ALIEN ***** USA/UK 1979 Dir: Ridley Scott. 115 mins (The Director’s Cut) / 116 mins. It’s easy to forget, in the wake of its more action and FX-driven sequels, just how wonderfully slow-burn creepy the original ALIEN is. Heavily influenced by much lower-budget genre fare like IT! THE TERROR…
Browsing: Franchise Corner
Franchise Corner Entry: THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE ***** U.S.A. 1974 Dir: Tobe Hooper 80 mins Tobe Hooper made several clever, hugely entertaining and witty movies, though, when he died in August 2017, only one dominated the obituaries. It needs no introduction – whole books…
CREEPSHOW ***** USA 1982 Dir: George A Romero. 115 mins Romero and Stephen King’s loving tribute to the EC Comics of their youth resulted in the most purely entertaining horror anthology since Amicus’ heyday. Stylistically, it’s one of the greatest cinematic evocations of a comic book world : the cinematography…
Franchise Corner Entry: FEAST FEAST **** USA 2006 Dir: John Gulager 88 mins The end result of a season-winning script from movie-making reality TV series “Project Greenlight” (shepherded by executive producers Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Wes Craven), this confident directorial debut for Gulager is an energised, frequently hilarious splatter…
Franchise Corner Entry: HOUSE HOUSE *** USA 1985 Dir: Steve Miner. 91 mins Emerging in the midst of trends for horror comedies (it came out the same year as RE-ANIMATOR and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) and post-ELM STREET FX-driven “rubber-reality” horror, Sean S Cunningham’s light-hearted Bad House movie stars…