Wednesday 18 October 2006

10 Brit horrors

Top 10 British horror films of the 1980s

The Shining
- Kubrick's adaptation of King's novel is one of the great chillers with a brilliant Jack Nicholson performance

American Werewolf In London
- exceptional transformation effects that still look amazing today

Hellraiser
- stuff of nightmares, and I don't think Clive Barker ever made a better film

The Sender
- a cult favourite psychic mystery-thriller

Paperhouse
- surreal and uncanny, with good performances from the kids

Lifeforce
- Tobe Hopper destroys vampire-plagued London in fantastically gruesome style

Company Of Wolves
- weird and wonderful dark-fantasy interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood

The Monster Club
- comedy horror anthology full of bizarre mutant night creatures and bad rock music

Xtro
- low budget sci-fi shocker with a grisly birth scene

Link
- Richard Franklin's mad monkey thriller rewards repeat viewing

Also worth a mention...
Rawhead Rex
The Bride
Lair Of The White Worm

Thursday 5 October 2006

Leakoids

The Leakoids: Newsalizing The Nation by Neal Wilgus is a chapbook of highly amusing 'broken' news stories and satirical 'counterfactual' reports from the murky corners of imaginary worlds. Here, we discover the possibility of Schrodinger being arrested for animal abuse, the worrying truth about the famous 555 phone number prefix used in films and TV, and that (according to the US Bureau of Historical Revisions) the 'pledge of allegiance' is a fake.

There are short-form tall tales where dogs sue for divorce, men are allowed to marry sheep, plankton rustling is rife, laughter is taxed, a ferry strike halts all traffic of damned souls across the Styx, the island of Cuba is arrested for speeding, the gold at the end of the rainbow is safely locked away by US troops, inter-dimensional border controls are tightened to limit citizenship for alienoid subversives, Gaea is admitted to hospital, and the Sun goes out...

With sketchy illustrations by Filomeno Martinez, this monstermash collection of fantastic absurdities, anything-goes what-ifs, and Pythonesque bureaucracy gone hairy-eyed wild makes for entertaining teabreak reading.

No web presence for the publisher, but Leakoids is $10 from...
Juxtopedia Press
927 Camino Hermosa
Corrales
NM 97040
USA