their sorry asses.
What made this episode so great is that it was filled with tongue in cheek humour and witty dialogue. Well worth a watch.
by
Ghastly McNasty
The Cottage is a British comedy horror film, written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams. It stars Andy (Gollum, Gollum) Serkis, The League of Gentleman’s Reece Shearsmith and the buxom Jennifer Ellison as token eye candy. Apparently Ellison’s character was originally meant to be a 40 years old woman but was changed to a young hottie to make sure the film achieved maximum sales.
The story concerns 2 very different brothers, Serkis’ hard-man and brains of the outfit David, and Shearsmith’s wet lettuce of an accomplice Peter. It’s clear from the off that the brothers have a very strained relationship to begin with and Peter is extremely upset he has now been dragged into David’s seedy world of crime and corruption. Their crime? The kidnapping of a local crime boss Arnie’s daughter Tracey to be held for ransom for the huge sum of £100,000.
Now it’s obvious that Peter isn’t cut out for this kind of work. Highlighted when the foul mouthed Tracey attempts to escape and beats Peter to a pulp with her hands, literally, tied behind her back. Unfortunately the third crime partner in this escapade, the victim’s stepbrother Andrew, is even more incompetent than Peter. Andrew was supposed to deliver the ransom but instead unwittingly brings a bag of tissues and the crime lord’s knife wielding henchmen in tow.
David’s realisation that he to is a fool for using 2 complete idiots as business partners comes too late. As his pathetic plan slowly slips out of control the hostage escapes in to the woods where things suddenly take a turn for the even worse.
Opinion
This is a film of two halves really. The first half is a comedy crime heist gone wrong with witty one-liners that will have you chuckling with delight. The second introduces a deranged killer and some good gore shots where the comedy becomes more physical and slap stick. Therein lies its problem.
I really enjoyed the first half and what I can only describe as the worst ransom negotiating attempt ever. Serkis and Shearsmith are absolutely hysterical bouncing off each other with great comic timing. Both characters work well as complete opposites, each infuriated with the others attitude. There’s no horror involved, unless of course you count when Reece Shearsmith’s moth-phobic character gets stuck in a room full of the little winged devils, but the film rollocks along at an entertaining pace.
The second half of the film is quite unusual and doesn’t quite work as intended. The audience has spent so long laughing at the catastrophic criminal cock-ups that we’re incapable of being scared by any of the horror. I’m too busy waiting for the next gag to be able to feel any of the main characters fears. The film is still funny in places but it now comes as standard that modern horrors will try to outwit each other with amusing and inventive deaths. The Cottage offers nothing new on it’s limited budget and originality eventually runs dry.
Dont let any of the negatives put you off. As a comedy this film is a success! The next in a good line of recent comedy horror Brit flicks such as Severance (2006) and the legendary Shaun of the Dead (2004).
Rating
Watch it for laughs and you’ll thoroughly enjoy every minute as the script and acting has some great comedy moments but don’t expect to be scared or you’ll be severely disappointed. Overall a highly respectable 8/10.
Visit the official The Cottage website here.
by
Ghastly McNasty
Storm Warning is an Australian horror film directed by Urban Legend director Jamie Blanks. The film stars French actress Nadia Farès and Aussie Robert Taylor as a happily married couple who, after an enjoyable afternoon boating, are stranded on an remote island and take shelter in a local farmhouse.
Unfortunately the farm is home to a family of lawless Aussie rednecks made up of the psychotic Jimmy his mental brother Brett and their insane tyrant of a father Poppy. Already pissed off with the intrusion in their house the sadistic hillbillies imprison the yuppy couple and submit them to degrading abuse and torture. It soon becomes clear that in order for the pair to survive the ordeal they’ll have to play the tormentors at their own game. To quote the film’s heroine, “To catch a mad dog, you must think like a mad dog - only madder.”
Opinion
I’m trying not to sepnd too much time talking about this movie. It has both good and bad points, the marvelous amount of gore being one of it’s finest attributes. However, it’s just another torture-porn movie in a time when every other horror film is just another torture-porn movie.
Robert Taylor’s portrayal of Rob, the ‘hero’ of the film is rather lack lustre but maybe that’s because his character is a complete and utter pussy. You almost want him to get his ass tortured just so maybe he will grow some balls. In comparison Pia, his wife, becomes a hardened killer bitch, dishing out bloody retribution with unnatural ease.
The 3 villians are suitably crazy enough to fill the standard crazy redneck role we see in so many of these movies. There’s nothing hugely original though. It feels like any other movie where some one gets lost in the woods and stumbles across a proper nightmare.
Rating
Nothing new to see here but it will keep you mildly entertained. 6/10
by
Countess Duckula
Junji Ito is currently Japan’s top horror “manga-ka”, and, with his “Museum of Terror” series, I had a lot of fun finding out why.
Currently there are three volumes of “Museum of Terror”, a reprint in English of his short stories, which also follow the right-to-left reading format. His “Tomie” stories are well-known, and are collected in “Museum of Terror” vols. 1 and 2 as well as being made into movies.
Ito’s style is realistic and atmospheric, but strongly Japanese. His stories tend to disturb with grotesque twists, instead of just relying on violence and gross-outs…although there’s certainly no absence of gore, either.
His characters seem to be trapped in a capricious world where there isn’t any objective good or evil, only evil consequences. At first glance, I felt bored by the absence of flashy art and the rather simple page layouts, but one plot twist later, and I’d pretty much lost my taste for big-eyed manga pap.
(As a quick digression, I have fond memories of my first contact with his work, which was MoT vol 3. I really didn’t know what to expect, except that buying a volume of short horror stories instead of one long story seemed like a good idea with a new manga author. )
So, I was waiting for the train home, listening to some pleasant lounge type music, and reading “Bio House”, a story about a powerful old businessman who tries to tempt his pretty young secretary to join him in indulging her more…interesting appetites. So there she is, sitting at the lavish, gruesome dinner table, and casually holding up a refreshing glass of “snake’s blood?”… that was when I knew I’d found something…special. After devouring, sorry, enthusiastically reading, the rest of the book, I moved on to read Ito’s “Tomie” stories.
Tomie is an eternally young, perfectly beautiful Japanese schoolgirl who drives women mad with envy and men crazy with desire. In fact, they become so obsessed they usually feel the need to dismember her for some reason…but she just won’t stay gone. Men, women, children, Tomie destroys the lives of everyone who is unfortunate enough to come across her…
Interestingly enough, the characters meet their doom through their own actions rather than hers. But these tales are not morality plays, because in Tomie’s world, it seems that no-one is too innocent or too sane to escape untouched. There is a certain sense of fatalism about these stories.
The variety of the stories comes from the widely different characters who meet Tomie, and the different ways she works on their individual psyches to the inevitable, destructive conclusion. But the violence against Tomie isn’t some sad, mysogynist fantasy, because somehow Tomie always seems to win in the end. She regenerates, and propagates, with the inevitability of a virus, and in one story involving jealous brothers, her attempted destruction results in multiple Tomies, once again stalking their way into an unsuspecting world.
It’s a fascinating, disturbing look at sexual desire, obsession, and beauty, taken to a very…Japanese…extreme, and I do mean that as a compliment. Japanese horror tends to be more disturbing than our fare over here in the Tame West.
This is some of the best horror manga around…recommended to anyone who likes a true femme fatale…
Recommended 10/10
(The images in this article are from the Tomie stories and are © Junji Ito and Dark Horse Comics.)
by
Ghastly McNasty
Spanish horror film The Orphanage (El Orfanato) is director Juan Antonio Bayona’s debut movie. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro is listed as a producer of this film and it’s possible to draw some similarities between this movie and Toro’s own Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), both drifting between reality and fantasy in an unusual but effective manner.
Spanish actress Belén Rueda gives a strong performance as a mother who returns with her husband and son to the orphanage she spent time in as a child, to re-open the home as a sanctuary for disabled children. Located near a lovely beach and overlooked by a lighthouse the beautiful house holds many secrets that our heroine doesn’t know as she was re-homed before the orphanage was closed. Secrets that the living want kept secret and the dead need the world to know!
The family’s only child Simón, who was adopted by the couple, starts playing games with a group of imaginary friends who teach the child thing about himself he has yet to be told by his parents. When suddenly Simón disappears without a trace, his mother has to join in the ghostly games to solve the mystery and save her son.
Opinion
It’s nice to watch a ghost film that has an original plot and charming storyline. The majority of modern horrors churn out the same gang of teenagers being brutally murdered in as many horrific ways as possible. The Orphanage manages to get its scares without relying on gore.
It’s not massively scary. There are a few moments that will tighten the sphincter, in particular a very tense séance session that gets your heart racing. There’s also a little deformed orphan boy that wears a mask that could give you a few nightmares. Mostly the film relies on creaks and groans and things going bang in the night to put the frights up viewers.
This film is about the terror of losing a loved one to the unknown and relies on you becoming emotionally involved with the movie in order for you to fully appreciate it. As the film nears its conclusion there is a twist that’s both heart breaking and joyous. It should stay with you for a few days after which is often an indicator of a good film.
Rating
Beautifully shot film relying on atmosphere for its creepiness. A chilling yarn without any bloody violence, and for that it gets an 8/10.
Ghastly 
M.I.K.
Countess 
Jova