The Directors: John Carpenter (1948 - )


John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) born in Carthage, New York, and raised in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the son of a college music professor, enchanted by movies, particularly Westerns, from a very early age, he enrolled in the University of Southern California's School of Cinema. After winning an Academy Award for his 1970 short subject, THE RESURRECTION OF BRONCO BILLY (completed while a film student at USC), Carpenter went on to direct a series of low-budget, highly-commercial and critically-acclaimed movies.

Review: Borderland [2007]


Dir. Zev Berman

Cast: Brian Presley, Rider Strong, Jake Muxworthy, Beto Cuevas, Martha Higareda


I have a dilemma with the genre of so-called "torture porn" that has muscled its devious way into the horror movie limelight in recent years, my primary concern is that countless movies are bypassed or just rejected due to this catch-all tag. Such movies as Hostel and Touristas are essentially nauseous, inelegant, and of virtually no redeeming cinematic value, whereas films like Martyrs, Saw, and now, Borderland, albeit sharing similarities to the former in tone, brutality and grittiness, have much more depth of story and cogency of execution to just be demeaned by a hip epithet.

News: Halo Legends Gets London Premiere


Free tickets available to see Halo movie on the silver screen at exclusive fans' showcase.

27 January 2010: Warner Bros Home Video is delighted to invite fans to one-off exclusive preview screening of brand new animated movie Halo Legends. Taking place at the Moving Picture Company, Wardour Street, at 6.30pm on 3rd February 2010, this will be the only chance to see Halo Legends on the big screen in the UK.

"We're delighted to be putting Halo Legends on the silver screen at this one-off event," says Dan Gilson, Warner Bros Home Video. "Seeing the film in a state-of-the-art cinema will be a real treat for Halo fans, and we're pleased we've been able to offer them this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

The super-exclusive event will be golden ticket only, with those interested in attending able to enter a prize draw in a number of ways. Simply follow @HaloScreeninguk, on Twitter, where the latest giveaways will be publicised.

Review: Terminator Salvation [2009]


Dir. McG


Cast: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter, Bryce Dallas Howard

When The Halcyon Company (the latest in a lineage of Terminator franchise owners) disclosed they were producing a new Terminator movie, to follow on from the monstrosity that was Terminator: Rise of the Machines, it seemed like the series was destined to be bastardised once again. Then, as if to add insult to injury from the perspective of the already disenfranchised fanbase, they inexorably announced that this fresh chapter would be directed by McG, who's solitary big budget experience, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, was not strictly the genre credentials everyone had envisioned for helming a righteous T2-worthy sequel. Add to this no Governator and some unknown actor constituting the lion's share of the screentime, could this truly be the film to extricate what seemed like a stagnant franchise?

Review: [●REC] [2007]


Dir. Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza

Cast: Manuela Velasco, Pablo Rosso, Ferran Terraza, Carlos Vicente, María Teresa Ortega

Sadly [●REC] is interminably and unjustly likened by reviewers to The Blair Witch Project, understandable given its plot, cast of characters and the cinematic mechanisms utilised, but that is undeniably where any similarity ends. Although The Blair Witch Project was a ground breaking film, particularly if we take into account it's pervasively cogent viral marketing campaign, if we were to assess the two movies essentially on their horror genre credentials then [●REC] is by far the exemplary title – if anything [●REC] is the film that Blair Witch should have been.

Review: Wilderness [2006]


Dir. Michael Bassett

Cast: Sean Pertwee, Alex Reid, Stephen Wight, Luke Neal, Toby Kebbell

Wilderness is director Michael Bassett’s follow-up to his creepy little World War I horror opus Death Watch and follows a multifarious band of juvenile delinquents and their custodians as they fight for their lives on a remote island against a lone, revenge-driven ex-special forces soldier. Wilderness starts languidly then spins out of control into an orgiastic display of rancorous dogs, crossbows and deadly traps, think The Children's Film Foundation meets Severance and you are some way to assimilating the cinematic niche where this black-hearted little film dwells.

Review: Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat [2002]


Dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis

Cast:  J.P. Delahoussaye, Mark McLachlin, Melissa Morgan, Toni Wynne

39 years to wait for a sequel is a long time. too long some would say. in 1963 Herschell Gordon Lewis bequeathed upon the world the prototypical gore film, Blood Feast, engendering drive-in screens across a whole nation to drip scarlet and interminably altering the face of horror cinema forever. Every gross-out, effects laden murder to grace the screen in the proceeding four decades have this low budget beacon to thank for it. Now take a minute and reflect on this, dear friends, this was NOT a case of a film that just happened to be shocking at the time, even by today's digitally embellished horror standards, this unpretentious little film, squeaking in at a mere 67 minutes, has more bloodshed per frame than all the slasher films that followed in it's wake. So the question remains, why a 39 year gap between this genre-shifting archetype and it's sequel? Well let's take a look at the evidence and see what turns up...