Talking to my friend Mike about horror theatre was an absolute joy! We talked about some of our shared favourites, plays that I ABSOLUTELY HATED and why we think horror on stage is so effective.
Full disclosure, my intro to this episode is quite teary and sad. I fully understand if you don’t want to hear that bit, so please skip to about 4 minutes in, when my chat with Mike starts. I missed it in my new intro, but content warning – there is mention of a play being “a suicide note”. There is no further discussion around this, but wanted to let you know :)
The lovely Javid Rezai and Stella Talpo, Director and Producer and star of new “psycho-glitter” short The Belladonna joined me for a chat. We talked about Javid and Stella making movies together from the age of 7, a shared love of Paris Hilton (HONESTLY, the venn diagram of horror fans and Paris lovers is wild!) and ensuring a production remains authentic.
A female-led, queer, indie horror film will always get my attention and it’s a genuinely beautiful, moving short. Keep an eye out for it at a film festival near you!
I chatted to the wonderful Garreth Gibson of Gibson Graphix about being a neurodivergent artist, impressive collabs and getting turned down by Ben Stiller.
Despite the absolutely iconic imagery of Vincent Price as Dr Death, Madhouse is a film that has somehow slipped by me. The new release from Eureka Entertainment was the perfect way to see it for the first time – in HD, followed by an introduction to by horror novelist Stephen Laws, a video essay by horror and gothic scholar Mary Going and audio commentary by film historian David Del Valle.
As always, Vincent Price was a delight to watch. Price was quite possibly the most handsome, charismatic and magnetic actor to ever grace our screens. And seeing him alongside the equally legendary Peter Cushing is always a good time.
I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but Madhouse is one the earliest meta, self-aware horror movies I’ve seen. Watching older genre films is always fascinating, seeing how much they have influenced other writers and directors. Surely Madhouse was a huge inspiration for Wes Craven when creating the genius work that is New Nightmare. I love anything that looks at film-making within film, especially from a 1970’s perspective.
Madhouse is a lot of fun and considering how much I’ve seen the image of Price as Dr Death over the years, I can’t believe I’d never seen the film. But this is why physical media is so important! New releases alert us to gems we’ve missed and now get to discover and enjoy and more importantly, in light of Sony’s nonsense this week, KEEP FOREVER!
It’s a beautifully shot film with wonderfully camp characters and performances. I really enjoyed it and definitely going to pick up the gorgeous limited edition Blu-ray next time I’m physical media shopping.
It’s always bloody lovely to guest on a podcast, but even bloody lovelier when it’s on one of your favourite podcasts. I chatted about the incredibly under-rated Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, after the long-awaited sequel was announced. Hurrah!
I love chatting with Ben and Andy. They are both such good eggs and it’s always a laugh hanging out with them :)
Diabolic is a new religious horror, available in the UK from next week. After suffering terrifying blackouts, a young woman returns to the religious compound where she was raised. As she unravels the dark secrets of her past, an ancient ritual unleashes the vengeful spirit of a cursed witch.
I love horror about religion and I enjoyed Diabolic, because it’s the first time I’ve seen a movie focused around The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While I don’t think Diabolic does anything ground-breaking, it’s really interesting to see a horror set outside of the usual Catholic and Christian churches. All I know about the Mormon church, I learned from The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and The Book of Mormon. So it’s safe to say, that’s not a lot!
Elise, played by Elizabeth Cullen who will star in Evil Dead Wrath, has escaped from a Mormon compound. She’s so desperate to rid herself of the blackouts that are seemingly caused by her trauma, she ill-advisedly returns to the community for a ritual to restore her memory. Nothing about this seems like a good idea, so it’s a little frustrating that not only Elise wants to go ahead, but her boyfriend and best friend come along for the ride. Strength in numbers, perhaps, but it is the first of many silly choices from the characters. The story is heavy on religious horror tropes, but I guess that’s what we’ve come to see.
What Diabolic does do really well, is give us beautiful sets and great practical sfx. It’s a really gorgeous film, with a lovely colour palette and atmospheric locations. I was really pleased to see so much practical work and it’s really effective – two of the things that are guaranteed to freak me out (as vague as possible – repeatedly banging your head and coughing up a hairball!) are present. And freak me out, they did. It was also really nice to see a queer storyline. I can’t speak to whether it was an accurate portrayal of the church’s response, or overall depiction of the church, but it added an interesting angle.
As predictable as the story felt at times, it’s still worth a watch to enjoy the visuals and experience a different type of religious horror. A solid 3 star movie!
Diabolic will be available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Monday 25th May. Thank you to Strike Media for letting me review the film!
The Devil’s Candy is a dark, atmospheric, disturbing horror that doesn’t get the flowers that it deserves. With a metal soundtrack, powerful performances and haunting visuals, it is an absolutely beautiful film.
The second feature from The Loved Ones and Dangerous Animals director Sean Byrne, The Devil’s Candy fits firmly into a subgenre that I love – metal horror. Painter Jesse and his family move into an isolated, rural home and his sudden artistic inspiration comes from an unexpected source. Jesse and his daughter are metalheads – long hair, tattoos and headbanging on the school run. It’s always nice to see metallers in a film that feel authentic – not what a fancy dress shop says we look like. Ethan Embry, who plays Jesse, is a heavy metal fan himself so it really was an authentic performance. There is an incredible original score from Michael Yezerski and a bangin’ soundtrack featuring Metallica, Sunn O))), Pantera, Machine Head and Slayer.
The Devil’s Candy is also visually stunning. The editing and cinematography masterfully juxtapose horrific acts with Jesse’s creative process. (The scene with the bathtub is just gorgeous.) The Satanic and religious imagery littered throughout is unsettling and works perfectly with the metal soundtrack and score. Dark imagery and dark music, paired with a loving family that feels full of light.
Ethan Embry as Jesse
The cast is small, but perfect. Ethan Embry is fantastic – he is able to balance the loving, devoted father and husband side of Jesse, with the “tortured artist” side without either ever feeling like a stereotype. The intensity of his performance is captivating and I think it’s Embry’s best role. Pruitt Taylor Vince is chilling as Ray, a genuinely intimidating presence who somehow elicits fear and sympathy. Shiri Appleby as Astrid and Kiara Glasco as Zooey are also brilliant as Jesse’s wife and daughter, anchoring him to reality.
Limited edition release from Second Sight
The ever-wonderful Second Sight have given The Devil’s Candy a beautiful release on limited edition 4K UHD & blu-ray, which you can preorder now and will be available from 25th May. There’s a fantastic commentary from Sean Byrne, interviews with Embry, Director of Photography Simon Chapman, Editor Andy Canny and Production Designer Tom Hammock. There’s also a vfx feature and two of Byrne’s short films, Advantage Satan and Work? The limited edition boxset also includes 6 art cards and a 120 page booklet of essays – one of my favourite things that Second Sight does with their releases. This is a 5 star movie, with a 5 star special release and I can’t recommend it more.
Thank you to Second Sight and Aim Publicity for sending me the release to review.
Could there be a more perfect pairing than Second Sight and Hammer Films?! As someone who is working through the Hammer back catalogue, these releases are an absolute gift and a dream. Originally released on special edition, both films will be available on standard blu-ray from Monday 25th May.
The Mummy and Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell are new films to me and it’s been great being able to watch them, immediately followed up by special features talking about the history of Hammer and the impact of the films. Both have fantastic performances from the iconic Peter Cushing, a highlight of my Hammer history lessons, as well as the incomparable Christopher Lee in The Mummy.
Of the two, The Mummy is my favourite. The neon green lighting is stunning and much more of a visual treat than the muted palette of Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell. Terence Fisher’s take on two classic monster stories is interesting to see – I feel The Mummy has been far more influential on horror, than Frankenstein… The look of the Monster (good ole Darth Vader himself, David Prowse) is very different than other iterations I’ve seen over the almost 100 years of Frankenstein on screen. While this creation wouldn’t necessarily be my favourite of Frankenstein’s monsters, it’s nice to see Hammer doing something different. I definitely want to see the studio’s other Frankenstein stories!
The Franz Reizenstein score for The Mummy and the James Bernard score for Frankenstein… are both beautiful. They just don’t make film scores like that anymore. The music in both films is lush, atmospheric and absolutely getting added to my horror scores playlist. Both blurays contain special features about the scores, which is a delight. We don’t get extras dedicated to the score very often and when we do, it’s usually from Second Sight!
The new artwork from Graham Humphreys is gorgeous too. Beautiful additions to my physical media collection and more gaps in my horror history filled!
I love getting to chat to people about movies, so talking horror on Let’s Talk Horror was a good time! We chose Barbarian out of a shortlist of possible choices and I love getting to share my appreciation of Mama. What a sweet baby angel!
I’m always conscious of talking TOO much when it’s not my podcast, so didn’t want to shoehorn in some small business Barbarian merch recommendations! But I’ll share them here, as I love them!
The incredible monster-maker extraordinaire, Tom of The Evil Shed, has sculpted the most gorgeous plaque of Mama. She’s not on the website at the moment, but keep an eye out for Tom at conventions as she’s often on display there. Tom’s work is INSANE and I’d love to own some of his busts, as they are masterpieces!
It’s the second week of January and, somehow, I’ve only watched four movies so far this year. 2025 had a bloody brilliant start, with me going to see Nosferatu on New Year’s Day – 2026 hasn’t started with as majestic a bang! (Although seeing 28 Years Later and The Bone Temple as movies 3 and 4 has helped!)
Last year was absolutely brilliant for horror cinema and I thought I’d write a round-up of my year in horror. I fully planned to do this last January, wrapping up 2024’s movies. I mapped it out, got as far as February or March, got overwhelmed and ditched it. So this year, I’m eating the elephant in chunks (or whatever that weird phrase is) and breaking it down. I want to challenge myself to write more regularly and forcing myself into a 12 month retrospective is hardly the best place to start!
I am relying on love of my life, Letterboxd, to go through my year otherwise I won’t bloody remember anything. As I go month by month, I’ll link to various reviews and videos to mix it up a bit, in an attempt to make this somewhat digestible. I logged 311 films in 2025 (god knows how many I forgot to log…), covered 7 film festivals as press and got so many brilliant review opportunities. I’m a bit proud of myself, even if I don’t know what to do with that feeling.
New movies
Nosferatu was a wonderful way to start the year and I fell in love with how beautiful it was. The cinematography, costumes, score, performances and Orlok himself were all exquisite. In typical me fashion, I’d planned to write or record a full review but after I left this hilarious Letterboxd note I left it as it was. Nosferatu was also my second movie of the year – I went back to watch it again, this time on IMAX which really allowed me to see the glorious depths of the darkness.
After the excitement of Nosferatu, I was really excited for the rest of the year ahead. The first horror festival of the year was Horror on Sea (which is running as I write) which, for me, was a mixed bag of films. A few were awful, but don’t want to name names as I always feel terrible being negative about indie films. Plus, it may just not be my taste and someone else may love it. But there were also some pretty good and some absolutely great films.
My favourites of the festival were The Mill Killers (2024) and Protein (2024), two Welsh movies that I think were just brilliant. Both perfectly captured the feeling of small Welsh towns and I will always love seeing Wales portrayed on film. I’d definitely recommend both – The Mill Killers is available to watch for free on Prime and you can rent Protein on Prime too.
Marginalia (2025) was an absolutely gloriously absurd movie, which I’d really love to see again. It doesn’t seem to have been released in the UK yet, but I’m hopeful for a physical media release.
The other new watches for the month were Books of Blood (2020),A Bay of Blood (1971), Room 6 (2006), Funeral Home/Cries in the Night (1980) and Swamp Thing (1982). I don’t recall any of them particularly standing out to me, as I didn’t rate or review any of them. But I’m always pushing myself to watch new-to-me movies, instead of rewatching, so I think that was pretty good going. I also watched Bottoms (2023) – not a horror movie, but I love queer movies and I’m definitely trying to watch more non-horror movies and push myself out of my comfort zone a little.
Talking of my comfort zone, though, I rewatched Hereditary (2018) and The Monster Squad (1987). Two movies I will always go back to for a dose of comfort and familiarity – just on opposite ends of the wholesome scale!
Podcasts
I put out two podcast episodes in January 2025, both with very different themes. For Horror Hyperfixations, I waxed lyrical about my love of Ghost Stories and talked to myself about my favourite play for over 3 hours. SPOILER – I ended up going to see Ghost Stories 4 times in 2025. Not that I’m obsessed, or anything…
And furthering my attempt to watch movies outside of the horror genre, I watched Transformers the Movie with my friend Kev for Speshul Features. I’ve never been a Transformers girlie, but the soundtrack slapped and there was a dinosaur robot. Sold!
Books
I go into most years with the goals of reading more, writing more, watching more, so reading Schrader’s Chord by Scott Leeds was a good start to inspire me to keep reading in 2025. When you’re late for work because you can’t put your book down, you know it’s good! (Spoiler: I didn’t read anywhere near enough last year, but at least I read!)
Sam Munster | Horror Hyperfixations 