Sex and horror have long gone together – both taboo subjects, both entertainment genres often dismissed by the mainstream and both held responsible by idiots for all manner of criminal and deviant behaviour. In the 2011 British horror anthology Little Deaths, the connection is pushed to the extreme.

Essentially three individual short films from the directors of  The Devil’s Business, Red White and Blue and I Zombie, this is a dark, sometimes disturbing, often outrageous effort that will probably cause outrage should the tabloid scum press ever get hold of it.

The first story, Sean Hogan’s ‘House and Home’, sees bored married couple Richard (Luke de Lacey) and Victoria (Siubhan Harrison) picking up homeless Sorrow (Holly Lucas), who is drugged and raped by the couple. However, their victim is not what she seems, and very soon the tables are turned in spectacularly gory manner. It’s a fairly predictable story – the twists being rather obvious – but has some outrageous moments – a facial cum shot, golden showers and nipple chewing to name just three.

Andrew Parkinson’s ‘Mutant Tool’ is a more convoluted affair, centering on prostitute Jen (Jodie Jameson), who finds herself hooked on drugs that are made from the emissions that drip out of the huge penis of an imprisoned mutant – enough information, I would imagine, to get your attention. Despite the outrageous premise, this is a quiet and bleak little story, possibly suffering from vague characterisation – you never quite get the connections that bring the characters together. The ‘mutant tool’ is a Cronenbergian creation, genuinely unsettling to see as it is milked, and the final twist is… twisted.

The final story is Simon Rumley’s ‘Bitch’, a sharp little story about Pete (Tom Sawyer), who is is in a dysfunctional relationship with Claire (Kate Braithwaite), that runs from BDSM sessions where he dresses as a dog – her greatest real life fear – and is buggered with a strap-on, to watching as she gets off with his best friend. Eventually, the constant abuse and humiliation becomes too much and he hires a lock-up garage, finds a few dogs and… well, you can probably fill in the gaps. While possibly a little reactionary about kinky relationships, this is an agreeably sour little tale that comes closest to the classic Amicus anthology style with it’s nasty little sting in the tail.

It’s unusual to see a British film so openly confronting sex and violence, and Little Deaths certainly pushes the limits. The common theme makes the individual stories fit together better than many multi-director portmanteau films, and each story has plenty going for it, none feeling over-stretched or over-indulgent. Fans of hardcore horror will find much here to make them happy.

Reviewed by David Flint – first published by Strange Things Are Happening

IMDb

Buy Little Deaths Unrated on DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Open Season is a 1974 horror/thriller directed by Peter Collinson (Fright, Straight on Till Morning). It stars Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law, William Holden and Cornelia Sharpe. The film was shot in both Spain and in England with parts of both countries used as the American backwoods. The screenplay was by David Osborn and Liz Charles Williams, based on Osborn’s novel. It was issued in several different cuts according to the territory of release and appeared in the UK as Recon Game.

Three veterans of the Vietnam War, Ken, Greg and Art, played by Fonda, Law and Lynch respectively, have struggled to reintegrate back into society after their experiences and though furnished with the trappings of a middle-class family life, they take an annual trip into the woods to take out their aggression on the local wildlife. Tiring of their haul of deer and squirrels, they turn their attention to human prey, specifically a holidaying couple (actually having an affair), young Nancy (Cornelia Sharpe) and not-so-young Martin (Alberto de Mendoza, best remembered from Horror Express).

What follows is a decidedly brutal game of cat and mouse, complete with rape, beatings, humiliation and torture. Taking its cue from as far back as The Most Dangerous Game (1932), this is far more than a traditional ‘hunting humans’ suspense tale, featuring relentlessly unhinged performances from the three ‘bad guys’ and an oddly unique couple as the victims.

The real hook to the film is the direction by Collinson, more famous as the director of the decidedly more respectable The Italian Job, throwing the viewer right into the midst of the action, showing much of the action from the perspective of the hunted, meaning that the traps and mistreatment come as both a complete surprise and are therefore even more shocking. Freeze-frames mid-action also add to the jarring, unusual set-up.

Fonda delivers an utterly gripping performance, his ‘casual evil’ a constant threat. Law’s clean-cut accomplice a massive departure from his other roles (the likes of Danger Diabolik! and Barbarella) and future genre star (God Told Me To, Cut and Run) Richard Lynch’s nerdy runt of the litter, are both excellent foils. Somewhat sandwiched in tone and theme between Deliverance and Rituals, the film delivers more evil sadism than both combined.

Cinema’s most disturbing use of ‘Run Rabbit, Run’ 

Reviewed by Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

The Pit and the Pendulum (released on DVD in the United States as The Inquisitor) is a 1991 horror film directed by Stuart Gordon and based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The film is an amalgamation of several of Poe’s tales, including “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Cask of Amontillado“. The film also appropriates the anecdote of “The Sword of Damocles“, re-assigning it to the character of Torquemada.

The film stars Lance Henriksen as Torquemada, Stephen Lee as Gomez, William J. Norris as Dr. Huesos, Mark Margolis as Mendoza, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon as Contessa D’Alba Molina, Barbara Bocci as Contessa’s Son, Benito Stefanelli as Executioner, Jeffrey Combs as Francisco, Tom Towles as Don Carlos and Oliver Reed as The Cardinal.

Set in Spain, 1492, Grand Inquisitor Torquemada leads a bloody reign of terror, torturing and killing in the name of religion. Upset with the way the Church is practicing torture, Maria speaks out during a public burning and whipping of a title-stripped family. Maria’s own beauty leads Torquemada into temptation and brutal atonement. Confused over his desires, he accuses Maria of being a witch and to be tortured until confession. During Maria’s interrogation, Torquemada cannot help but to stare at her naked body leading him to order her put in the prison. Imprisoned, Maria is befriended by Esmerelda, a confessed witch. Together they struggle to save themselves from the sinister Torquemada.

Outside the castle walls, Maria’s husband Antonio breaks into the castle to rescue his innocent wife. After a failed escape, Antonio is imprisoned for his actions and Torquemada decides to test his new machine of pain on him; The Pit and the Pendulum…

Wikipedia | IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes

“Although The Pit and the Pendulum has an escalating pace and even odd moments of humour which makes it feel a long way away in tone from a period Gothic like, for instance, The Monk (2011), it does have substance and much to recommend it, aesthetically, stylistically and in its imaginative development of a classic horror short story (not forgetting Richard Band’s sweeping movie soundtrack). Stuart Gordon is a versatile filmmaker, and his foray into historical horror has a great deal to offer those who enjoy films of this genre.” Brutal As Hell

“It’s vintage Henriksen, and probably one of the roles that proved he could carry a show likeMillenium - even as the antagonist of the film, he’s still compelling and even somewhat sympathetic at times. It’s those gray areas that he excelled at in his prime, and even though he’s an outright villain, Lance brings a humanity to him where lesser actors would have turned it into a cartoon.”
Horror Movie a Day

Castle of the Walking Dead (also released as The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism/Blood Demon/Blood of the Virgins) is the English title for Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel, a 1967 West German horror film, directed by Harald Reinl and starring Christopher Lee, Lex Barker and Karin Dor.

Mean old Count Frederic Regula (Christopher Lee) has been killing twelve innocent virgins in a bid to become immortal by turning their blood into an elixir, before he’s rumbled and brought to justice. A hooded executioner fits the Count with a spiked iron mask and he is quartered by four cart horses in the town square, all the time Regula vowing his revenge. Thirty-five years later, out-of-towner Roger Mont Elise (Lex Baxter, previously seen as one of the several on-screen Tarzans and in many Edgar Wallace mysteries) is searching for Castle Andomai in a bid to learn of his heritage, though the suspicious and superstitious townsfolk deny all knowledge of such a place.

Eventually a local priest, Father Fabian (Vladimir Medar) says he is going in that direction to perform a baptism and welcomes Roger onto his coach. Also on the same path is pretty Baroness Lilian von Brabant (Karin Dor, also seen in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice and Hitchcock’s Topaz - she looks very similar to Edwige Fenech) who is off to the Castle in the hopes of receiving an inheritance of some sort; her friend, Babette (Christiane Rücker) plays gooseberry.  Both Roger and Liliian have both received their invites care of the mysterious Count Regula…

Their journey takes up a full hour of the film, much of it through fog-filled forests and with cadavers draped over trees. The inn the priest was hoping to do his holy business has burned to the ground, though having already drawn a pistol and letched over Lilian, we’re already pretty sure that dog collar he’s got is just to keep him warm. When the group finally arrive at the Castle, Babette and Lilian are spirited away by the Count’s henchman, Anatol (Carl Lange), the dodgy Rev and Rog traipsing through a maze of traps to eventually find them.

A temporarily resurrected Regula announces that Roger has been brought to his Castle as he is the son of the man who sentenced him to death, whilst Lilian is the daughter of the 13th virgin who escaped and alerted the police. Roger is condemned to death whilst Lilian is required to donate her blood for the mad Count. Snakes, spiders, a pit and a pendulum all make an appearance, will they be enough to help Regula return from the dead forever?

A Count called Regula and all but one of the cast being dubbed does not inspire confidence BUT, this is a prime slice of Euro-horror and it is perfectly reasonable to mention this in the same breath as Mario Bava, even if just for the sumptuous visuals. Though largely off-screen, the execution of Regula that starts the film is rather eye-poppingly vicious. Soon after, the scenery and cinematography take centre-stage, the viewer quickly forgetting this is anything but a historical piece, despite the mythology in the plot being of the berserk Paul Naschy-kind.

The forest scenes are pure Bava, misty paths leading to spooky trees and hanging corpses, the colours just leaping off the screen. The castle is perhaps even more impressive, the dank catacombs layered with skulls, Bosch-like wall paintings, portcullises and of course, the Count’s diabolical laboratory. A supporting cast of spiders, scorpions and house-trained vultures all add to the gothic overload, even before the good Mr. Poe’s pendulum-related drama is wheeled in to spice things up a bit.

The acting is of above-average standard for such fare, though Lex is a little wooden. It’s to the credit of the other actors that this is far from a Lee-only vehicle, appearing for only about a third of the film. If the film does suffer at all, it’s that it’s, well, not very frightening.

For all the exquisite set-design and delicious visuals, it has none of the dread of Bava and despite the heinous crimes of the Count and his horrific execution, he poses no real threat on his own patch.

The splendid score, part Scooby Doo, part Carry On, comes courtesy of famed German composer Peter Thomas, best known for his work in Edgar Wallace and Jerry Cotton movies though all are encouraged to seek out his sensational work on sci-fi TV show, Raumpatrouille.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Mexican lobby card image courtesy of Zombos’ Closet

Buy with Claw of Terror + Black Mamba + Movie House Massacre on DVD from Amazon.com

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Hostel: Part II is a 2007 American horror film written and directed by Eli Roth, and the sequel to his 2005 horror film Hostel. It stars Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo and Bijou Phillips. Director Eli Roth, his brother Gabriel, and co-producer Dan Fisner make cameo appearances as heads on sticks. Italian director Ruggero Deodato (Last Cannibal World; Cannibal Holocaust) makes an appearance as a cannibalistic client and cult actress Edwige Fenech (The Case of the Bloody Iris; Strip Nude for your Killer) also has a small role as an Art professor.

While studying art in Rome for the summer, three young American women, Beth (Lauren German), Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) and Whitney (Bijou Phillips) are lured away to a Slovakian hostel by the beautiful Eastern European model from their life drawing class. What they find there is a living hell as they are forced into servitude by an exclusive club that sells them off to the highest bidder, a sick and depraved pervert who ties them up, tortures them in all kinds of unthinkable ways and gets his kicks from watching the young women die a slow and painful death…

The film was released on June 8, 2007 in the United States. Like its predecessor, the film is set in Slovakia and centers on a facility in which rich clients pay to torture and kill kidnapped victims. The film performed poorly at the box office totaling just $17 million by the end of its theatrical run whereas the original made $19 million in its opening weekend alone. Eli Roth shot scenes for the movie in the Prague online brothel Big Sister and at the Blue Lagoon in Iceland.

Director Eli Roth

The film has been restricted to adults in most countries. However, it has been cut in Germany, Malaysia and Singapore, and the “German Extended Version” (in which Lorna’s torture and death scene is still not shown completely) has subsequently been banned in Germany. The court in Munich decided that releasing the movie in this or the uncut version is to be punished. Only a heavily edited “not under 18″ version is still available. It was banned in New Zealand, after the distributor refused to cut the scene showing the torture of Lorna to receive an R18 certificate. The film, with the scene in question edited out, was later released on DVD.

Unbelievably, on October 8, 2007, the film was cited in the British House of Commons as an example where stills from the film could be illegal to possess under a proposed law to criminalise possession of extreme imagery. Conservative MP Charles Walker claimed that although he had never seen the film, he was “assured by trusted sources” that “From beginning to end it depicts obscene, misogynistic acts of brutality against women”.

A direct-to-DVD release, Hostel: Part III followed in late 2011.

Eli Roth and Ruggero Deodato

Buy Hostel Part II on US Blu-ray at Amazon.com

Buy Hostel Part II on UK Blu-ray at Amazon.co.uk

“Roth is way ahead of the game, giving us only one major drawn out damsel in distress sequence. The rest of the time, events happen off screen, or within a unique twist on the aggressor/victim paradigm. Indeed, all of Hostel Part II is about bucking trends. Don’t listen to the messageboards that lament that this is more of the same thing. It’s not.” PopMatters

Eli Roth with Edwige Fenech

“While the film suffers from many of the same flaws as its predecessor – poor character development, predictability and playing to clichés this second film is more entertaining than the one that came before it. It moves at a much faster pace and three women victims in the picture are slightly more likeable than the male victims in the original were.” Ian Jane, Rock! Shock! Pop!

“The first Hostel was unexpectedly brutal, with an almost eerie enthusiasm in torturing its victims in graphic glory on-screen. Now, with screaming nubile teenage women the subject of assault in Hostel: Part II, the violence changes somewhat, taking on orgiastic qualities, for lack of a cleaner word. Whether intentional or not, the violence is sexual in nature, all full of molestation and terrible, horrible, no-good very-bad things—themes not present in the original Hostel. Nasty business indeed, and frankly, it makes the film difficult to enjoy.” Adam Arseneau, DVD Verdict

Wikipedia | IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes

Posted by Will Holland

Dracula is a 2013 British/American NBC series television drama produced by London based shingle Carnival Films. The show was created by Cole Haddon, and is a loose re-imagining of the classic Dracula novel by Bram Stoker. Dan Knauf, creator of the HBO series Carnivàle, is showrunner/head writer, working with Haddon. Principal filming took place in Budapest, and the series premiered on Friday, October 25

Dracula comes to London, posing as an American entrepreneur who wants to bring modern science to the Victorian city. In reality, Dracula seeks revenge on those who betrayed him centuries earlier. As Dracula’s plans move toward fruition, he falls hopelessly in love with a woman who may be a reincarnation of his deceased wife.

Haddon directed the pilot episode. Other episodes were directed by Andy Goddard (Downton Abbey, Law & Order: UK) and Steve Shill (Dexter, Law & Order: Criminal Intent). Dracula stars:

Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Dracula / Alexander Grayson

Jessica De Gouw as Mina Murray

Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Jonathan Harker, a gauche journalist

Katie McGrath as Lucy Westenra

Nonso Anozie as R.M. Renfield, Dracula’s loyal confidante

Victoria Smurfit as Lady Jane, a fashionable woman

Thomas Kretschmann as Abraham Van Helsing (Kretschmann previously played Dracula in Dario Argtento’s 2012 Italian horror film, Dracula 3D)

Michael Nardone as Hermann Kruger

“It’s a reasonably clever conceit in terms of exploiting the character’s name while erecting the scaffolding to support serialized intrigue. And if the inordinately crimson-drenched doings threaten to become strained over a long haul, in the short term, anyway, Dracula is pretty tasty.  … Like Hannibal (another NBC drama built around an antihero with a peculiar diet), this series pushes boundaries in terms of gore, torture and sex, flourishes that feel both organic and perhaps a bit less jarring given the fantastic setting and situations.” Brian Lowry, Variety

“It’s a good job Jonathan Rhys Meyers is so well cast as Dracula. He’s naturally pale skinned, possesses a rakish, old-fashioned charm and hasn’t aged a day since 1997. Dracula’s anti-hero appeal is key to every good adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel – it’s about the only thing this one shares with the original – but must the rest of the characters be quite so insipid by comparison?” Ellen E. Jones, The Independent

“I never thought any show about a dude tries to buy a coolant company would be so interesting, let alone a show ostensibly about Dracula where Dracula is more worried about business than drinking blood. And he’s having sex with a vampire slayer. And also he’s trying to destroy the nascent oil industry. But here it is, and it’s just captivating.” Rob Bricken, io9.com

“Strip away the name and this is the story of a man trying to tear apart an oil monopoly, which makes Dracula every bit as scary and sexy as the Sherman Antitrust Act.” Daniel Fienberg, Hit Fix

“Unfortunately, they didn’t scramble into something thoughtfully new and unique. There’s nothing overtly bad about the first two episodes of Dracula, but neither was there anything compelling. Dracula as badass rooftop fighter? Sure, fine. He mauls necks into a bloody mess? OK. But with Fox’s Sleepy Hollow and AMC’s The Walking Dead delivering thrills along those lines with more inspired storytelling, it’s not like viewers will be left wanting.” Tim Goodman, Hollywood Reporter

Wikipedia | IMDb | Official website

BloodRayne: The Third Reich - also known as The Blood Reich: BloodRayne 3 – is a direct-to-DVD action-adventure horror film written by Michael Nachoff and directed by Uwe Boll, set in 1943 Europe during World War II. It stars Natassia Malthe as dhamphir Rayne, Michael Paré as vampire Nazi officer Ekart Brand and Clint Howard as Doctor Mangler (a play on Dr Mengele). It is the third BloodRayne film and a sequel to BloodRayne and BloodRayne 2: Deliverance, also directed by Boll.

Rayne fights against the Nazis in Europe during World War II, encountering Ekart Brand, a Nazi leader whose target is to inject Adolf Hitler with Rayne’s blood in an attempt to transform him into a dhampir and attain immortality.

“Whether you love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Uwe Boll makes movies just to make movies — and his unique, on-the-fly method of filmmaking can easily be mistaken for ignorance or inattentiveness. In Bloodrayne: The Third Reich, Boll’s shots possess all of the grace and artistry that which an entire film comprised of rehearsal takes would enjoy. The actors — people who damn well know they are not going to be receiving any award nominations for their parts here — put in minimal efforts; some don’t even bother with accents, while others appear to have trouble even remembering what an accent is.” Blog Critics

“Bloodrayne: The Third Reich is an example of how a filmmaker can regress, abandoning all their progress over the years to go back to the same formulaic shlock that earned them a bad reputation. It’s a shame, really. I could imagine Boll being behind a better Bloodrayne film based in Nazi Germany, I really could. The cast isn’t the issue as much as the script, and the somewhat incoherent direction and editing. Boll haters, here you go. Have a field day.” High-Def Digest

“Despite being set in Nazi Germany, everyone speaks in modern day English with a huge variety of irritatingly diverse accents. Phrases like “crack in the veneer” and “he’s shish kebab” simply don’t sit well. Fans of massive anachronisms will not just enjoy Rayne’s ridiculous clothes, but also a variety of other absurd historical errors … BloodRayne 3 isn’t absolutely awful – especially if you’re a 15 year old boy who loves boobs and dead Nazis – and is relatively entertaining at times. Fun whilst drunk, maybe, but crushingly hateful if sober.” Dave Scullion, Gorepress

” … a fairly disposable but harmless mix of lightweight Nazisploitation, action and horror. Boll keeps things moving along, and fills the tight 70 minutes running time with cheesy gore, action scenes and gratuitous nudity (exploitation fans will appreciate the entirely unnecessary nude lesbian scene!). Malthe looks entirely out of place in WW2, and the dialogue is far too modern, but if these points bother you, it’s unlikely that you’ll be watching thus anyway. There’s a ridiculously melodramatic voice-over, cheesy blood spilling (CGI rendered, natch) and a mix of heavy accents and clumsy acting.” David Flint, Strange Things Are Happening

Wikipedia | IMDb

Babysitter Massacre is a 2013 U.S. horror film written and directed by Henrique Couto (Faces of Schlock, Marty Jenkins and the Vampire Bitches). It stars Erin R. Ryan, Marylee Osborne, Haley Madison, Stephanie Coffey, Geoff Burkman and Tara Clark. The film is being released on DVD in the U.S. by Independent Entertainment on October 15th with an audio commentary and behind-the-scenes footage.

In Ray Falls, Ohio, on Halloween night someone is torturing and killing young women one by one, the only thing they all have in common is they belonged to the same babysitter club in high school… Who could be doing this, and can anyone stop them?

IMDb | Facebook

“Anyone looking for a slasher throwback will get their money’s worth with numerous torture / slay set pieces, mostly taking place in a basement. There’s no actual setup or characterization for the most part, so there’s no emotional involvement to get in the way. There’s also only one actual on-duty babysitter featured and that’s pre-credits, but she sets the tone: plump busty babes with tattoos get kidnapped, tied to a chair, and murdered by a whole toolbox worth of methods.” Carole Jenkins, 10k Bullets

Buy Babysitter Massacre on DVD from Amazon.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jTNfWgmPrVI

Coffin Baby is a 2013 U.S. horror film written and directed by Dean C. Jones. It is a loose sequel to Tobe Hooper‘s Toolbox Murders (2004). The film stars Bruce Dern, Brian Krause, Ethan Phillips, Clifton Powell, Alison Kyler, Elissa Dowling, Kyle Morris, Chauntal Lewis and Edgar Allan Poe IV. Lianne Spiderbaby, who is Quentin Tarantino‘s current girlfriend and the subject of much recent Internet discussion for her alleged plagiarism in various forms of media, has a minor role.

At the time of writing, an online search for information or reviews about Coffin Baby produces multiple pirate or torrent sites where the film is seemingly available free for streaming or download.

In Hollywood, a serial killer has embarked on spree of bizarre and horrific murders that has caused widespread fear and panic . The killer pays particular attention to one unfortunate female, holding her captive and then forcing her to witness the torture and murder of numerous other victims. She vainly attempts to survive her ordeal but her attempts to escape from his lair seems hopeless and her desperate situation only worsens when supernatural forces come into play that are even more appalling…

IMDb

‘ … the movie uses all the guidelines of a torture movie but in the end could have been a lot better. It actually collapses because of the seen that, done that before effect. What also shows is the fact that it had a very unstable production crew, you feel that things had been rewritten. The gore is good, the acting is okay but the story and production value just lack it all and in the end it isn’t a very good experience.’ Slashing Through

‘If you like cheap artsy-fartsy, psychological flicks with mountains of rotting limbs and people cannibalizing on them, despite how horrible the execution is, then Coffin Baby is your turkey leg to choke on. Everyone else who would like to keep their sanity and just enjoy a silly-yet-good slasher flick, as in a REAL slasher flick? Look elsewhere.’ Sticky Red

Peter Stumpp (died 1589) (whose name is also spelled as Peter Stube, Pe(e)ter Stubbe, Peter Stübbe or Peter Stumpf) was a Rhenish farmer, accused of being a serial killer and a cannibal, also known as the “Werewolf of Bedburg”. There is much confusion around his real name as ‘Stumpp’ quite possibly refers to the fact that he only had one hand. This being the case, it’s quite possible his name was actually Griswold.

Understandably, primary sources from the 16th Century are scarce but a 16 page pamphlet exists, written in English having being translated from the original German; no copy of the latter is know to exist. Essentially an early, lurid tabloid, the document recounts how Stumpp, a wealthy farmer born in the village of Epprath near Cologne, who was accused of murdering and eating countless victims over a period of 25 years, as well as having an incestuous relationship with his daughter, another distant relative and a succubus sent by the Devil.

Most sensationally, he was accused of being a werewolf, something he was happy to attest to, claiming he had been given a magic belt by the Devil which allowed him to metamorphose into “the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws.” Whilst in this form, he is said to have gorged on the flesh of goats, lambs, and sheep, as well as men, women, and children. Being threatened with torture he confessed to killing and eating fourteen children, two pregnant women, whose fetuses he ripped from their wombs and “ate their hearts panting hot and raw,” which he later described as “dainty morsels.” One of the fourteen children was his own son, whose brain he was reported to have devoured. Upon removing the belt, he returned to his human form.

It perhaps goes without saying that Stumpp was made to pay heavily for his outrageous crimes, as was his daughter. His execution, fittingly on October 31st 1589, is one of the most brutal on record: He was put to the wheel, where flesh was torn from his body with red-hot pincers, followed by his arms and legs. Then his limbs were broken with a hammer to prevent him from returning from the grave, before he was beheaded and burned on a pyre. His daughter Sybil (Beell) and his mistress Katharina Trump (!) had already been strangled and were burned along with Stumpp’s body.

After the executions, a real wolf’s body was hung in public, his head replaced with Stubbe’s head as a warning to anyone else contemplating lycanthropy. It is unknown how many, if any crimes Stumpp had actually committed, though there is suspcion he was simply framed by local, jealous villagers.

Daz Lawrence

Sorority Party Massacre is a 2013 American comedy slasher horror film directed by Chris W. Freeman, Justin Jones from a screenplay by Freeman (Paranormal Incident). It stars Marissa Skell (Slumber Party Slaughter), Eve Mauro (Penance, Zombies vs. Strippers), Ed O’Ross, Yvette Yates, Thomas Downey (Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan, Volcano Zombies), Casey Fitzgerald (Cowboys vs. Dinosaurs), Rebecca Grant (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Adrian Kirk (616: Paranormal Incident), Alison Mei Lan, Keith Compton, Richard Moll (Evilspeak, Ghost Shark), Leslie Easterbrook (The Devil’s Rejects) and former adult movie star Ron Jeremy (One-eyed Monster and many more).

The film is released on DVD on February 11, 2014, by Anchor Bay Entertainment with the following extras:

• Audio Commentary by Producer/Writer/Director Chris W. Freeman and Producer/Director Justin Jones
• Deleted Scenes
• Outtakes
• Paige Fight Scene
• Barney Lumpkin Campaign Ad

An isolated town full of college girls has a dangerous secret: One girl has gone missing each year for the last twenty years. A big city cop, in danger of losing his badge, agrees to aid the town’s sheriff in investigating these unsolved disappearances. Quickly they realize that they are dealing with a psychotic killer whose academic brilliance has been twisted into a taste for terror, torture, and sorority sister torment. But when this party gets started, who will graduate – and who will be held back?

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In the early 1960s, US film distributor K.Gordon Murray had a surprising amount of success importing, editing and dubbing Mexican children’s films and releasing them to unsuspecting audiences. His biggest hit was Santa Claus (aka Santa Claus vs the Devil), which pulled in large audiences who presumably expected something more festive than the incoherent and badly-dubbed atrocity they got. And he pulled the same trick with several other films, including this bizarre sequel to Mexican fairy tale movies Little Red Riding Hood (1960) and Little Red Riding Hood and Friends (1961).

In this often incomprehensible film, we see Little Red Riding Hood (Maria Gracia) and Tom Thumb (Cesaro Quezadas) battling a collection of monsters who live in the Haunted Forest (which seems to be inconveniently next door to their village). The monsters, who include Dracula and the Frankenstein monster, are led by The Queen of Badness (Ofelia Guilmáin), who seems modelled o the Wicked Queen from Disney’s Snow White. She’s a ruthless leader, and we first meet her as she presides over a show trial for the Wolf (Manuel Valdés) and the Ogre (José Elías Moreno), who are accused of not being evil enough after what I assume were the events in previous films.

The Wolf is something to behold, dressed in the most ragged, flea-bitten and unconvincing animal costume you’ll ever see. He also rarely stops talking, his voice in the dubbed version a gruff vocal that soon starts to grate… especially when he sings! Did I not mention that this is a musical too? Well, it is… at least for the first 20 minutes or so, after which everyone involved seemed to forget that they needed to include songs until the final scene.

The Queen of Badness casts a spell on the local villagers, turning them into monkeys and mice, so it is down to Little Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb (who is quickly transformed into a normal size child by the Good Fairy – presumably to save on special effects, as he’s rarely on-screen before his transformation) and Stinky the Skunk, another fine animal costume and dubbed with a speeded up chipmunk voice that immediately makes your teeth hurt and is only occasionally comprehensible. Oh, and they have Red Riding Hood’s dog, which is the most indifferent animal actor ever seen on film – he frequently just wanders off camera, ignoring the dramatic action.

Our heroes make their way through the Haunted Forest – a passably spooky set – towards the Queen’s castle, battling the odd monster. Sometimes, helped by other kids, they even torture the monsters they defeated – one poor creature is hung by his feet and beaten like a piñata.

On reaching the castle, they defeat Mr. Hurricane, Dracula and Frankenstein (sorry purists, that’s what they call the monster here), finish off a terrible looking dragon and save their friends the Wolf and the Ogre, who have been bickering away in a cell before being tortured by Siamese Twins 2-in-1. As for the Queen of Badness… well, let’s just say she meets an explosive end.

Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb vs The Monsters (originally Caperucita y Pulgarcito contra los monstruos and also titled Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood) is, of course, complete rubbish. The dubbed version is entirely incoherent, but it’s hard to imagine it was a masterpiece beforehand, given the all-round shoddiness on display. Yet the film is certainly entertaining for fans of bizarre cinema, and it’s easy to imagine cinemas full of undemanding, monster loving kids in the early Sixties eating it up.

Review by David Flint

Watch the full film!

Witchcraft – Magic: An Adventure in Demonology is a 1969 spoken word album, featuring the florid tones of horror legend Vincent Price as he discusses the world of witchcraft and the occult in all forms across four sides of vinyl, clocking in at an impressive (and exhaustive) 105 minutes.

While Price would crop up as narrator on albums by Alice Cooper and Michael Jackson (Thriller) in later years, this is his magnum opus – a book length study of witchcraft, produced by Roger Karshner and released by Capitol Records. Terry d’Oberoff is credited as both composer and director, while the impressive stereo sound effects were supplied by Douglas Leedy, a pioneer of late Sixties electronic experimentalism. There is no credit for the text, though it seems likely that this too is d’Oberoff.

The LP consists of Price telling tales of witchcraft and devil worship – not fictional horror stories, but factual (well, factual-ish) accounts of historical events and aspects of the occult, helpfully split into various chapters on the sleeve – ‘Hitler and Witchcraft’, ‘Women as Witches’, ‘The World of Spirits and Demons’ and so on. Price seems to have fun with the more lurid descriptions, his voice and (most likely) tongue in cheek attitude giving a gleefully macabre and somewhat leering tone to lines like “fornication with the Devil, child sacrifice, feasts of rotting human flesh” and “the tearing of her flesh with pincers, her body broken on the wheel, her fingernails ripped off, her feet thrust into a fire, whatever horrors the twisted mind of the hangman could devise” in the two part section entitled ‘Witch Tortures’.

A surprising amount of the album actually seems to be a ‘how to’ guide to witchcraft, with handy chapters on ‘How to invoke spirits, demons, unseen forces’, ‘how to make a pact with the Devil’ and ”Curses, Spells, Charms’. “Of course you should never resort to this… except in the case of the most dire necessity” says Price of selling your soul to Satan, giving a little chuckle as he does so, before going on to give full and frank instructions nevertheless. Oh those Satanic Sixties!

Price’s narration is occasionally interspersed with Macbeth-like witches cackling away in heavily treated manner. These are possibly the most over the top moments of the album, but they work as dramatic interludes.

The music by d’Oberoff is impressively creepy and discordant, as are the sound effects, which float from speaker to speaker in the way that only records from the early days of stereo did – even Price’s voice moves from left to right and back, adding a sense of displacement to the narration.

This is not easy listening, and neither is it the most approachable of audio books. But fans of Price and anyone interested in the occult will probably enjoy it. If nothing else, it’s a curious artefact from a time when public fascination with witchcraft, Satanism and black magic was at its peak.

Originally released as a double album with accompanying booklet, the album has been issued on a CD of dubious legality and can also be found online if you look hard enough.

Review by David Flint

The Pit and the Pendulum (released on DVD in the United States as The Inquisitor) is a 1991 horror film directed by Stuart Gordon and based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The film is an amalgamation of several of Poe’s tales, including “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Cask of Amontillado“. The film also appropriates the anecdote of “The Sword of Damocles“, re-assigning it to the character of Torquemada.

The film stars Lance Henriksen as Torquemada, Stephen Lee as Gomez, William J. Norris as Dr. Huesos, Mark Margolis as Mendoza, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon as Contessa D’Alba Molina, Barbara Bocci as Contessa’s Son, Benito Stefanelli as Executioner, Jeffrey Combs as Francisco, Tom Towles as Don Carlos and Oliver Reed as The Cardinal.

Set in Spain, 1492, Grand Inquisitor Torquemada leads a bloody reign of terror, torturing and killing in the name of religion. Upset with the way the Church is practicing torture, Maria speaks out during a public burning and whipping of a title-stripped family. Maria’s own beauty leads Torquemada into temptation and brutal atonement. Confused over his desires, he accuses Maria of being a witch and to be tortured until confession. During Maria’s interrogation, Torquemada cannot help but to stare at her naked body leading him to order her put in the prison. Imprisoned, Maria is befriended by Esmerelda, a confessed witch. Together they struggle to save themselves from the sinister Torquemada.

Outside the castle walls, Maria’s husband Antonio breaks into the castle to rescue his innocent wife. After a failed escape, Antonio is imprisoned for his actions and Torquemada decides to test his new machine of pain on him; The Pit and the Pendulum…

Wikipedia | IMDb

“Although The Pit and the Pendulum has an escalating pace and even odd moments of humour which makes it feel a long way away in tone from a period Gothic like, for instance, The Monk (2011), it does have substance and much to recommend it, aesthetically, stylistically and in its imaginative development of a classic horror short story (not forgetting Richard Band’s sweeping movie soundtrack). Stuart Gordon is a versatile filmmaker, and his foray into historical horror has a great deal to offer those who enjoy films of this genre.” Brutal As Hell

“It’s vintage Henriksen, and probably one of the roles that proved he could carry a show likeMillenium - even as the antagonist of the film, he’s still compelling and even somewhat sympathetic at times. It’s those gray areas that he excelled at in his prime, and even though he’s an outright villain, Lance brings a humanity to him where lesser actors would have turned it into a cartoon.”
Horror Movie a Day

Hostel: Part II is a 2007 American horror film written and directed by Eli Roth, and the sequel to his 2005 horror film Hostel. It stars Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo and Bijou Phillips. Director Eli Roth, his brother Gabriel, and co-producer Dan Fisner make cameo appearances as heads on sticks. Italian director Ruggero Deodato (Last Cannibal World; Cannibal Holocaust) makes an appearance as a cannibalistic client and cult actress Edwige Fenech (The Case of the Bloody Iris; Strip Nude for your Killer) also has a small role as an Art professor.

While studying art in Rome for the summer, three young American women, Beth (Lauren German), Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) and Whitney (Bijou Phillips) are lured away to a Slovakian hostel by the beautiful Eastern European model from their life drawing class. What they find there is a living hell as they are forced into servitude by an exclusive club that sells them off to the highest bidder, a sick and depraved pervert who ties them up, tortures them in all kinds of unthinkable ways and gets his kicks from watching the young women die a slow and painful death…

The film was released on June 8, 2007 in the United States. Like its predecessor, the film is set in Slovakia and centers on a facility in which rich clients pay to torture and kill kidnapped victims. The film performed poorly at the box office totaling just $17 million by the end of its theatrical run whereas the original made $19 million in its opening weekend alone. Eli Roth shot scenes for the movie in the Prague online brothel Big Sister and at the Blue Lagoon in Iceland.

Director Eli Roth

The film has been restricted to adults in most countries. However, it has been cut in Germany, Malaysia and Singapore, and the “German Extended Version” (in which Lorna’s torture and death scene is still not shown completely) has subsequently been banned in Germany. The court in Munich decided that releasing the movie in this or the uncut version is to be punished. Only a heavily edited “not under 18″ version is still available. It was banned in New Zealand, after the distributor refused to cut the scene showing the torture of Lorna to receive an R18 certificate. The film, with the scene in question edited out, was later released on DVD.

Unbelievably, on October 8, 2007, the film was cited in the British House of Commons as an example where stills from the film could be illegal to possess under a proposed law to criminalise possession of extreme imagery. Conservative MP Charles Walker claimed that although he had never seen the film, he was “assured by trusted sources” that “From beginning to end it depicts obscene, misogynistic acts of brutality against women”.

A direct-to-DVD release, Hostel: Part III followed in late 2011.

Eli Roth and Ruggero Deodato

Buy Hostel Part II on US Blu-ray at Amazon.com

Buy Hostel Part II on UK Blu-ray at Amazon.co.uk

“Roth is way ahead of the game, giving us only one major drawn out damsel in distress sequence. The rest of the time, events happen off screen, or within a unique twist on the aggressor/victim paradigm. Indeed, all of Hostel Part II is about bucking trends. Don’t listen to the messageboards that lament that this is more of the same thing. It’s not.” PopMatters

Eli Roth with Edwige Fenech

“While the film suffers from many of the same flaws as its predecessor – poor character development, predictability and playing to clichés this second film is more entertaining than the one that came before it. It moves at a much faster pace and three women victims in the picture are slightly more likeable than the male victims in the original were.” Ian Jane, Rock! Shock! Pop!

“The first Hostel was unexpectedly brutal, with an almost eerie enthusiasm in torturing its victims in graphic glory on-screen. Now, with screaming nubile teenage women the subject of assault in Hostel: Part II, the violence changes somewhat, taking on orgiastic qualities, for lack of a cleaner word. Whether intentional or not, the violence is sexual in nature, all full of molestation and terrible, horrible, no-good very-bad things—themes not present in the original Hostel. Nasty business indeed, and frankly, it makes the film difficult to enjoy.” Adam Arseneau, DVD Verdict

Wikipedia | IMDb

Posted by Will Holland

Nurse 3D is a 2012 thriller/horror film directed by Doug Aarniokoski and written by David Loughery. It stars Paz de la Huerta, Katrina Bowden, Corbin Bleu. Dita Von Teese, Adam Herschman, Neal McDonough, Niecy Nash, and Nick Turturro. The film was inspired by the photography of Lionsgate’s chief marketing officer, Tim Palen. It will be released on various VOD platforms and limited theatres on February 7, 2014.

Acording to the official sysnopsis: “By day, nurse Abby Russell (de la Huerta) lovingly attends to the patients at All Saints Memorial Hospital; by night, Abby prowls nightclubs, luring unfaithful men into dangerous liaisons. After Danni, a young, sensitive nurse, joins the hospital staff, Abby pursues her friendship. But when the friendship turns to obsession, Danni spurns Abby, unleashing Abby’s fury and a rampage of terror…”

The film’s promotional material has been unusually sexual for a modern movie, harking back to the heyday of 1970s exploitation. Whether the film itself will live up to the hype remains to be seen!

Wikipedia | IMDb

Paranormal Xperience (aka Paranormal Xperience 3D and PX3D) is a 2011 Spanish horror film. As the title suggests, it was shot in 3D and directed by Sergi Vizcaino. It stars Amaia Salamanca, Maxi Iglesias, Lucho Fernández, Úrsula Corberó, Miguel Ángel Jenner, Manuel de Blas, Alba Ribas, Eduard Farelo and Óscar Sinela

Plot:

Angela a psychiatry student whose skeptical of the existence of the paranormal in the world, is forced to investigate an old mining town for the purpose of proving or disproving paranormal activity. Along with her, she is accompanied by her younger sister Diana Whisper, who lends Angela her van, and a few other students. They journey to the town and go through some ancient salt mines. Aware of the danger provided by tampering with the grounds, through the legend of the sadistic Dr. Matarga, they still open a portal to the after life with disastrous consequences…

The film was released as a 2D DVD and 3D Blu-ray in the UK in February 2014.

Buy Paranormal Xperience on DVD or Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“We spend forty minutes having the students wander around and then forty minutes watching them being picked off by heavy smoker and creepy-mask owner, Martarga. Excuses to split up are forged, getaway vans develop engine problems, nut jobs loom in the corner of the frame and much is made of the fact that the female cast have attractive body parts (one memorable bit of mise en scene places Ursuala Corbero’s denim-short clad buttocks in a lingering, extreme close-up filling two-thirds of the frame while something goes on in the distance, barely glimpsed in the few inches left available, even Matarga notices, going on to compliment her on her ‘buen culo’ twenty minutes later).” Guy Adams, The British Fantasy Society

“The film was beautifully shot using some interesting locations. The ghost town looked pretty creepy (even in daylight) and the choice to set some of the action in a salt mine was a nice touch that offered an interesting look I had not seen in a horror film before. There are several effects/death scenes that are freaking outstanding!! These were achieved using some great practical effects. The sad part was that there is also a death scene where only CGI is used and it looked HORRIBLE.”  Corey Danna, HorrorNews.net

“Predictable and clichéd as it may be (does a film’s twist still count as a twist if we can see it coming from a mile off?), Paranormal Xperience does impress in its gore sequences. Despite being very obviously filmed for 3D (expect to see a lot of fingers, gore and grue thrown at the screen), it’s delightfully nasty at times, making good use of the old eyeball piercing, barbed wire garrotting and smashed glass splatter sequences throughout. The CGI blood is no good, and some of the makeup work is a bit iffy, but it only adds to the film’s charm.” Starburst

“It’s pretty. Shiny. Glossy. PX3D is like Gossip Girl but with more violence. The cast is good looking, some of the kill scenes were good and bloody, and it made a valiant attempt at being a paranormal/torture porn hybrid of some sort. There’s a decent story buried somewhere underneath all of the smooth visuals, though it’s a shame that it wasn’t fleshed out better.” The Horror Club

Wikipedia | IMDb

House of Whipcord, made in 1973,  is one of the most significant British horror films of the 1970s, a bleak, grim and unsavoury slice of cinema that helped signal the end of the gothic and the rise of a decade of nastiness. It was roundly hated by the horror establishment, then – as now – suspicious and contemptuous of anything new and challenging. But for a new generation of fans, this was much more exciting than the old-fashioned films being made by the likes of Tyburn at the same time.

Opening with a cynical dedication to the hanging and flogging brigade, the film tells the story of Anne Marie (Penny Irving), a French model who meets a young man at a party, and despite his name being Mark E. Desade (Robert Tayman), agrees to leave with him. Before long, she’s captive in a disused prison, where Mark’s parents (Barbara Markham and Patrick Barr) run a quasi-judicial punishment regime for girls who have strayed from the path of righteousness. Along with psychotic warder Walker (Sheila Keith), they strip, torture and abuse the girls in a hypocritical attempt to punish them for their sins’. But things soon start to fall apart, as Anne-Marie plans her escape…

With a sharply savage screenplay from David MacGillivray – his first horror film and first movie in what would be a sometimes fractious relationship  with director Peter Walker, who delivers solid, no-nonsense direction. House of Whipcord rises above the exploitative nature of the material, without compromising on the sleaze factor. Irving and hardened exploitation starlet Anne Michelle get to take their clothes off, there’s some gratuitous whipping and an overwhelming air of grubbiness, but the film nevertheless makes its point smartly, skewering the double standards of the so-called Moral Majority.

Of course, that same Moral majority was out to get the film, and the film suffered cuts at the hands of the BBFC – though less than you might expect, BBFC head Stephen Murphy apparently appreciating the film’s attack on ‘moral reformers’. The movie then received a couple of positive reviews, but was more memorably dismissed by Russell Davies in The Observer as “a feeble fladge-fantasy”. In more recent years, however, the film has built a substantial fan following, and for many remains the definitive Pete Walker film.

The film was re-released in the USA as Photographers Models, with a misleading ad campaign that made it look like a soft porn film.

“I’ve always thought that this film was going to be one of those seedy, underground 1970s sexploitation films with no plot and lots of naked women being whipped left right and centre. However, I’m pleased to say that while it is low budget, with the odd flash of unnecessary flesh it is also quite a reasonable little horror that at times can be quiet harrowing.” www.spookyisles.com

 ”An above average sexploitation/horror that has been put together with some polish and care from a fairly original script. The film is dedicated ironically to all those who wish to see the return of capital punishment in Britain, and it’s about a senile old judge and his wife who are so appalled by current permissiveness that they set up a gruesome house of correction for young girls. The only trouble is that the film undercuts its potentially interesting Gothic theme by some leering emphases, and the final result is likely to be seen and appreciated only by the people who will take the dedication at its face value” David Pirie,Time Out

IMDb | Wikipedia

DF

Grisly is a 2014 American sci-fi horror short film project directed by Graham Cribbin. It stars Jaimi Paige and Jeison Azali.

Grisly captures a portion of a much larger universe of supernatural characters that will be expanded on in the Grisly Tales web-series planned for release later this year. The production team have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funding to finalise the short film.

Plot teaser:

Carolyn Bronnicke, is a young woman who has mysteriously transformed into a mutated Gill Girl and is captured by ACS/M-Division, a secret government black-ops facility led by Director Christopher Smalls.

Assigned to review her case is Agent Milo Finn of the CIA. As Agent Finn conducts his review of the case he discovers a secret shop of horrors at ACS where Director Smalls has approved the torture and  of Carolyn/Gill Girl led by his henchmen Prof. Matthew Lamb and Sgt. Alex Stevens…

In 1967, the BBC created its own record label, designed to exploit the demand for commercially released TV tunes, comedy shows and, finding an unlikely niche in the market, sound effects. These LP’s appealed to amateur film-makers, those attracted by the lurid and engaging sleeve designs and people with a ‘healthy’ interest in the subject matter. They ultimately released dozens of themed records across a whole host of sometimes baffling subjects (worldly travels, transport…farms!) but perhaps the best remembered are their three horror-related collections.

Volume 1, the endearingly-titled Essential Death & Horror (actually volume 13 in the BBC’s run of releases) appeared in 1977 and offers a dizzying collection of 91 different (though sometimes very similar) effects, handily batched together under the following headings; Execution and Torture, Monsters and Animals, Creaking Doors and Grave Digging, Musical Effects and Footsteps, Vocal Effects and Heartbeats and Weather, Atmospheres and Bells. It is quite likely that many vegetables were harmed during the creation of the albums – ‘arm chopped off’ sounds like a cabbage being cut, ‘head chopped off’ rather like a carrot being attended to.

No matter, for the wide-eyed imaginative youth, these were heady and evocative sounds, quite sensational to imagine that such barbaric acts had captured by Auntie Beeb for posterity. Particular favourites of my own include the actually rather disturbing electronic workout ‘Phantom of the Opera Organ Sounds’, ‘Monsters Roaring’ (pigs being interfered with, possibly) and ‘neck twisted and broken’ (broccoli attacked).

Such was the success of Volume 13 (or 1 if you prefer), a follow-up album arrived in 1978 – Volume 21’s More Death and Horror. Rather more ragged than the first release, we are treated to even more inclement weather, bells tolling and some overly comedic death rattles – of particular note is ‘death by garrotting’, a performance that would frankly stop a pantomime for being too silly.

Regardless, there was one final outing, the paltry twenty-five minutes of Volume 27’s Even More Death and Horror. Easily the most startling record of the three, the methods of torture are truly imaginative; ‘self immolation’, ‘female falling from great height’ and ‘tongue pulled out’ are all very pleasing, though how many home videos these were used in is of concern. Appearing three years after the second volume, this was the last hurrah for audio maiming and is the rarest of the LP’s to find.

It should come as no surprise that all three albums are the work of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop, set up in 1958 to create music and sound effects for initially radio and then television – their most famous work being the theme tune and effects for the long-running TV show, Doctor Who.

Specifically, the effects were the creation of one of the workshop’s producers, Mike Harding (not to be confused with the British folk musician). Cheap and quick to create, they were a fantastic money-maker and were by far the biggest sellers of the BBC’s sound effects releases. The garish, collage covers (not dissimilar to that of the world’s most frightening album, Horrific Child’s ‘L’Etrange Monsieur Whinster‘) were the work of Andrew Prewitt who explains the phenomenon from the other side of the fence:

“Prior to my arrival as the Head of Creative Services for BBC Record and Tapes back in, many records were sent out to the public on demand on cassettes. There was a high request amongst Film Companies (amateur and professional), theatres groups, radio broadcasting companies world wide for sound effects.

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop had some of the best sound engineers and technicians in the world creating and recording sounds for every conceivable noise and bizarre request.

They had come up with a selection to meet the need for horror films and plays, and spent some time chopping up cabbages and spooning out melons etc to capture that evil noise.

I decided that a graphic illustration was need to enhance the product that had up to then been sent out on tapes and some in plain record sleeves.

So I set about illustrating some of the content in a gory way, (tame by modern standards but this was 1978)

It was an amazing success and took us all by surprise, some press featured it and the then self- appointed guardian of British morals sent a very strongly worded letter to me suggesting that I was corrupting the minds of young people with evil images.

Sad to say it only fuelled the sales and further records followed, some with more of my illustrations and designs”