Copy supplied for review Helen Grant's previous book Too Near The Dead was a thoroughly absorbing ghost story, and well worth a read. Her new novel Jump Cut is, I'm pleased to say, even better. Writer Theda Garrick is fortunate enough to have succeeded where others appear to have failed, and gained access to elderly … Continue reading Review: ‘Jump Cut’ by Helen Grant (2023)
TV shows had scared me before. But nothing had ever given me the true sense of awe that Close Encounters did (and, largely, still does) the first time I saw it. That's awe in the Romantic sense of the sublime, in which it borders on terror. Every time I watch the film, there's some new … Continue reading First Frights: ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ (1977)
Is The Droving Folk Horror? I was asking myself this more and more the longer this (admittedly short¹) film went on. It certainly uses some familiar tropes: an outsider comes to a "remote" location; there are people wearing animal masks, and there are rumours of magic & ritual. Some moderate spoilers follow. Martin (a superb, … Continue reading …but is it Folk Horror? “The Droving” (2020)
Any discussion of Yukio Mishima's life and work has to deal, at some point, with his death. A right-wing nationalist appalled by the Western influence on Japanese society and culture, he tried to lead his own personal militia in a coup. It failed and Mishima immediately committed seppuku - ritual suicide - before (following the … Continue reading The Japanese Proust? Yukio Mishima
"At last, the night has a hero" - Cabal strapline. I've written elsewhere about the anticipation my friends and I felt in the months before the release of Clive Barker's second feature film Nightbreed in the autumn of 1990. Not that we got to see it: an unimpressive box-office in America meant it only got … Continue reading At last…Clive Barker’s ‘Nightbreed’ (1990/2014)
Bernard Rose's 1992 film horror Candyman was adapted by him from Clive Barker's 1985 short story "The Forbidden", published in volume 5 of the groundbreaking Books of Blood. Candyman transports the action from Barker's Liverpool to Chicago, specifically to the "projects" (US term for "housing scheme") of Cabrini-Green. In addition to the source material's look … Continue reading Clive Barker: “Candyman”, “The Forbidden”, Place, Race & Time
K-Punk collects blog posts and interviews from a twelve-year period (2004-2016) by cultural theorist and critic Mark Fisher. Fisher, who took his own life in early 2017, is a key voice in understanding the cultural and political malaise we find ourselves in. His three previous books are all essential reading for anyone wanting orientation in … Continue reading Mark Fisher: “K-Punk”
Dungeness occupies a peculiar place in the English psyche. If the more overtly symbolic Dover cliffs can be read as embodying England's stance toward Europe - aloof, haughty, withdrawn - Dungeness, whose geography is far less confrontational, is more ambiguous. It is an English wilderness; one of the largest expanses of shingle in Europe. It … Continue reading Every fertile inch: Derek Jarman’s “Modern Nature”
This piece was an unsuccessful competition entry. The brief was "memories of cinema-going". Not for us the spurious joys of cider by the fountain, or Tennent’s behind the hut in the top park. The summer my friends and I turned sixteen we marked this coming-of-age by getting into the cinema to watch 18-rated films. With … Continue reading 1990: summer of cinema
Into the Gyre 