Despite only being his second foray into horror, Kim Ji-woon has created a marvellous film that is simultaneously beautiful, terrifying, haunting, and (at first watch) immensely bewildering.

Aesthetically, it’s practically perfection. Kim, along with cinematographer Lee Mo-gae, have imbued the camera with almost a life of its own, as it creeps steadily around the shadow-filled house, which, coupled with the low-level, high-contrast lighting makes for a surprisingly claustrophobic atmosphere. In fact, it’s a mere five minutes into the film that we get one of our last external shots, echoing cannily the feeling of entrapment the sisters must feel after re-entering their home.

The duality of beauty and terror even seeps into the music, too. Lee Byung-woo, the film’s composer, has created a number wonderfully melancholic, highly memorable themes that Kim weaves skilfully alongside long periods of intense silence and sharp, jarring violin stabs.

It is the actors, however, that truly shine; all have been cast perfectly and play their parts practically without fault. You cannot help but feel compassion for the (appropriately) doe-eyed Su-yeon (Moon Geun-Young) the fiery, passionate Su-mi (Lim Su-jeong), and their rather haggard, taciturn father (Kim Kap-su); and Yum Jung-ah is wonderfully icy as the ‘wicked stepmother’.

It’s very easy to criticise films such as this with the hindsight of the plethora of mass-produced mainstream horror movies; in A Tale of Two Sisters, although the plot may seem a little derivative, it’s hard to make an argument for it; this film is, after all, based on a centuries-old folk tale. Similarly, one could pick up on a number of fairly generic cinematic tricks used in this film that various Western horror-hacks have also implemented to death in the past decade or so to try and keep their audiences entertained, but this is very easy to say with hindsight. Of course, I’m not suggesting that A Tale of Two Sisters pioneered such tricks, but because they’re executed so damned well, you just don’t care. A simple example comes when Eun-joo reaches slowly for a hairclip sitting innocuously on the kitchen floor. What would be over in seconds in your average Hollywood horror ends up taking practically an age under Kim’s direction. As her hand stretches ever-so-slowly to the hairclip, you become painfully aware of the dark recess underneath the cabinet nearby, and by directing it so Kim achieves the apotheosis of jump scares; one that makes you jump despite the fact you know it’s coming.

A Tale of Two Sisters is a film in which a great deal of time and effort has been poured, and this is evident in every single frame of the movie. Despite lagging a little here and there, the actors’ performances are engaging enough to drag you tenaciously into their slowly unravelling world and not let go until the film’s breathtaking conclusion.

…thus begins The Blair Witch Project, comparatively one of the most successful horror films of all time. Chances are you’ve heard the plot; three aspiring filmmakers venture into the Burkittsville woods to attempt to document the mythology of the Blair Witch, and get royally screwed over in the process. It’s simplicity at its finest.

Though the idea of ‘found documentation’ is hardly new, having been a fairly common technique in classic literary gothic horror, newbie directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez cleverly marketed the film to take advantage of the supposed “truth” of the events depicted within it. The resulting furore catapulted BWP into the spotlight, generating all sorts of hype; something that can arguably make or break a film.

Fortunately in The Blair Witch Project’s case, it doesn’t let us down. Myrick and Sánchez have crafted a film that is an exercise in restraint, steadily ramping up the tension throughout the film’s 81-minute runtime to climax with a simplistically chilling finale.

Superficially, being a ‘faux documentary’, it’s a very raw film. It contains no postproduction effects and no soundtrack, instead relying on the performances of the actors and the editing to carry it along. It goes a long way in proving the old adage that ‘less is more’; allowing the audience’s imagination to run riot in such a way that few modern horror films do.

Thanks to the (somewhat dubious) methods employed by Sánchez and Myrick, the performances by the trio of protagonists (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams, each using their real names) are distressingly realistic. Armed with only a vague outline of the scenes that occur within the film, the actors were left to their own devices to improvise dialogue. Whilst seeming somewhat artificial at certain moments (mainly during the day scenes), the choice to give them so much freedom shines through at night, during which the crew did their best to frighten the crap out of them. Without any prior knowledge of what the directors had planned, their reactions were entirely genuine. Of course, one could argue that in which case they weren’t ‘acting’ as such, more ‘reacting’…but what’re two letters between friends?

Occasionally the editing can make the whole film seem a little disjointed, somehow; it seems that the characters’ inevitable fall-out happens a little sooner than it should. However, with the fact that Myrick and Sánchez filmed The Blair Witch Project with the intention of mocking up the footage for a documentary in mind, to a certain extent normal filmic conventions don’t apply as much in this case. What is important is that the discord occurred; not necessarily how.

My only real criticism with The Blair Witch Project is the fact that it’ll never have quite the same impact as it had upon first viewing. Similar to 2009’s Paranormal Activity, when darkness fell, I found myself analysing every frame of the screen, anxiously waiting for something to jump into frame. However, having sat through it once and having become familiar with it, these scenes don’t quite pack the same punch as they once did. Nevertheless, The Blair Witch Project is a fantastic horror film that just goes to show how little is needed to terrify the pants off of you.

And make sure to watch it alone.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

And that’s it. It’s as simple as that. I believe the director himself summed it up pretty well when he said the idea of Machine Girl spawned from a concept he’d been toying with for a while; that of a girl in a bikini who gets her arm chopped off then takes revenge. This isn’t highbrow stuff.

For films such as this (and, similarly, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy, Peter Jackson’s Braindead and John Gulager’s Feast trilogy), the narrative is largely irrelevant; it merely serves as a precursor to introduce ridiculous amounts of gore into the equation.

I always feel like films such as Noburo Iguchi’s Machine Girl should be rated on a different scale than other films. Taking each constituent part of the movie into consideration, it is by no means a good film; the acting is hammy, the gore, though wonderfully copious, quite obviously fake and the narrative ridiculously simple.

However, despite all this – and this is what causes me to raise the issue of how to rate films such as this – Machine Girl is buckets of fun to watch. Judging by my (admittedly, not all that extensive) knowledge of Japanese animation, the whole film seems to play out very much like a live-action anime – or at least, a Westerner’s idea of what anime is. Everything about it is over-the-top, and therein lies its charm. It doesn’t matter that the plot is as thin as the shirt that Ami sports, or that she could have died twelve times over with the amount of blood she loses, or that the characters seem so over-exaggerated, because the sheer claret-soaked silliness of the film is what makes it so appealing.

Although Noburo Iguchi’s filmography prior to Machine Girl seems to mainly focus on the more ‘adult’ side of the Japanese market, he approaches the film with a clear love of horror; it wouldn’t surprise me to discover that all the horror films Machine Girl seems to reference make were deliberate – from Ami sporting a chainsaw on her stump after running out of ammunition, to the very cheesy 1970’s grindhouse-inspired opening credit sequence, to the moment a woman inadvertently vomits up her own intestines. It’s moments such as these that make it so much fun to watch.

In short, if you think the idea of a Japanese school girl trying to take down a clan of Yakuza with nothing but some pretty decent fighting skills and a machine gun arm appeals to you, then I almost guarantee you’ll love Machine Girl.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10 stars

After their parents’ untimely deaths, young Flora and Miles are left with their callously indifferent uncle who employs a young woman (Deborah Kerr) to both care for the children and teach them in his absence. As Miss Giddens begins to get to know the children she begins to suspect a dark secret hidden in the sprawling mansion she is residing in. Her suspicions are confirmed after the children begin to act strangely, and she begins to see two ghostly figures around the house; a man and a woman. After discussing these sightings with the housekeeper, it transpires that the figures bear a striking resemblance to two members of staff that used to work at the mansion years ago.

As the children begin to act more and more out of character (all too evident in a disturbing scene between Miles and Miss Giddens), Miss Giddens tries to track down the story behind the mysterious figures; leading her down a road that will both, at the risk of sounding clichéd, risk her life and her sanity.

Everything about this film harks to an era in which subtlety reigned. Nothing is ever too blatant or obvious; every feature of The Innocents plays its part quietly, altogether forming something truly chilling. The acting is phenomenal (by Kerr and the children especially), and the score, whilst largely absent, proves extremely effective when it is used. One particular melody haunts me to this very day; I’m sure you’ll know it when you hear it.

Having been filmed in 1961, The Innocents has the great advantage of being filmed in black-and-white. Whilst some classic horror films seem very dated because of this very reason, the monochromatic cinematography gives the film a fantastic gothic feel; actually adding to the overall effect that the film produces rather than detracting from it.

What’s even more impressive are the myriad levels on which the film works. Superficially, it works well enough as it is. However, where it truly excels is how laden it is with subtext and metaphor. It stands just as much a work of art as it is a piece of entertainment, and thus can be appreciated both enjoyably and intellectually. Indeed, in the case of the latter, the film opens itself to a lot of discussion (and still does to this day), especially considering the plot’s ambiguity.

This is the type of film I believe is largely missing from mainstream horror nowadays; and that’s a shame. Films that are just as smart as they are scary. Films that lend themselves to discussion and debate. Films that don’t rely on shallow ‘jump scares’ to affect the audience but instead work slowly and quietly on their nerves. There have been a couple, but they’re few and far between. And that’s a shame, in my humble opinion.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

After large groups of people bizarrely and without reason commit suicide in New York’s Time Square, a mass evacuation is called from the city. In the resulting pandemonium, The Happening follows the story of Elliot Moore, a high school teacher from Philadelphia who, along with a ragtag group of people (including his wife, Alma) flees into the countryside after the suicide virus spreads to Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square.

I wish there were more I could talk about, plot-wise; but sadly that’s basically it…the remaining hour of the film consists entirely of said group running away. Alright, they may be running from one house to the next, but at the heart of it they’re still just running.

In the time prior to its release Shyamalan tried to market his film as a B-movie homage, and if I’m honest I can sort of understand where he was coming from, but the trouble is it all seems to be handled so ineptly. It’s a great concept at its core, but for a horror movie it seems to be missing a hell of a lot of the horror.

The majority of the film handles rather like a ridiculously extended chase sequence. Taking Shyamalan’s comparison into consideration, I wouldn’t have necessarily had a problem with this; B-movies are known for their lengthy chase scenes. However, The Happening is missing an important ingredient in its chase scene(s); and that is something to run from. Of course, this may not be a bad thing; provided there is enough tension to hold the audience in thrall, if handled correctly, I’m sure a chase sequence sans visible antagonist is entirely plausible. But the thing about The Happening is that there’s hardly any tension whatsoever; most of the chases are set in broad daylight in wide open spaces. There is nothing tangible in this film for the characters to be running away from, and as such it seems to largely consist of shots of Mark Wahlberg et al galumphing across fields.

All this would be bearable if the film had an intriguing storyline and script, and some decent acting. But for some unfathomable reason everyone comes across as very wooden; even the gorgeous Zooey Deschanel, who usually manages to inject warmth and charisma into everything she’s in, seems starkly amateur. And as for the story…well let’s just say that for a director renowned for his intelligent twists, this film would have been an awfully good time to use one. A theory about the cause of the mass suicides is brought to light at the start of the film and continues to be thrown about all through the middle. So it comes as no bloody surprise to anybody when it turns out that this hypothesis was correct all along.

What makes it all the more disappointing is that The Happening actually started off rather intriguingly. Shyamalan creates some amazingly creepy moments with the scenes of suicide – a mass hanging being a particular highlight – but the whole thing ends up feeling rather pointless. Mind you, I should have realised what I was getting myself in for when, about ten minutes into the film, I heard Wahlberg utter the line “Science will come up with some reason to put in the books, but in the end it’ll be just a theory. I mean, we will fail to acknowledge that there are forces at work beyond our understanding”. He might as well have turned to the camera and dropped the audience a wink, for God’s sake.

Rating: 3 out of 10 stars

In Ryuhei Kitamura’s The Midnight Meat Train, Bradley Cooper plays Los Angelino photographer Doug, a character shunned by famed gallery owner Susan Hoff for taking photos regarded as empty and superficial, who becomes fixated on portraying in his work the true dark heart of his city. This inevitably leads him down into the subway, where he saves an attractive young model from a violent gang…an attractive young model that happens to go missing the very next day. In an effort to try and decipher what happened to her, Doug ventures down into the subway the next night and encounters a mysterious barrel-chested man. Certain that this man is the reason behind her disappearance, Doug descends slowly into obsession, jeopardising his relationship with his girlfriend, intent on snapping that one photograph that proves once and for all that his suspicions are founded.

It’s a shame, because for whatever reason, The Midnight Meat Train never got a mainstream cinematic release, instead being consigned to the shelves of DVD stores around the globe; and this outcome is very undeserved, for Ryuhei Kitamura has sculpted a darkly beautiful film. Kitamura, along with screenwriter Jeff Buhler, have crafted a film devoid of smart-talking villains or wise-cracking heroes; in fact, this is a film largely devoid of any form of humour at all, and it is all the better for it.

Vinnie Jones, playing the film’s antagonist, Mahogany, is wonderful at exuding a quiet sense of threat; emanating restrained menace entirely through body language without ever descending into overacting, and it’s certainly refreshing to see The Hangover’s Bradley Cooper playing a serious role. He plays the ‘nice guy’ very well; though his rapid plunge into insanity seems a little unbelievable at times. Mind you, I can’t claim to have seen any murders myself, so who am I to judge?

There’s plenty of fantastic blood and viscera for the gorehounds to lap up; though due to the film’s reliance upon CGI, it occasionally tends to come off as rather fake-looking and cartoonish. The practical effects, however, are superb; suitably icky and vomit-inducing.

I haven’t read the book, so unfortunately any of Clive Barker’s mythos that was uncharted by the film went over my head. That said, though, the film doesn’t seem to suffer tremendously from it; the narrative is largely coherent and the characters well-developed. However, where I feel a bit more back-story would be useful is in the last act; The Midnight Meat Train makes a rather unexpected twist that probably could have been hinted at a little more throughout the film. Still, if anything it keeps the audiences guessing and for that I’ll give it credit.

Kitamura has created quite an interesting little movie; providing enough gore to please the aficionados and yet still maintaining a level of psychological horror that draws the audience in to Doug’s dark obsession.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

Now I’m not one for blindly criticising films for being clichéd; in fact, far from it – for some horror films, being clichéd is half their charm. The trick said films have to achieve, however, is either to be great fun to watch, or absolutely terrifying…and this is where Steve Beck’s Thir13en Ghosts falls flat. It instead takes itself way too seriously, trying to shoot for the big target labelled ‘scary’ instead of ‘fun’. And sadly, it drastically misses its mark…both of them in fact; which is actually quite an accomplishment, considering it is a remake of a film of the same name directed by William Castle; a man who became famous for campy horrors in the 60’s and 70’s.

So Arthur, his family, the lawyer, and an electrician-who-is-really-a-ghost-hunter head over to the house, and surprise surprise, it turns out to be haunted by evil spirits. Twelve of them, to be precise. Who are all imprisoned within their own little cubicles down in the basement. And can only be seen by wearing these dorky-looking glasses. It transpires that Cyrus had plans of his own, imprisoning these ghosts in his house with the intention of harnessing their energy to power a machine that would allow him to see into the past and future; the Ocularis Infernum (that’s the “Eye of Hell” for all you non-Latin-speaking folk). Things go drastically wrong – both thematically and cinematically – though, when the team unwittingly lock themselves inside the house and release the twelve ghosts one by one.

There’s really not a whole bunch to say about this movie; the characterisation is pretty terrible, as is the acting; the editing – whilst clearly trying to startle the audience – ends up being more headache-inducing than anything, and to be honest any film in which the characters are stupid enough to lose each other in a glass-walled house isn’t really worth your time.

Credit where credit’s due, though; Cyrus’ mansion certainly shows a lot of thought, even if it does end up resembling an overgrown version of the Hellraiser puzzle box, and the Ocularis Infernum is quite an impressive sight to behold. Similar kudos goes to the design of the ghosts themselves; each has clearly been given their own unique lore that I find rather intriguing…though it’s actually quite telling when you find yourself wondering more about the film’s back-story than the film itself.

Rating: 3.5 out of 10 stars

So is its fame justified? See, that’s the odd thing; because even though it delivers some moments that have surely gone down in horror-movie-history, as a film – and I’m going to whisper this for fear of asphyxiation from all the people who might jump down my throat – it’s not actually as great as it is made out to be.

But before I go into why, it’s probably best to give a little plot synopsis. The film opens and we meet the typical all-American ‘mom and dad and two-point-four children’ Freeling family; normal, clean-cut and happily middle-class. However, things take a turn for the supernatural when Carol-Anne (the “-point-four” child) starts talking to the television. It seems that she has discovered ‘people’ living in there, and it’s not long before these ‘people’ escape and generally cause mischief and mayhem, eventually kidnapping Carol-Anne and trapping her in their netherworld. It is then up to medium Tangina Barrons (or is she a large? I forget…) to coax Carol-Anne back to her family and away from danger.

Poltergeist seems, very much, to be a film of two halves. This is unsurprising, considering that it was technically directed by two people. Even though Tobe Hooper is credited as being the film’s director, Steven Spielberg had a heavy hand in the film’s direction, too; however, due to his directorial role in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, a clause in his contract stated he was not allowed to direct any other film simultaneously. As a result, because of the two directors’ specific niches, the film seems a little schizophrenic; jumping between ‘humorous and cutesy’ and ‘pant-wettingly terrifying’ intermittently. Feel free to guess which director is famous for which.
Now normally, a schizophrenic film doesn’t make for comfortable viewing. But of course, this is a horror film, so actually, the dramatic contrast between the first half and the second makes the horror all the more stark in comparison. So fortunately, it all works pretty well.

The trouble I have with the film is that when it’s good, it’s fantastic. When it’s bad, however, it’s pretty dire. There are some moments that, as mentioned before, will justifiably be remembered for a long time to come, but there are some that simply shouldn’t exist in a movie from two directors of such high calibre. The script seems pretty cheesy at times, as well as having one or two plot-holes, and there’s a horrible edit in the middle of the film that actually cuts an actress off halfway through her line (which, coming from a filmmaking background, I find sort of unforgivable). But maybe I’m being overly critical. Certainly, the scares do exactly what they’re supposed to; as do the majority of the actors (Heather O’Rourke especially), the score and the special effects. And most importantly, they do it well so maybe it deserves some of the praise that’s been heaped on it after all. For whatever reason, it will always be a classic.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

Being a remake of William Castle’s 1959 low budget film of the same name, it’s naturally going to have a certain tackiness to it. However, with a little work, this film had the potential to transcend its B-movie roots. It could have been able to both pay homage to the array of cheesy haunted house tropes whilst teasing out a deeper rooted paranoia; the latter much in the same way that John Carpenter’s classic The Thing did.
Sadly, however, this doesn’t happen. With the exception of one example of some dodgy masonry, all the scares in the asylum are clearly of the supernatural kind and thus everything seems somewhat superficial.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Alright, William Malone’s House on Haunted Hill is never going to be on anyone’s top 10 horror movies list, but it’s actually quite a fun film to watch. Opening with an impressively creepy credit sequence, the scares, whilst very obvious, are pulled off well with some pretty disturbing – albeit somewhat derivative – imagery and some nicely set-up jumpy sections.

The actors all take a very game stab at the script, which unfortunately wavers between the witty and the cringeworthy; Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen’s squabbling especially. That said, though, Rush makes an excellent Vincent Price-ian showman, hamming it up in a suitably eerie way. And who can dislike SNL-graduate Chris Kattan as the cowardly, neurotic inheritor to the asylum?

Alas however, the film all falls apart in the final quarter when horror’s age-old enemy rears its ugly head. After setting up some rather impressively disquieting scenes, the film resorts to using CGI to provide the final scare and, of course, it all ends rather anticlimactically. Although trying to represent an evil that has been growing and festering for decades upon decades, it sadly ends up looking rather more like a slightly pissed off Rorschach test.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I’m a sentimental bastard, but House On Haunted Hill is one of the first horror films I remember staying up late to watch, and so it will always have a special place in my heart. I know it’s not great, but if you’re in the mood to microwave some popcorn and watch a trashy horror movie, then you can‘t go far wrong. It’s cringey, riddled with plot holes, and a little nonsensical…but on the bright side, it’s cringey, riddled with plot holes and a little nonsensical. And of course, who could resist Jeffrey Combs as the maniacal surgeon, Dr. Vannacutt?

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

With that in mind, does that mean that this one is just as bad as the others? The answer is a resounding ‘no’. Far from it, in fact; in my humble opinion, Gore Verbinski’s The Ring is one of the best horror films in recent memory.

Based on Japanese director Hideo Nakata’s Ring (which, in turn was based on Koji Suzuki’s book), we follow the story of Seattleite journalist Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) as she discovers a mysterious video tape that is rumoured to kill people exactly a week after they watch it. Whilst investigating the tape, she is led to a secluded island, where she unearths the story of Anna and Richard Morgan (Shannon Cochran and Brian Cox respectively) and their daughter Samara (Daveigh Chase). It is then up to Rachel to try and decipher the video tape’s curse before her week is up.

Keeping in mind that this is his first horror feature film, Gore Verbinski does a fantastic job at setting the atmosphere. The whole film is awash with a bluish tinge, lending even the busiest of Seattle’s streets a dreariness that adds to the sense of impending doom that the film portrays. The tension is ramped up nicely; only rarely does Verbinski fall into the old ‘jump scare’ trick (and even then it’s pulled off remarkably well, helped along with some fantastic prosthetics by make-up wizard Rick Baker. Those of you who have seen it will know what I’m talking about).

Ehren Kruger does a wonderful job of translating the script for Western markets, which must have been no mean feat considering how far Japanese culture stretches back in history. However, this says more about the quality of the original than of Kruger’s talent – watch the sequel if you don’t believe me. Actually, on second thoughts, don’t.

The actors all play their parts with much gusto – especially Naomi Watts, whose anguish at Samara’s vengeance is entirely believable – though David Dorfman and Daveigh Chase occasionally seem to have been taught at The Creepy Children’s’ School of Acting Creepily. But what the hell. They’re only kids and have a long way to go to truly exercise their acting chops.

Sequels and originals aside, however, I think what sets this film apart (and indeed, what sets any good film apart) is what can be inferred from it. Rather than this simply being a horror movie, it also critiques society’s reliance on technology – television especially; indeed, in a wonderful Rear Window-inspired shot, we see Rachel staring out at the apartment opposite, watching on as television is used to entertain, distract, or even in a more extreme case, baby-sit. It ponders the question that many modern films seem to be doing these days – where would be if technology turned against us? If this movie is anything to go by, then it‘s a safe bet that we’d all be decomposing in our closets. Apparently.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars