Hammer Films wasn’t just about Peter Cushing creating monsters or Christopher Lee hissing over a candelabra. They also dabbled in voodoo, Cornish superstition, and the occasional zombie infestation. 1966’s The Plague of the Zombies is one such detour; a gothic, fog-drenched curiosity that manages to be creepy, silly, and weirdly influential all at once.
The Gorgon (1964) – Review
Hammer Studios, by 1964, had already wrung Dracula and Frankenstein dry, so why not toss a Greek monster into the misty forests of Mittel-Europe? Thus, The Gorgon was born: a gothic stew of crumbling castles, candlelit laboratories, and one unfortunate mythological import who seems to have taken a wrong turn on her way to Mount…
Beauty and the Beast (1978) – Review
Somewhere along the line, someone in Czechoslovakia looked at Beauty and the Beast and thought, “This needs more dread, more feathers, and significantly less comfort.” This 1978 adaptation, directed by Juraj Herz, answers that call with unnerving enthusiasm. It takes a familiar fairy tale and drags it through a snow-covered nightmare where romance feels like…
The Haunting (1963) – Review
Robert Wise’s The Haunting remains one of the creepiest haunted house films ever made, despite the fact that you never actually see a ghost. Instead, it’s all shadows, creaking doors, ominous wallpaper, and the fragile unravelling of Julie Harris’s nerves. What Wise delivered wasn’t a carnival of scares, but a psychological chamber piece that still…
Peeping Tom (1960) – Review
There are horror films that creep up on you, and then there are horror films that stare you dead in the face through the viewfinder of a camera. Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom is one of the latter: a film so unnerving, so ahead of its time, that it destroyed Powell’s career, and only later was…