Mystics in Bali (1981), a wild Indonesian horror tale of witches and flying head monsters from director H. Tjut Djalil, who later gave us the barmy Lady Terminator (1989), is every bit as strange as you might have heard... eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/26/m...

Out today and available at all good podcast outlets and at the Evolution of Horror's main site - www.evolutionofhorror.com

With The Lucifer Complex (1978), Kenneth Hartford and David L. Hewitt somehow manage to turn a tale of cloned Nazis, secret agents and the attempted take over of the world into the most boring thing you'll see this or any other week. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/t...

Freddie Francis' The Ghoul (1975) was another disappointing effort his father Kevin's Tyburn films. The sorry tale of a cannibalistic lunk in a nappy, its sole saving grace is its impressive cast. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/t...

Hammer Time: A Hammer Horror Podcast! I’m excited to be producing a brand new weekly podcast with Becky Darke and Kevin Lyons as they watch and discuss the whole Hammer Horror back catalogue in chronological order… @bunnydarke.bsky.social @eofftv.bsky.social

Coming soon from the Evolution of Horror podcast - me and Becky Darke are about to spend the next year and a bit talking about one of my favourite subjects, Hammer Films, in a brand new podcast launching very soon. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/h...

Basil Dearden's dour science fiction thriller The Mind Benders (1963) is well intentioned, with strong performances and some nice ideas but it's a bit to slow and talky for its own good. See it for star Dirk Bogarde who is excellent throughout. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/t...

Peter Watkins's Privilege (1967) isn't exactly subtle satire but its tale of a rock star being manipulated by media, church and state in a near future Britain to become a messianic mouthpiece for their beliefs has a certain timely quality about it. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/22/p...

Just spotted that this little gem is showing on BBC Four for any UK viewers - the magnificent Ghost Story for Christmas instalment, The Signalman (1976). eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2017/12/20/a...

Another one from the vault while new reviews are on hold for a few days. Here's Freddie Francis’ marvellously stylish The Skull (1965), the best of Amicus’ non-anthology horror films. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2022/03/31/t...

I'm doing a few podcasts this week so while preparing for them, there'll be no new reviews for a couple of days but I'll repost some older ones. And here's one of the films I'll be talking about, Gordon Douglas’ giant ant classic Them! (1954). eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/t...

Here's an odd and pretty obscure one. The Spectre: A Legend of Old New England (1925) is an early example of what we've come to know as "folk horror", a ghostly tale produced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/13/t...

Men Must Fight (1933) is a preachy and not entirely satisfactory anti-war film that imagines a futuristic conflict of 1940, complete with climactic attack on New York City. Worth seeing for that, but it's a long slog getting there. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/12/m...

Mike Flanagan's breakthrough feature, Absentia (2011) is a creepy tale of loss, grief, and something nasty lurking in a subway tunnel. Brilliantly directed & acted, it set Flanagan on the road to becoming one of the best genre directors of his generation. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/11/a...

Vojtěch Jasný's When the Cat Comes (1963) is a whimsical fantasy from the Czechoslovak New Wave that has some satirical clout beneath the tale of a cat who can reveal peoples' inner selves in moments of wild day-glo weirdness. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/10/w...

Canadian post-apocalyptic drama DEFCON-4 (1985) came with a superb poster that the film was never going to live up to. It gets top marks for not just copying the Mad Max 2 (1981) model, but loses them again by being very, very dull. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/09/d...

If you're in London and free on Saturday 27 September, this promises to be a lot of fun.

Raúl Ruiz's The Territory (1981) is an awkwardly acted but fascinating backwoods horror variant (with a dash of "folk horror" and metaphysics) about a group of lost American tourists in southern France reverting to cannibalism. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/08/t...

This one's long overdue, a look at Ridley Scott's hugely influential Alien (1979). Reviews of the rest of the franchise will follow in due course. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/05/a...

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025) doesn’t really tamper too much with the established formula, but it's an effective and fun addition to the series with plenty of inventive deaths and a touching final scene for series regular Tony Todd. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/04/f...

Alan Bridges's Invasion (1966) is one of several gritty B&W British SF films of the 1960s, set in a rural English hospital under siege by aliens. Edward Judd leads the cast who gamely sweat it out as a forcefield traps everyone - and the heat - inside it. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/03/i...

Maurice Elvey's High Treason (1929) was the first British science fiction talkie. Praised by Michael Powell no less, it's actually rather dull, with stodgy direction, an uninvolving plot and a ludicrous climax. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/02/h...

Dan Curtis' The Curse of the Black Widow (1977) is a television film about a giant were-spider, family dysfunction and a rather plodding investigation by private eye Tony Franciosa. It's rather ordinary but undemanding fun nonetheless. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/t...

The Curse of Kazuo Umezu (1990) is an impressive two-part Japanese horror anime based on the works of the eponymous Umezu featuring Gigeresque vampire monsters, wild hallucinations and gallons of gore. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/31/t...

Jean Epstein's The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) is a gloriously atmospheric distillation of Edgar Allan Poe's key obsessions - surreal, haunting and completely unforgettable. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/30/t...

Chamber of Horrors (1966) was a television pilot rejected by the networks for being too grim and retooled for a theatrical release. It's a bit low on the bloodshed but features a terrific performance from Patrick O'Neal and is a good deal of fun. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/c...

Electric Dreams (1984) is an affable (if slightly creepy at times) love story between a young cellist and a home PC that becomes sentient. You may remember it for that irritating and ubiquitous title song... eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/28/e...

The Unborn (1980) is a strange and unsettling British TV drama from writer Philip Martin that mixes nuclear war, dreams, a form of voodoo, clairvoyants and a Satanic priest into a wild and always fascinatingly odd story. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/27/b...

Steve Sekely's (and an uncredited Freddie Francis') Day of the Triffids (1962) has its fans but I'm not one of them. It deviates too far from John Wyndham's far superior novel and its troubled production is evident in almost every frame. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/26/d...

The remarkable and disturbing Angst (1983) was the only feature film from commercials and educational film director Gerald Kargl, a brilliantly photographed, claustrophobic and chilling home invasion film with a difference. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/25/a...

Harpya (1979) remains one of the best films from Belgian animator Raoul Servais, a macabre and surreal tale of a harpy with an insatiable appetite that makes a man's life a living hell. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/24/h...

I was under the weather yesterday so pleasure forgive the tardiness again - here's an early, if not the earliest, example of an "old dark house" horror comedy, Roland West's visually stunning if sometimes a bit sluggish, The Bat (1926). eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/23/t...

What on Earth is Alberto Cavalcanti's masterpiece Went the Day Well? (1942) doing here? Well, there are bookend scenes that are set in the film's future for a start and there's a long history of paranoid fantasies about England being invaded, so why not? eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/22/w...

Eugene Lourie pretty much remade his The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) as Behemoth the Sea Monster (1959), but it's hampered by a lack of money, a below par monster and a second-hand plot. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/21/b...

Hard Knuckle (1987) is an Australian post-apocalyptic TV film starring Steve Bisley, Goose from Mad Max (1979). But this isn’t a high-octane revenge thriller - it's a vaguely futuristic film about playing pool. And it's as exciting as that sounds... eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/20/h...

Doran's Box (1976), episode of the BBC's Play for Today written by Eric Coltart is a head-scratching opaque tale of scientists on the edge, sensory deprivation and ESP though what it's really about is anyone's guess... eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/19/p...

The Case of the Full Moon Murders (1973) was the brainchild of Sean S. Cunningham, a witless softcore sex comedy about a vampire with a very singular modus operandi... eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/18/t...

I should have posted this yesterday, but better late than never - here's a look at 1001 Nights (1998), an extraordinary short animation based on designs by beloved anime designer Yoshitaka Amano with an interesting back story. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/17/f...

Charlie Chaplin's His Prehistoric Past (1914) is far from his best work, a two-reel prehistoric dream fantasy that relies on tired old slapstick routines and betraying a marked lack of inspiration. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/16/h...

With the second sequel having come and gone, it's long overdue a look at Danny' Boyle's excellent and still very timely 28 Days Later… (2002). Reviews of the sequels to follow soon(is)... eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/15/2...

Aislinn Clarke's Fréwaka (2024) is an intriguing "folk horror" steeped in the myths and legends of rural Ireland. It manages to find new ground to cover in an over-crowded field. Streaming now on Shudder and well worth a look. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/14/f...

The Secret of the Loch (1934) was the first feature film to feature the eponymous monster, and it was an inauspicious debut for dear old Nessie, played by a photographically enlarged and very lethargic iguana sitting in a terrarium... eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/t...

Zach Cregger's terrific Weapons (2025) is a tough one to write about without completely ruining the experience. This review avoids the obvious spoilers - suffice to say it's the best horror film of the year so far. See it before someone gives it all away. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/w...

John Krish's The Finishing Line (1977) is in the same vein as Apaches (1977), a film aimed at protecting children by severely traumatising them. This one has a boy daydreaming about a series of games on a railway track that end in bloody mayhem. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/11/t...

Lensman: Secret of the Lens (1984) is a Japanese animated adaptation of E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman novels, particularly Galactic Patrol, but in truth there's precious little left of Smith and far too much borrowed from Star Wars in its place. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/10/l...

The Headless Horseman (1922) is a faithful but rather dull adaptation of Washington Irving's much beloved 1820 short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with stage comedian cast against type as an unusual Ichabod Crane. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/09/t...

Supersonic Saucer (1956) was the first science fiction film (there were several others) from Britain's Children's Film Foundation, a charming tale of a peculiar looking alien and the terribly nice young Earth kids it befriends. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/s...

Matt Vesely's Monolith (2020) is a science fiction film featuring a strong performance Lily Sullivan (she's the only person we ever see on-screen) is an intriguing tale of mysterious alien "bricks" and the disgraced journalist investigating them. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/m...

A short review today for a truly dreadful film - the anonymously made The Geek (1971), the world's first, but strangely far from last, Bigfoot sex movie. And yes, it's as dreadful as you might imagine. eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/06/t...

I wondered if I should do this given that everyone else online was giving a good kicking, but Rich Lee's dreadful War of the Worlds (2025) annoyed me so much that I had to vent that anger somewhere... eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2025/08/05/w...