Author: Peter 'Witchfinder' Hopkins

DEAD HOUSE ** Italy 2014 Dir: Brini Amerigo. 73 mins A tonally shifting splatter movie that opens in post-HOSTEL territory: a sadistic Cockney bastard and his reluctantly filming, meeker brother order a married couple at gunpoint to fuck in front of their own daughter. When they fail to “perform”, all three die. The opening title sequence hints at future zombie action before we settle into home invasion territory, as a British family (scientist Dad, grumpy teen son with Troma collection, younger son and wife) are confronted with the psycho siblings and their comedy moustachioed Italian sidekick, who sadistically torment them…

With Halloween around the corner, and following the huge success of their limited edition debuts earlier this year, Second Sight is releasing a trio of horror classics on standard edition Blu-ray formats just in time for the witching season. The chilling horrors on offer take in everything from supernatural possessions and spooky goings on in haunted houses to evil aliens, from chills and unseen terror to out and out gore and exploitation. The terror trio are THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, THE CHANGELING and homegrown horror and video nasty classic XTRO. THE AMITYVILLE HORROR ‘Awesome…one of the best ghost stories and horror…

UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB **** USA 2018 Dir: Stephen Susco. 92 mins Shedding the supernatural angle of its predecessor, writer-director Stephen Susco’s DARK WEB retains its format, unfolding entirely from a computer screen during a five-way Skype chat between friends and incorporating the mediums of FaceTime, Facebook, Wikipedia and Spotify along the way. The opening cannily positions the story in our technologically saturated world: a series of failed log-ins as an unseen character repeatedly fails to type the correct password. This and almost everything else about the film will date it more than most of its genre stablemates though it may…

It took some time for fright-fans to really groove to the eclectic, insane and often inane brilliance of the late Bruno Mattei (ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH). Now, belatedly, viewed as a master of cut-price plasma-spillage, the time is ripe to revisit one of the great man’s wildest accomplishments – RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR. Unveiled to audiences of video-violence in 1984, this post-apocalyptic pot-boiler sees some of the last humans alive grapple with a horde of flesh-eating rodents – and a shocking final revelation that has fast become Mattei’s signature ‘twist’. Also featuring a superlative ensemble cast that includes such Italian gore…

2018 marks the 200th Anniversary of Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein, so it is perfect timing that the horror anthology TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN will released this fall to coincide with this momentous anniversary. This film stars Mel Novak (Bruce Lee’s Game of Death, An Eye for an Eye opposite Chuck Norris, Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance), Jerry Lacy (TV’s Dark Shadows), Ann Robinson (War of the Worlds), Jim Tavare (Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban), T.J. Storm (Punisher: War Zone) and Len Wein (Wolverine and Swampthing creator) in his final film. The movie is based upon four of writer-director Donald F.…