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1974 remains a banner year for horror movies. This year marks the 50th anniversary of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas, as well as smaller films like Abby, The Perfume of the Lady in Black, and Sugar Hill. Buried in that year’s releases, Frightmare stands as a unique relic, a gloriously bloody proto-slasher transmitting a macabre tale about cannibalism. Once described as a “morally repellent British horror film, without an ounce of humour” by The Times critic Philip French, the Pete Walker-directed cult classic carries the essence of 1963’s Blood Feast with its own curiously deranged skin. With the holidays in full swing, it’s time to give thanks for one of the most underrated ‘70s slashers with more going for it than meets the eye.

The film, written by David McGillivray (Satan’s Slave), tells the tale of Edmund (Rupert Davies) and his murderous wife Dorothy (Sheila Keith...

Arrow Video has unveiled their February Blu-ray lineup, hitting some major titles that will find viewers cruising the streets of New York City, dining with the Sawyer family and fending off space vampires.

Arriving on February 25th from Arrow will be William Friedkin’s Cruising, which is being featured in a limited edition 4K release, notably restored from the original camera negative. While you’ll see some previously available special features, the set has some new extras. They include:

Brand new commentary featuring original musicians involved with the soundtrack

I Want to Be the Curator, a brand-new interview with actress Karen Allen

Walking the Line, a brand-new interview with actor, film consultant, and former police detective Randy Jurgensen

Breaking the Codes, a brand-new visual essay surrounding the hanky-codes featuring actor and writer David McGillivray

Cruising also comes with a 120-page perfect-bound collector’s book with photos, articles and essays, as...

Al Pacino will cruise for a killer on 4K Ultra HD when Cruising is released by Arrow Video on February 25.

The 1980 serial killer thriller’s long-unavailable theatrical version has been newly restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative in Dolby Vision with original lossless English mono audio, 2.0 stereo, and 5.1 sound.

The Exorcist‘s William Friedkin writes and directs, loosely based on Gerald Walker’s 1970 novel of the same name. Pacino stars with Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox, and Don Scardino.

Disc 1 – 4K Uhd:

Audio commentary by writer-director William Friedkin Audio commentary by writer-director William Friedkin, moderated by critic Mark Kermode Audio commentary with original musicians involved with the soundtrack (new) I Want to Be the Curator – Interview with actress Karen Allen (new) Deleted scenes and alternative footage On-set audio featuring the club scenes and protest coverage Censored material reels Theatrical trailer, teasers, and TV spots

Disc 2 – Blu-ray:...

Stars: Penny Irving, Robert Tayman, Barbara Markham, Patrick Barr, Ray Brooks, Sheila Keith, Dorothy Gordon, Ann Michelle, Ivor Salter | Written by Pete Walker, David McGillivray | Directed by Pete Walker

Directed by Pete Walker, House of Whipcord is an unsettling yet engaging example of British exploitation cinema, blending horror and social commentary into a dark and disturbing narrative. It’s a film that’s both of its time and oddly timeless, as it critiques moral authoritarianism through the lens of a sadistic prison system masquerading as a reformatory for wayward young women.

Plot Overview

The story centres around a young French model, Anne-Marie (Penny Irving), who, after a string of rebellious behavior, is lured into a twisted correctional institution by her seemingly charming new boyfriend, Mark E. Desade (played with eerie charm by Robert Tayman). The institution is run by Mark’s fanatical mother, Mrs. Wakehurst (Barbara Markham), and her sadistic staff,...

Aptly named for the acidic smell of deteriorating film, Vinegar Syndrome made an auspicious debut in 2013 with its inaugural release, The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis. In the decade since, they have unearthed, restored, and distributed hundreds of cult, exploitation, horror, action, and adult films.

Popping in a new Vinegar Syndrome disc is a bit like cinematic Russian roulette. It’s always interesting, but you never know if you’re going to get an obscure masterpiece, a campy B-movie, a so-bad-it’s-good slice of fun, or a dud. The unknown is half the fun, and discovering those diamonds in the rough makes it worthwhile.

In celebration of their anniversary, I’m highlighting 10 hidden gems from Vinegar Syndrome’s first 10 years.

To narrow the choices, I’m ignoring the heavy hitters like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 and The Amityville Horror, box sets like Forgotten Gialli and Home Grown Horrors,...

If you haven't subscribed for Season 17 of Cinema Retro, here's what you've been missing:

Issue #49

Lee Pfeiffer goes undercover for Robert Vaughn's spy thriller "The Venetian Affair" .

Cai Ross goes to hell for "Damien- Omen II"

Ernie Magnotta continues our "Elvis on Film" series with "Elvis: That's the Way It Is"..

Robert Leese scare up some memories of the cult classic "Carnival of Souls"

Dave Worrall and Lee Pfeiffer look back on the 1976 Sensurround sensation "Midway"

Remembering Sir Sean Connery

James Sherlock examines Stanley Kramer's pandemic Cold War classic "On the Beach".

Dave Worrall goes in search of the Disco Volante hydrofoil from "Thunderball"

Raymond Benson's Cinema 101 column

Gareth Owen's "Pinewood Past" column

Darren Allison reviews the latest soundtrack releases

Issue #50

50th anniversary celebration of "The French Connection" : Todd Garbarini interviews director William Friedkin

"Scars of Dracula": Mark Cerulli interviews stars Jenny Hanley and...

Written and Directed by Mark Williams

There has been an explosion in recent years of documentaries taking a look back at VHS, mainly from an American perspective (and often focussing more on the current rarity of said tapes rather than the nostalgia factor) with films like Rewind This! and Adjust Your Tracking. However here in the UK most documentaries related to the VHS era have focussed more on the video nasties (think Jake West & Marc Morris’ two popular docs). However 2014’s VHS Forever? Psychotronic People took a fond look back on the early days of video from a very British perspective, including the underground videotape scene in the UK – in particular those folks connected to the Camden-based video store known as Psychotronic Video – and those who lived through that period of time, including the likes of Evil Dead artist Graham Humphreys, screenwriter David McGillivray, journalist Allan Bryce and director Norman J. Warren.

Stars: Kate Davies-Speak, Barrington De La Roche, Daniel McKee, Yasmin Ryan, Esme Sears, Joe Street, Carl Andersson, Rowena Bentley, Peter Cosgrove | Written and Directed by Charlie Steeds

I’ve been a fan, nay Huge fan, of writer/director Charlie Steeds since I first saw his 2017 British-made pastiche of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Escape From Cannibal Farm. Since then I’ve eagerly awaited each and every one of his films – though to be fair to Steeds, the releases of his film can be very haphazard. Winterskin debuted on DVD before The Barge People, which actually lensed first. Unfortunately, the UK release of the aforementioned Escape From Cannibal Farm remains in limbo thanks to 88 Films buying the rights and then deciding to focus on re-releasing cult films rather than new movies and sitting on it for 2 years (so far).

I finally got to see An English Haunting, Steeds’ take...

Exclusive: More than fifty years after its first publication, British writer Robin Maugham’s controversial 1967 novel The Wrong People is getting a movie adaptation.

Arthouse outfit Peccadillo Pictures, the UK’s foremost distributor of Lgbt movies, is teaming up on the project with veteran UK screenwriter David McGillivray (Schizo), who has adapted the novel and will make his directorial debut.

Set against the backdrop of 1960s Tangier, the thriller tells the story of Arnold Turner, a repressed English schoolmaster on holiday in Morocco, where he meets Ewing Baird, a wealthy American expat with a dark secret. As Turner becomes more involved with Ewing he realizes he has been lured into a dangerous trap.

Maugham’s first explicitly gay-themed novel was critically praised but also garnered controversy. Homosexuality was still illegal in Britain for most of the 1960s.

The book was reprinted several times, including in the Gay Modern Classics series,...

Beware and tread lightly, as Satan has once again erupted from the bowels of Hell to let loose another firestorm of insidious worship, gratuitous nudity and gore! Well, we’re in the ‘70s and he never really left anyway; the box office was very kind to the Horned One in that decade, and Vinegar Syndrome has polished up another one for a sparkling Blu-ray release, Satan’s Slave (1976).

This film was Norman J. Warren’s first horror outing after helming a couple of nudie flicks in the late ‘60s; a sign of the times, a lot of directors entered through the green door before seeking the slightly more reputable terror genre. Of the Warren’s I’ve seen (which is admittedly few), Satan’s Slave is the most accomplished and controlled, and a welcome addition to the coven of Satanic horror.

Let’s meet Catherine Yorke (Candace Glendenning – The Flesh...

In his latest podcast/interview, host Stuart Wright talks to the ‘Truffaut of Smut’ David McGillivray about his memoirs Little Did You Know and his and 5 Great British X-Rated Films. Little Did You Know is out in August 2019 through Fab Press.

In his sensational memoir,Little Did You Know, illustrated with many previously unseen photos, McGillivray reveals how his anti-establishment lifestyle stretches back to his teenage years and journeys six decades, taking us through the cocaine-lined world of London’s media industry, the tragic heights of the AIDS epidemic and the sinful celluloid backstreets of Soho. It’s a colourful picaresque account of the capital from every angle. The confessions of this outrageously funny man may amaze and amuse, scandalise or shock you. And you may never look back on Millennium Night in quite the same light again…

Pre-order the limited edition signed copy at www.fabpress.com/little-did-you-know-book.html...

Happy (almost) May Day, readers! A new month brings us new home media releases, and we have another great batch of titles to look forward to this week. For all you movie monster fans out there, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell hits both Blu-ray and DVD, and Universal has assembled Tremors: The Complete Collection on DVD as well. Cult film fans are going to want to pick up the new HD releases of Blood Hook and Terror, and for those of you who missed it in theaters earlier this year, Winchester comes home to haunt your shelves this Tuesday.

Other releases for May 1st include Desolation, Stephanie, Caught, Followers, The Ballerina, Trailer Park Shark, The Unwilling, and Kaleidoscope.

Blood Hook

7 years ago, Peter's grandfather went missing under mysterious circumstances. Now, Peter and his friends have returned to the placid Wisconsin town to check out his inherited lake house and...

By Tim Greaves

The British sex film was a truly unique beast. Finding its feet at the back end of the 1950s, proliferating throughout the 60s and 70s, and all but gone the way of the dodo by the early 80s, sex may have been the selling point but scarcely was it delivered upon. Usually depicting the act itself as a bit of a lark and something to be sniggered at, due to restrictive British laws at the time the menu in this country was mostly comprised of light titillation as opposed to the more, er... shall we say ‘gratifying’ material being served up to European and Stateside audiences. With little to see beyond pert pink posteriors and bountiful bare bosoms, visuals whose stimulation value was already negligible were often further quashed by the wince-inducing sound of a slide-whistle.

The films that general audiences probably think of in regard to...

UK genre fans are currently enjoying five days of nailbiting action with the 2016 edition of the Horror Channel FrightFest now underway in Shepherd's Bush, London, and we are chronicling the event with the official FrightFest TV daily highlights packages. Day Four's subjects? Director Simon Rumley discusses Johnny Frank Garrett's Last Word; Director Patricio Valladares, Actor Natalie Burn and Writer Barry Keating discuss Downhill; Director Shaun Robert Smith and Actor Craig Conway discuss Broken; Director Martin Owen and Actors Elliot James Langridge and Isabelle Allen discuss Let's Be Evil; Director Wyndham Price discusses Crow; Director Kate Shenton discusses Egomaniac; plus Horror Icon David McGillivray....

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Special Mention: Gojira (Godzilla)

Written and directed by Ishirô Honda

Japan, 1954

Ishiro Honda’s grim, black-and-white post-Hiroshima nightmare stands the test of time. This allegory for the devastation wrought on Japan by the atomic bomb is quite simply a powerful statement about mankind’s insistence to continue to destroy everyone and everything the surrounds us. With just one shot (a single pan across the ruins of Tokyo), Honda manages to express the devastation that Godzilla represents. Since its debut, Godzilla has become a worldwide cultural icon, but very little is said about actor Takashi Shimura, who adds great depth as Dr. Yamane; his performance is stunning. Special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya originally wanted to use classic stop-motion animation to portray Godzilla, but time and budget limitations forced him to dress actors up in monster suits. Despite this minor setback, Tsuburaya’s scale sets of Tokyo are crafted with such great attention to detail,...

In recent years there has been a real boom in documentaries surrounding popular culture. Films such as Electric Boogaloo, Video Nasties, The Search for Weng Weng and Adjust Your Tracking have captured the zeitgeist of fans across the globe, and in turn inspired more people to create their own documentaries about pop culture subjects that matter to them…

But not all these documentaries see the same success. Having been on something of a documentary kick lately, I thought I’d break down the ten of the best little-known, or better yet little-discussed, pop-culture documentaries from the many, many examples I have been watching. So here they are and, for once, they’re in order:

1) Slaughter Nick For President

There’s a good reason this film is at the top of my list. This is the documentary that kicked off my exploration of pop culture documentaries (eventually ending up at compliling this list) and,...

Written and Directed by Darren J. Perry, Mark Williams

The latest in a growing strand of films that take a fond look at the VHS era, VHS Forever? Psychotronic People is a feature length documentary taking a look at the explosion of movies that became available on VHS in the UK. Taken from the perspective of those who tried to unearth that elusive movie at all costs known as psychotronic cinema…

There has been an explosion in recent years of documentaries taking a look back at VHS, mainly from an American perspective (and often focussing more on the current rarity of said tapes rather than the nostaglia factor) with films like Rewind This! and Adjust Your Tracking. However here in the UK most documentaries related to the VHS era have focussed more on the video nasties (think Jake West & Marc Morris’ two popular docs). However VHS Forever? Psychotronic People takes...

The vintage nastiness of the exploitative cult classic Mark of the Devil gets a pristine revamp from Arrow Video, a favored title from a golden era of new wave British horror that hasn’t had held quite the same reverence as some of the more notable titles of the era, such as Ken Russell’s The Devils, Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man or Michael Reeves’ Witchfinder General. The project was inspired by Reeves’ film, who died of an accidental overdose at the age of 25. In hindsight, perhaps, as directed by Michael Armstrong (the film’s screenwriter who often wrote under the pseudonym Sergio Casstner), the title is a bit too familiar in to Reeves, and often feels like the slutty little cousin to the sleazy themes touched upon in the earlier film. Bizarre performances and an unnaturally evocative ambience help overcome the film’s desperate aim to shock with...

Film will go against the wishes of the John Gielgud estate, according to producer David McGillivray

• Remembering Peter de Rome: the maker of gay erotica loved by Warhol, Gielgud and the BFI

He is known as one of the greatest ever interpreters of Shakespeare, who was awarded an Oscar and made a knight, but John Gielgud is to become known for something rather more counter-cultural: a gay porn film he wrote for Peter de Rome, which may finally go into production.

De Rome was a film-maker who made gay pornography in New York from the 1960s onwards, at a time when homosexuality was illegal, and became the subject of the recent documentary Peter de Rome: Grandfather of Gay Porn. He died earlier this year. The film’s producer David McGillivray, in conversation at a recent retrospective of pulp director Pete Walker, revealed details of a collaboration between De Rome and Gielgud.

Arrow Video is thrilled to announce the UK Blu-ray and DVD release of Mark of the Devil, once proclaimed as “positively the most horrifying film ever made”. Mark of the Devil finally arrives uncut in the UK on 29th September 2014. With Mark of the Devil, writer-director Michael Armstrong created a bloody and brutal critique of state-funded brutality and religious corruption with a doomed romance at its centre. In America, Mark of the Devil was distributed with a free sick bag provided for every patron. In the UK the BBFC were obliged to sit through the entire uncut film and deemed it “vicious and disgusting.” They recommended that a certificate be refused entirely and provided a list of required cuts to make the film acceptable for an X certificate. This means that finally, after more than forty years, the full-blooded, full-frontal version of Mark of the Devil can be released with...

Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.

As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.

****

124: (Tie) Inside (À l’intérieur)

Directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury

Written by Alexandre Bustillo

2007, France

Four months after the death of her husband, a pregnant woman is tormented by a strange woman who invades her home with the intent on killing her and taking her unborn baby. This movie is not recommended for women on the brink of motherhood. Inside is one of the most vicious and...

The Tuesday before Halloween is bound to have a lot of genre titles. There are some good ones too like Attack the Block, Blue Underground releases Fulci in High-Definition with Zombie and The House by the Cemetery, also Criterion releases The Island of Lost Souls on DVD & Blu-Ray and the most talked about film of last year, A Serbian Film finally hits the shelves. Read below, if you dare, for all your DVD and Blu-Ray releases for this week and if you plan on purchasing any films through Amazon, click on the buttons provided as they help us out with paying the bills around here.

Animal Attack Two Pack (Maneaters Are Loose/ Shark Kill)

Two savage and rare TV movies in the 1970s “Animal Attack” genre that have rarely been seen since their initial release, now back in print and together at last on DVD.

Buy the DVD @ Amazon.

Birthday parties have long been home to the exact ingredients needed to concoct a recipe for disaster. Especially in horror flicks. The latest murderous import from the UK realizes this and as a result is geared up to celebrate in a different way.

Unhappy Birthday, directed by Mark Harriott and Mike Matthews, stars David Paisley, Christina De Vallee, Jill Riddiford, Jonathan Keane and David McGillivray. It will be having its premiere at the 25th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival on Friday 1st April - 8.30pm.

For more information check out the official Unhappy Birthday website and then "Like" them on the Unhappy Birthday Facebook page.

Synopsis

A surprise birthday party becomes a living nightmare for city-dwelling couple Sadie and Rick and their friend Jonny. They are invited to visit the remote tidal island of Amen by Corinne, an enigmatic local who hopefully holds answers to long-buried family secrets.

Amen...

Today marked the start of the 9th Fantastic Films Weekend at the National Media Museum in Bradford, West Yorkshire and despite some teething problems, both technical and personnel, I’d say the opening day was a hit.

The main part of today’s festivities was taken up by Fantasma, a special symposium on horror featuring lectures from I.Q. Hunter, David Robinson, Russ Hunter and Jeremy Dyson (who you may know from The League of Gentlemen). The highlight of these lectures were the talks given by I.Q. Hunter and Russ Hunter (no relation).

I.Q. Hunter’s talk on British Sex Films covered the gamut of British exploitation cinema, from the more mainstream Confessions… movies to lesser known films such as Permissive. Judging by his talk, Hunter seems to have taken up the reigns laid down by filmmaker and critic David McGillivray, who is seen as the premiere spokesperson...

Pin-up of the 1950s best known for her cameo role in the film Peeping Tom

Although best-known for her cameo appearance in Peeping Tom, Michael Powell's classic 1959 film, Pamela Green, who has died aged 81, was the leading British pin-up of that period. For a generation of young men, her lithe figure, long blonde hair and photogenic features represented an unattainable ideal of feminine allure. Her role in Peeping Tom was the first appearance of a naked woman in a British feature film.

The only child of an English architect and his Dutch wife, Green spent her first decade in the Netherlands. On the eve of the second world war, she and her parents decamped to England. Always keen on painting and drawing, in 1947 she was accepted on to the fine art course at St Martin's, one of London's leading art schools. Between sessions in the painting studio and the life room,...