THE HOUSE OF THE SERPENT *** Japan 2022 Dir: Hiroshi Takahashi. 77 mins I quite enjoy the Asian ghost story usually in the framework of an urban legend. When it works, there is a special look and feel as in the brilliant Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman (2007) to the genre classics like the Ringu series, Kwaidan (1964) and House (1977). These pictures would often mix contemporary social commentary with supernatural influence. The world of family history, demons and witchcraft all come together in Hiroshi Takahashi’s talkfest The House Of The Serpent (2022) Takahashi wrote the first two installments of the…
Author: Terry Sherwood
Terry Sherwood
Terry Sherwood Born in Ottawa Ontario, Canada; Terry is a "Monster kid ', film fan and popular culture person. Once worked in television as a commercial writer/ Director. Writer of the SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET site covering aspects of the Horror Genre from Books, Comics, to Film old and new. He has previously written for WE BELONG DEAD and MONSTERMANIA magazines, The Spooky Isle UK website, Horror hound and Turner Classic Movies. Published Book of own writings titled SCREEN AND SCREEN AGAIN: ESSAYS ON THE HORROR FILM on amazon world wide plus contributed to other genre books. Chaired numerous convention panel discussions on Horror and Comics Terry is member of The Horror Writers Association and Dracula Society in U.K.
TIME ADDICTS ** Australia 2023 Dir: Sam Odlum. 92 mins Desperation, drugs and time travel paradoxes in the house force Denise and Johnny to battle the past the future and themselves in Sam Odlum’s Time Addicts. Dialogue and scene-chewing screechy voices abound in this Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966) by Mike Nichols crossed with a lovely horror comedy by Steve Miner called House (1985). The Mike Nichols film comparison surfaces since the main force in Time Addicts (2023) is bickering, swearing and looking comically tough. Denise (Freya Tingley) and Johnny (Charles Grounds) are drug buddies living in Melbourne. When…
TERROR AT RED WOLF INN ** USA 1972 Dir: Bud Townsend. 90 mins Some folk rave about 70’s and 80’s horror films. Some today want to bring back that look, the naïve feeling, the simple look of those productions. All well and good even when there were those video nasties to push the ideas to an extreme. Terror At Red Wolf Inn was produced by Michael Macready who would also give us the superior two Count Yorga films and directed by Bud Townsend. The film opens with a rather ridiculous wholesome Seventies love ballad that turns out to be a…
ANOTHER DAY TO LIVE THROUGH *** UK 2023 Dir: Peter Simmons. 81 mins Nordic Noir is huge in fiction and in film with the original and remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The icy landscape, the bleak buildings, the shadowy people with a lot going on behind the eyeballs that sometimes stay in their sockets. Not set in snow and ice Another Day To Live Through (2023) preaches a closed world of dysfunctional people with a lot going on who are trapped in a nightmarish isolation. The film opens with a naked bloodied woman Satu (Lene Kqiku) slowly…
FINAL SUMMER * USA 2023 Dir: John Isberg. 82 mins Oddly when watching the opening minutes of Final Summer (2023) I thought I was viewing just about every camp slasher film made with the scary story campfire sequence. Is this a homage to those eighties horror films which frankly are becoming clichés? Let’s redo what influenced us because we can’t think of anything else and it’s safe. Everything is here that many have seen before which for me could serve as an intro to those that have never seen a slasher film. The film plays much like a lot of…