This was a difficult article to write and, while it’s impossible to answer, I’m hoping it provides some means for people to navigate a challenging ethical landscape.
Thanks to Kat and Lee at Diabolique for having the editorial balls to run with me…
What do you do in a 10-minute interview with one of the greatest actors of our time? You ask him about his role as private eye Mike Hammer and a lesser known made-for-TV movie from 1974, All the Kind Strangers.
That’s what I did when I spoke to Stacy Keach for Diabolique...
Mattie Do is a pioneer. She is one of very few filmmakers in Laos, and she is her country’s first female horror filmmaker. She also may have secured Laos’ first ever nomination for an Oscar with her second film, Dearest Sister.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas from Senses of Cinema commissioned me to write a piece on Mattie Do and – 8,000 words of interviewing later, faithfully transcribed by the always awesome Faith Everard – this piece came into being.
While this article is half the length of the actual interview, it is, hopefully, one that manages to capture Mattie accurately in her own words, as well as the big things she’s doing with some small films that are light years away from Hollywood.
This piece was written at the beginning of 2017 but, inexplicably, I failed to post it to my website. Me bad.
But I’m proud to say this is, likely, one of the most substantial/lengthy articles written about David Cronenberg’s second short film, From the Drain, to appear online at the very least. I am willing to be proven wrong and would, in fact, be very interested in reading someone else’s take on this surreal mind-fuck.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, one of the editors at Senses of Cinema, asked me to undertake this challenge as part of the journal’s tribute section of the March 2017. Titled ‘Love Letters: 1967’, this section included articles about filmmakers who would later become big players on the cinematic landscape but were only just emerging in short form in that particular year.
The likes of David Lynch, Seijun Suzuki, Joseph Losey and Norman Jewison also had ‘love letters’ written to them by a variety of talented folk. It’s well worth perusing them all. But, first, help me make sense of David Cronenberg’s enigmatic mind.
Writers will have favourites from their body of work, and this piece on the Bride of Frankenstein is undoubtedly one of mine.
Thank you to Diabolique Magazine and Lee Gambin for breathing new life into this piece and selecting it to kick off the ‘Gods & Monsters’ column.
I particularly appreciate the glorious photograph selection, including the one featured above of my ‘spirit animal’, Elsa Lanchester.
When asked by Frankie to create a listicle on Five Laugh-Inducing B-Grade Horror Movies to promote Triple R’s 2017 Radiothon, I don’t think they expected my utter admiration for films others may see in another light.
But I’m pleased that Frankie’s assistant editor Mia Timpano allowed me to put my particular bent on this list and write what I’m not-so secretly calling ‘Five Legendary B-Brilliant Horror Movies’. I have nothing but utter respect for these beautiful cinematic specimens, as you can read below…
(Maybe Houseboat Horror is just plain bad but anyhoo…)
In preparation for a longer form piece in the new Cinemaniacs Presents journal, I had the pleasure of talking to fellow horror movie fan, Gina Philips, who played the role of Trish in the original Jeepers Creepers (fans will be very pleased to know she is coming back for the third instalment in the franchise).
Gina was such a generous interviewee I decided to throw some words the way of Diabolique, and the fruits of my labour can now be read in the following article…
One of the gratifying outcomes of the RAW advanced screening and discussion panel with Barbara Creed, Philippa Hawker, Clem Bastow and Cerise Howard on 19th April has been the opportunity to write a wrap-up of the event for the incomparable Kat Ellinger and Diabolique online.
For those who were not able to attend, this is the closest you’ll get to hearing the panellists’ words, including sage observations from the likes of Cerise Howard:
“What is most monstrous in this film is heteronormativity… This whole hazing business… it’s rape culture writ large and is truly monstrous.”
As I near completion of my full book manuscript for Devil’s Advocates on David Cronenberg’s The Fly, Rathan Krueger steals a minute (or so) of my time for Daily Grindhouse to chat about delving into Cronenberg’s mind. Just talking about it gave me wings. You can read it here…
