London Horror Festival – The Wicker Hamper

When Marcie (Hannah Grace May) arrives to take up her new job in Winterisle, the only place to stay is the Bates Motel and room service appears to be possesed by the demon Pazuzu, you realise The Wicker Hamper is going to do more than just spoof the world of  Robert Hardy's 1973 classic The...

The Skull (1965)

I think the last time I saw The Skull it was it was a late night movie shown after ITV's News at Ten back in about 1974. What's more it was on a tiny a black and white portable telly. It still scared the crap out of me as an impressionable teen, so you can...

Leytonstone by Stephen Volk – Book Review

In 2013 the Hothouse joined the actor Peter Cushing as he attempted to resolve a case of child abuse while dealing with his own grief following the death of his beloved wife Helen, in Stephen Volk's novella Whitstable. Having spent a good deal of my early teens on the Kent coast I found Volk's evocation...

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Ask who the most influential film director in the horror genre is and it’s pretty certain that one name is going to loom over the Carpenters, Romeros and Del Toros and that name is Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock’s technique of layering suspense and anxiety over a story through meticulous visual storyboarding, innovative camera work and...