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Evoking the twisted eeriness of classic folk horror but with a contemporary twist, Joseph Brett’s Stones is the story of a brother and sister whose family reunion at a stone circle becomes interrupted by an uninvited guest. Realised through the medium of stop motion animation, Brett’s film embraces the uncanny nature of the form with silicone-style puppets that bring a childlike yet unsettling sensibility to its tale of nostalgia, home and the connections we share with our local landscapes. Dn is delighted to premiere Stones today on the May 1st, the day used to commemorate the pagan festival of Beltane, alongside a in-depth conversation with Brett about his journey creating the film across lockdown, the creative marriage he sees between folk horror and stop motion, and the desire he and Writer Bec Boey (the other half of their Production Company Jackdaw Films) had to alter notions of representation within popular folk aesthetics.

It’s Christmas Eve, and you’re as ready as you’ll ever be. Presents under the tree? Check. Turkey in the fridge? Check. Mince pie for Father Christmas and a carrot for Rudolf on the hearth? Check. The thinning of the veil between this world and the next, allowing unquiet spirits to walk the Earth and the long shadows in the moonlit, frosty lanes to shift and darken with things not of this world? Check, check and check.

Because while Christmas might traditionally be the season of goodwill, comfort and joy, it is also very much the time of ghosts. And no one appreciates that quite as much as Mark Gatiss.

Gatiss is one of our most recognisable TV actors and writers, making his name with the surreal comedy of The League of Gentlemen and cementing his reputation with a starring role in Sherlock, his TV take on Dracula,...

When it comes to the tradition of telling ghosts stories during Christmas, Charles Dickens still reigns supreme, with medieval scholar M.R. James in a very close second place. But in recent years, actor, writer, and director Mark Gatiss has quickly earned mention alongside those two by reinvigorating the United Kingdom’s heritage of holiday horror.

Best known for his work on Doctor Who, Sherlock, Dracula, and the comedy troupe League of Gentlemen, Gatiss has become the force behind the BBC’s revival of A Ghost Story for Christmas series of television films. The original run of annuals was largely helmed by Lawrence Gordon Clark, and aired from 1971 until ’78, before returning sporadically in 2005. Gatiss made his directorial debut in 2013 with The Tractate Middoth, the Ghost Story adaptation of James’ work. He has since written and directed three more for the series — James adaptations Martin’s Close and The Mezzotint, and the...

Features: Robert Eggers, Lawrence Gordon Clark, Piers Haggard, Alice Lowe, Jonathan Rigby | Written and Directed by Kier-La Janisse

After watching Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror you certainly can’t accuse writer/director Kier-La Janisse (Eurocrime! the Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s) of just skimming the topic’s surface. Book-ended by animated credits sequences and featuring paper collages by Guy Maddin Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is a deep dive into the definition and history of folk horror. The film’s three hours and fifteen minutes are split into six chapters that make up three roughly hour-long segments.

The first segment deals with the “Unholy Trinity” of Witchfinder General, The Blood on Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man. While it doesn’t deny their influence and importance, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched very quickly dispenses with the idea that they are the root of the genre,...

“Folk horror” is a term of relatively recent vintage — or at least popularity — that only grows more broad as “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched” spends three and a quarter hours trying to define it. Still, a slippery thesis doesn’t detract from the pleasures of this documentary from genre scholar and programmer Kier-La Janisse. She draws on alluring clips from more than 100 films, plus myriad interviews, to survey an alternately lurid and surreal cinematic (as well as television) field of mostly rural tales inspired by traditional superstitions and lore.

for a long time to come. Production company Severin Films, itself a leading restorer and home-formats distributor of vintage cult movies, should find a ready-made audience in its own customer base—which Janisse’s film will no doubt help expand.

Beyond the director herself, the various authorities heard from here (just a couple in archival interviews) include veteran and next-generation filmmakers,...

From Nosferatu to Twilight, gothic films have explored what frightens us – and why we are willing victims of our fear. A few days before Halloween, and as the BFI begins a nationwide season, Michael Newton is seduced by horror, sex and satanism

Beyond high castle walls, the wolves howl. The Count intones: "Listen to them! The children of the night! What music they make!" And those words usher you into a faintly ludicrous cosiness, the comfortable darkness of gothic. For gothic properties are altogether snug, as familiar as Halloween costumes – a Boris Karloff mask, the Bela Lugosi cape, an Elsa Lanchester wig. So it is that many of us first come to the form through its parodies; I knew Carry On Screaming! by heart before I saw my first Hammer film. And yet, within the homely restfulness, something genuinely disturbing lurks; an authentic dread. And watching these films again, we...

We make no bones about it... we love Synapse Films around here if only because they always dig deep and pull out something cool to release on DVD or Blu-ray that we've all but forgotten about. Case in point...

From the Press Release

The television series "Chiller" was a five-episode horror anthology that aired in the UK in 1995. Presented here for the first time in the U.S., these supernatural shockers feature malevolent spirits, a brutal serial killer, and a haunted house set in contemporary England. Starring many of Britain’s leading actors like Nigel Havers (Chariots of Fire, TV’s Coronation Street), Martin Clunes (UK’s Men Behaving Badly), Sophie Ward (Young Sherlock Holmes) and Kevin McNally (Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean series), this compelling collection will leave you chilled to the bone! Episodes include Prophecy, Toby, Here Comes The Mirror Man, The Man Who Didn't Believe In Ghosts,...

Synapse has announced a December release date for the 1995 UK horror anthology Chiller. Take a look at the official release details and cover art:

The television series Chiller was a five-episode horror anthology that aired in the UK in 1995. Presented here for the first time in the U.S., these supernatural shockers feature malevolent spirits, a brutal serial killer and a haunted house set in contemporary England. Starring many of Britain’s leading actors like Nigel Havers (Chariots of Fire, TV’s Coronation Street), Martin Clunes (UK’s Men Behaving Badly), Sophie Ward (Young Sherlock Holmes) and Kevin McNally (Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean series), this compelling collection will leave you chilled to the bone! Episodes include Prophecy, Toby, Here Comes The Mirror Man, The Man Who Didn’T Believe In Ghosts and Number Six.

Directors: Lawrence Gordon Clark, Bob Mahoney, Rob Walker

Stars: Nigel Havers, Martin Clunes, Sophie Ward,...

★★★★★ The BFI follow up their release earlier this year of Volumes 1 and 2 in the classic BBC Christmas Ghost Story series with six more blood chilling tales for cold winter nights, produced by Rosemary Hill and directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and Derek Lister. As well as three stories from the master of Victorian menace M. R. James, another period tale is included this time by Charles Dickens, as well as contemporary frighteners from Clive Exton and John Bowen.

Read more »...

Ghost Stories: Volumes 1&2

If being scared out of your wits is what Christmas is all about for you, then blame the BBC. For most of the 1970s, and again in the 2000s, a tiny portion of the licence fee went to creating a series of short films based on the ghostly writings of the great Mr James. These were broadcast in the small hours of the festive season and made their mark not just because they weren't joining in with the more traditional fun, but because they were among the best things British television has ever produced.

The series started off in an unconventional manner, with Jonathan Miller directing a classic version of James's Whistle And I'll Come To You. Miller's film laid the template for all that followed: shot on location on film, cast one well-respected, not too famous actor – in this case Sir Michael Hordern – then heat...

Even if you watched it, it's unlikely you'll ever remember the 90s supernatural horror/fantasy series Chiller originally shown in 1995 on ITV; There's a good reason for that. Recognisable writers and well-respected British actors make everything look good on paper, but watching the five episodes suggests they were nothing more than early pre-fame career-building work for the majority of the cast.

Set in London and flashing back to a Ouija board séance, Prophecy is the opening story. As Francesca's friends drop around her, she comes to realise her new boyfriend's son, Edward, may have something to do with the tragic bout of accidents. Prophecy relies on the lead's Catholic religion and her boyfriend's (Nigel Havers) family history. As a sadist and paedophile, Marquis Francis Halkin is the “black sheep” of the family and somehow young Edward seems psychically linked to him. The eerie Halkin family motto “Non Omnis Moriar” (“I...

Vincenzo Natali'S horror flick Splice, starring Adrien Brody as a scientist who creates a new lifeform from the DNA of several species, has been fairly well-received in the USA and is getting a UK cinema release on July 23.

The idea of creatures that are a fusion of different organisms isn't new, of course, and long before there was Splice there was Chimera.

This classic 1991 UK TV miniseries is finally coming to DVD on July 5.

Sci-fi writer Stephen Gallagher adapted his own novel into the screenplay for the Anglia TV production which was directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark (Harry's Game).

The Jenner Clinic, a fertility research centre, has been destroyed in an explosion and the entire staff wiped out by someone or something of superhuman strength.

Journalist Peter Carslon (Johny Lynch - Sliding Doors) fears his girlfriend, nurse Tracy Pickford, is one of the victims.

As he begins to investigate the tragedy,...