Graphic Novel • Lists • Fails • 70’s Cinema • K-Horror • Arthouse • Canadian Horror • Film Noir • Grindhouse • NC-17 • J-Horror • Exploitation • Sci-Fi • Pulp • Evangelical Horror • Favorites • Cult • Fantastique • Surreal • Animation • So-Bad-It’s-Good
Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
VAMPIRA: ABOUT SEX, DEATH AND TAXES
A now-obscure Finnish made documentary from 1995 about the one and only Maila Nurmi, a.k.a. Vampira
DARR: A VIOLENT LOVE STORY
Stalking and harrassment, Bollywood style.
THE RETURNING
A product of the Hong Kong “Ghostly Romance” subgenre, and a decent one
THE SERPENT’S EGG
A mislabelled horror film from Ingmar Bergman, his biggest folly and his greatest financial success.
THE PORTRAIT
A newly restored 22 minute version of a 1915 horror classic (far longer than the 8 minute cut with which we previously had to make do)
THE OMEGA PROJECT
This paperback original is not one of the rapture fiction genre’s better entries
BLASTED
This 1995 play will be probably be viewed as beyond the pale nowadays, but the skill with which it was put together is undeniable
THE BLUE PERIL
It took a century for this 1910 French classic to be translated into English, and the wait was nearly worth it
THE NEO-DECADENT COOKBOOK
As the back cover inquires, “Have you ever sautéed geometrical sex or eaten fate from the breasts of Minerva?”
BLACK BUTTERFLIES
Restraint is something you won’t find much of in a John Shirley story, and that’s particularly true here
ULTIMATE PORNO: THE MAKING OF SEX COLOSSAL
In the field of movie making-of books, ULTIMATE PORNO is one of the most obscure there is, yet also one of the few worth reading
THEY CAME FROM WITHIN: A HISTORY OF CANADIAN HORROR CINEMA
This well researched and eminently readable overview is the closest thing there is to a bible on Canadian horror cinema, a subject that isn’t discussed much
THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES…THE TRUTH HAS SET ME FREE!
A profoundly insane reminiscence adequately summed up by its own ungainly subtitle: “The memoirs of Bob Hope’s and Henry Kissinger’s mind-controlled slave…Used as a presidential sex toy and personal computer”
THE TEARS OF EROS
This heavily illustrated philosophical primer on the influence of death in the sacred and sexual was the final work of Georges Bataille, and a fitting testament to a man obsessed throughout his life with the link between ecstasy and horror
PSYCHO: BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE CLASSIC THRILLER
This is by no means the first book about the making of Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, but it is very likely the most definitive
Funnybook Flashback: XOMBI
The nineties were a banner era for weird media, comic books in particular
Ranking The Rankings: The “Best” Canadian Films
It’s been claimed that a third of the world’s most depressing films emerge from Canada and, having viewed many a Canadian film, I believe it
On THE INTERFACE SERIES
Here’s something interesting: a horror-science fiction “novel” related entirely in the form of Reddit posts
Cult Films In Search of A Cult
Having written about the subject for the past 20 years, I can discern what marks out cult films, and the following, I believe, are all prime candidates
Books You Should Be Reading
Many will disagree, but I say it’s a fact that my book reviews have in many cases helped inspire cults