Sunday 29 March 2009

First Post


This blog is intended to be a forum for me to rant about one of my life-long obsessions: genre films. A creative outlet for my macabre passion and a way to stop boring my long-suffering, non-film obsessed friends.

My main focus will be on original, independent, taboo-breaking and downright transgressive cinema - most of it oozing and shambling from the artistic fringes, with the occasional mainstream movie rearing it's ugly head. I don't have anything against popular cinema per se, but this blog will try to avoid the cliche, homogenisation, banality and ennui that pervades the bloated corpse of the big studios.

2009 is an exciting year for genre fans, with some interesting films being released theatrically and on DVD. We've already been treated to a number of memorable films, amongst them: Pascal Laugier's provocative masterpiece Martyrs; Frank Henenlotter's deranged Bad Biology; Fabrice Du Welz's sumptuously atmospheric Vinyan; and A.J. Annila's equally beautiful Sauna. Slated for release throughout the rest of the year are such hotly anticipated releases as Vincenzo Natali's S.F. thriller Splice (pictured); George Romero's next (as yet untitled) living dead opus; Stuart Gordon's return to Lovecraft with The Thing On The Doorstep; Quentin Tarantino's latest exploitation re-invention Inglourious Basterds; Nicolas Winding Refn's viking epic Valhalla Rising; John Hillcoat's apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road... and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

With this blog I'll be exploring to the bottom of that celluloid berg, plumbing it's darkest, coldest depths to see what depraved excess and sublime beauty I might find lurking there.