Coulrophobia – Are You Afraid of Clowns?

Did you find Heath Ledger as The Joker scary? Then perhaps you suffer from coulrophobia, the abnormal fear of clowns. Join a self-confessed coulrophobic for a look at these guys and see if you are too- as if you don’t already know!

Image Credit Flickr User SilentMind8

The Disappearance of Willie Bingham

You could say that this is Kuriositas’ offering for Halloween as it certainly has the horror quotient but very cleverly done (even though if you are squeamish at all you will wince on any number of occasions).  Prisoner Willie Bingham has committed a terrible crime and the authorities decide to use him as a pilot for a particularly gruesome kind of punishment.  Written and directed by Matt Richards, this will have you on the edge of your seat.  Scalpels out!

Phone Booth of the Dead

If you found yourself alone as the zombie apocalypse started you might well mistake the walking dead for a bunch of drug addicts out to mug you and so try and phone the police from the nearest phone booth.  Being as apocalypse-savvy as we are, that probably wouldn’t happen but Patrick hasn’t got The Complete Walking Dead box-set so that’s exactly what he does.

Written and directed by Vincent Templement, Cabine of the Dead (apologies but the title of this post says phone booth for translation purposes!) this is a knowing comedy-horror short which keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek (but possibly not for long knowing the nature of our zombie chums).  It stars the rather dashing Richard Keep as Patrick whose character is a lesson to us all: make a note of who you are going to call when the apocalypse inevitably happens – it could just save your life!

Teddy Bears are for Lovers

Collin is something of a serial Casanova and, just when his girlfriends’ thoughts turn to love he heads off the issue with a gift – a teddy bear.  This has gone on for some time but one evening when Collin is in bed, the teddy bears come back to exact their revenge on him.  Directed by Almog Avidan Antonir, this short film features some of the most murderously cute teddy bears you will see this week.

Stephen King on Childhood

Many people think that something awful must have happened to Stephen King when he was a child, something that translates itself in to his work.

Here he explains in an interview why childhood is, to him, a different state of being, a culture of its own divorced from the realities of adult life.  This animated short was created by Patrick Smith as part of the PBS series Blank on Blank.

Puzzle: Genuinely Creepy Short Film

A woman. An old apartment. Pictures. That’s all it takes to create a genuinely creepy short film from which, frankly, some Hollywood directors could learn.  I may have become inured to frights in film over the years but this made me jump three times and it’s only five minutes long.  Written and directed by Vincent Templement and Adrien Pallatier and starring Flavie Péan this eerie short will suitably unnerve you. Don’t have nightmares!

The Unpeeled

There is one for you if, like me, you tend to allow fruit to get a little overripe instead of eating them when they are ready.  Their optimal ripeness never seems to coincide with my desire to taste their flesh but as we can see in Hillary Galvin’s entertaining short it can sometimes work the other way around.  These bananas, it seems, are not for the peeling!

The Last Time I Saw Richard

It’s the time of year when scary stories seem all the more frightening – and The Last Time I Saw Richard fits the desire for a few December chills perfectly. Jonah is a loner at the teenage mental health institution in which he is incarcerated until the arrival of Richard. Yet despite the growing bond between the teenagers, there are darklings hiding in the shadows of the night. Written and directed by Nicholas Verso this short movie is guaranteed to give you the wibbly-wobblies.Viewer discretion advised.

Movies Starring Movies: Horror Movie Special

Halloween is finally upon us and who doesn’t like a scary movie on this night, of all nights? This has something of a twist, however.

The guys at Portal Party have taken a load of DVD covers and made them the actors in their horror homage. Will the heroine escape or will tonight turn into a blood soaked nightmare for one very unlucky movie?

Ever Spent a Jumpy Night at Home Alone? Then This is for You

You might look forward to being the only one in the house every now and again.  You can move around more freely and the peace and quiet is just wonderful. Then the sun sets and little noises start to make you jumpy, you could swear you turned the hallway light off – and did you remember to lock the door? If you get spooked out being home alone then this horror short, by David F. Sandberg is not for you. Do not watch it, I repeat….

Noka: Keeper of Worlds

Gabriel is eight and his world has just changed with the death of his grandfather. Yet he has inherited a condition which is mistaken for a form of schizophrenia and he is medicated by his concerned mother.  However, a visit from a friend of his grandfather’s reveals the true nature of this illness.  He is a Noka – a gatekeeper for a supernatural realm. And the gates are open Written and directed by Shaun Escayg this short film will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Death Scenes – Bloody Cuts Episode 7

Don’t let the little ones watch this – unless of course you want nightmares for the next six months and therapy in to their teens.  Death Scenes is the seventh episode in the Bloody Cuts anthology of short British horror films.  As such, it does not disappoint! In this we open at Lynnsmouth police station where Detective Inspector Collins has a suspected mass murderer in custody.  Yet the man adamantly refuses to reveal his name or his motives for the crimes until the time that suits him – and that is fast approaching…

The Bloody Cuts team hope that altogether there will be thirteen episodes in the series. However, unfortunately they have not run out of funds.  Although they plan to start production of episode 8, Don’t Move, early in the New Year they need an injection of badly needed funds.  I will keep you posted as to when the Kickstarter UK campaign begins, so if you enjoyed Death Scene, please consider contributing to the rest of the series.

All You Need is Love

You will find most of the scariest movie monsters and villains in this video mashup, all strung together by whoispablo. From the Gremlins, Aliens, and Predators to the more down to earth monsters like Norman Bates, they are all here. 

Holding this feast of the frightening together is All You Need is Love by The Beatles.  Somewhere in here, almost guaranteed, you will find your favorite horror movie. The lip synching may not be 100% but this is the result of many a day's hard work. 

Fantastic!

Zombies of Oz: No Place Like Home

If you are like me you must have wondered what happened to Dorothy when she got back from Oz (sequels aside, of course!). Hickory, Hunk and Zeke (aka the cowardly lion, the tin man and the scarecrow) are still there. Yet Dorothy awakens in the barn with the three farm hands visibly scared and no sign of Aunt Em and Uncle Henry anywhere.

You have probably guessed from the title that Dorothy has woken up in the middle of a zombie apocalypse (or perhaps an Ozpocalypse?).  In only a short space of time the undead are knocking on the barn door and the four survivors must meet their destiny.

I thoroughly enjoyed this take on the Oz tales by Mai Nakanishi and Christine DeJoy of Vancouver Film School although I can easily see why Oz purists may not immediately take to it! Yet this tells a tale (however alternative) extremely well, with more than just the Dorothy meets the zombies twist too. A bravura piece of filmmaking – is this really a student film?

Nightmares Fear Factory – Dread and Terror Caught on Camera

Nightmares Fear Factory has been scaring the brown stuff out of people for over thirty years now – and there’s nothing quite like a good fright, is there? Here is a selection of high speed photographs, taken as visitors to the longest running and scariest haunted house in North America face their fears. Or not as the case may be!

Set in the abandoned Cataract Coffin Factory the frights are so abundant and plentiful that even the coolest cats cling on to each other for dear life (yes, the sight of terrified teenage boys is pretty amusing!).  The Nightmares Fear Factory at Niagara Falls, Canada, boasts that over a hundred thousand people have chickened out of remaining in the place.  This is now officially on my bucket list!

Image Credit Flickr User Smart Destinations

Dead Man’s Lake

We’ve been waiting a while for this and it doesn’t disappoint. The sixth installment of the Bloody Cuts series of the gruesome and ghastly, Dead Man’s Lake is a homage to all of those slasher movies of the 1980s. Yet as with the preceding five short movies in this series, everything is not all quite as it seems and the genre gets somewhat subverted.

This short starts with a classic B-movie horror scenario – three friends go camping in the woods. We have the usual suspects, the jock with a heart, the pretty girl with the long blond hair and the libido and the nerdy kid with (probably) a troubled background. Together they blithely ignore the warnings that tell them to keep out and head to the lake for a summer night’s camping.

Of course, it’s not long before things start to go wrong – but despite your best efforts to make them listen by shouting at them to do exactly the opposite, these kids just carry on regardless.  The story is drawn from the brain of Bloody Cuts creator Ben Franklin, who takes directing duties for the first time. The script is Joel Morgan. Although you may think that the warnings at the beginning are part of the pastiche – beware! If you are faint hearted (as I am) you will end up watching this from between your fingers.

Cockneys Vs Zombies Title Sequence

The long awaited British comedy horror Cockneys Vs Zombies is set for release in a few days and as a taster we thought we would share with you the title sequence directed by Gianluca Fallone.  It's an animated roller coaster of an sequence and it is very, very cool. It also has Monster by The Automatic as its song.  You know the one - what's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Is it a monster?

The movie itself features a gang of East End types battling hordes of zombies (well, you may have guessed that from the title of the movie!). They have decided to rob a bank in order to save a local old people's home but as they emerge from the scene of the crime they realize that the East End of London has been taken over by zombies. The movie also features their older relatives, the denizens of the old people’s home fighting off the zombies with octogenarian relish.

For fans of James Bond and The Avengers the movie features Honor Blackman as one of the pensioners who fights off the hordes of the undead with her usual panache! The movie also stars former Eastenders, Bionic Woman and Doctor Who star Michelle Ryan as one of the young trio whose bank job goes zombarifically wrong. With a host of other British character actors, including Richard Briers, Dudley Sutton and Tony Gardner Cockneys Vs Zombies promises to be fun - albeit of an extremely blood spattered nature.

Jut in case you haven't seen it, here's the trailer.

Suckablood

Just a quick warning first – this may not be for the faint hearted or very young!  It is a cautionary tale for adults – if you have offspring refusing to stop sucking their thumbs then try not to take your aversion therapy too far! There must be a less bloody cure for thumb sucking than this, after all!

This is the story of Tilly who, like any pretty girl in a gothic horror fairy tale, has an evil stepmother.  The stepmother threatens her with the monster Suckablood if she insists on sucking her thumb again. What happens next is, well, that’s up to you to find out!

Written and directed by Ben Tillett and Jake Cuddihy and produced by Ben Franklin (yet another American President founding father in on the horror act, it seems), Suckablood is the fifth and latest of what is planned to be thirteen installments in a horror anthology known as Bloody Cuts – and you can find the previous four on the team’s eponymous website. You can also join their Facebook Page if it takes your fancy!

Just in case you feel disinclined to go and see the rest of them (and have got this far without watching the short film), take note! None other than Stephen Fry has donated to the making of this short horror. Fry, who was impressed with the previous four installments (which all work as standalone shorts), put something in to the hat of the filmmakers to help them get through the production costs of such an ambition series (full story here). Nice one Stephen! So, go on, watch the rest and scare yourself (or younger persons of the household) silly.

The Gate

If you are of a delicate nature then take heed of the picture and don’t press play! The Gate is a science fiction short written and directed by Matt Westrup, produced by Spencer Friend under the auspices of Joyrider films.  It is, like much science fiction, a warning of what might be not what is inevitable. The scenario is that London in the near future has witnessed the deaths of a number of people who have inexplicably mutated. Yeah, like him on the left.

The CGI rendering is (without sounding like too much of a fanboy) awesome and the pace of the short film is brisk and carries you along with it - these eight minutes will go quickly, you will be so wrapped up in the situation.  I could easily imagine this being made in to a full feature or a TV series whereby a small but elite crew has to deal with mutations of the human genome on a weekly basis.  They might just want to tackle most of the UK government's current Cabinet first of all. Something strange has been happening there for a while now...

Seriously, though, I really think that Joyrider Films should contact the BBC very soon (if they have not already done so!).

The Ambassador

Image Credit Flickr user Seriykotic1970

Another picture from the Flickr Photostream of Seriykotik1970 – this one very much in HP Lovecraft mode.  One of the most influential horror writers of the twentieth century (bar the fact that the influence came very much post mortem) Lovecraft’s stories are full of strange goings on.  He is perhaps most famous for his Cthulhu Mythos cycle.  This picture, entitled The Ambassador, allows us to imagine a whole new undiscovered Lovecraft novel!