Author Matthew Hammond

“I have less and less respect for them …I think they don’t even do what they do very well anymore.” – Maggie Renzi, The Story of Film This quote truly encapsulates the hard truth that the corpse...

With Guy Ritchie’s hyper-stylised bombastic take on the legend of King Arthur just days away from hitting cinemas, it seems almost preordained to return to a film of the past which almost appears as a...

The anthology film has enjoyed a resurgence in modern horror cinema, with the likes of ABCs of Death, Holidays and VHS channelling the classic portmanteau through a lens of decisively contemporary traumas and...

Much of horror cinema classically has played on our fears of the unknown, of the supernatural and the other…something fantastical that we cannot fully comprehend with anything other than fear. One only needs...

Based on a series of graphic novels, Abattoir follows reporter Julia who, after the horrific murder of her sister and nephew, is drawn into a grisly mystery involving the removal of rooms in which people have...

The Master Cleanse follows Paul, a regular guy whose life has unraveled in spite (or perhaps because) of his best efforts. With his optimism crumbling slowly, Paul discovers the Lets Get Pure program in which...

Crow is a clear attempt to create a British eco-horror, focusing on the horror of evil modernism and greed in the face of natural beauty and serenity; however, the film is so poorly handled in terms of its...

A work of taut skill and playful interaction, Abner Pastoll’s rural game of appearances, Road Games, is a lithe and elegant addition to this year’s Frightfest line up. When British hitchhiker Jack meets...

The Love Witch follows the tale of Elaine, a beautiful young woman who wants more than anything to find a man that will love her with all the passion she would love them. After an experience in the past that...

Set on the coast of North Korea, The Chamber follows the pilot of a small submersible craft who is ordered by his superiors to take a three man special ops team on a secret mission into North Korean territory....

Mercy follows the tale of one family, divided between two sets of estranged half brothers, as they return home to say a final goodbye to their mother as she approaches her death. However, as they come together...

Cinema holds a power, an allure that has delighted and consumed audiences for over a century, and seemingly only grows in terms of evolving spectacle and devotion. You only need to view the pull of an event...

On a rainy night in an isolated bus station, eight strangers are brought together and undergo an experience that will not only change their lives, but the very nature of mankind’s existence forever as one by...

Francesca is, in the purest and simplest of terms, absolute giallo. It captures in totality the essence of a genre that exists still as one of the most distinctive and cultishly adored sub genres in horror...

Drawing explicitly on the classics of the video era such as Friday the 13th, Rabid, and The Evil Dead, Lake Nowhere is an exuberant blast from the past that immerses itself in horror history to distil a...

In 1983, Theologian John Hull lost his sight just days before the birth of his first son. Having his entire world transformed by this development, Hull decided the only way he could process this adjustment and...

Baskin revolves around a team of five police officers whose evening is interrupted by a distress call from the rural town of Inceagac, a place haunted by rumours of strange occurrences and secrets. Upon...

In a time of tremendous turbulence in the British cultural and political landscape, awareness and comment in our cinema is vital. Even more so perhaps is a cinema that examines our identity, not only in terms...

I’ll start this piece with a confession. As much as I am writing this piece as an exploration of a particular film, I’m also writing it as my own way of working through the internal response I had to...

In the wake of the ballyhoo surrounding Hardcore Henry, the vogue of the first person perspective seems in a prime position to flood the cinematic market…for better or for worse. Not without its problems,...

Phantom Halo is a story of abuse and love lost in the maelstrom of broken dreams, promises and hope. The film focuses centrally on two brothers, Samuel and Beckett, as they struggle through a life that...