'Bones' (2001) – Ernest Dickerson.

'The gangster of love don't eat no fried chicken'

Gifted filmmaker, Ernest Dickerson's visually striking, Hip Hop flavoured horror show has some stylish set pieces, and Snoop Dogg's stone cold revenging wraith, Jimmy Bones remains one especially dope death dealer! There's also a couple of righteous, Lucio Fulci/Dario Argento references that I had totally forgotten about! 

 

 

'Highwaymen' (2004) – Robert Harmon.

Sleek, picturesque, pheromone-drenched hotties, Rhona Mitra and, Jim Caviezel star in, Robert 'The Hitcher' Harmon's heroically revved up, tarmac-thrashing terror trip 'Highwaymen'.Buckle up, buttercups, this turbocharged, chrome-plated classic of bone-splintering vehicular carnage is gonna drive you plum crazy! Excitingly, Harmon never once slips into lower gear, there's no moronic jump-scares, just a full-throttle, perfectly engineered, fear-accelerating V-Hate nightmare!' Think a higher octane admixture of 'Duel & 'Joy Ride' with extra muscle (car)!

 

 

'Lighthouse' (1999) – Simon Hunter.

Trapped within a desolate lighthouse with vicious, grim-looking, machete-maiming psychopath, Leo Rook (Chris Adamson) able director, Simon Hunter wastes little time righteously scaring the smalls off his audience! Claustrophobic, intense, and frequently quite brilliant, it would be entirely fair to strongly suggest that the head-loppingly lurid slasher 'Lighthouse' remains one of the more uniquely atmospheric, grossly underappreciated British Horror films. Eschewing asinine jump-scares for actual filmmaking, Hunter's more stylishly mounted shocks have a slick, pulse-poundingly De Palma quality. Unlike the cartoonish, Teen-creaming masked maniacs, the genuinely sinister, wraith-like, Leo Rook exudes a mythical Gothic quality, a merciless Lovecraftian lunatic, dat hateful, Rook's one off the hook spook, dude!

 

 

'Angel' (2015) – Ray Burdis.

I wasn't going to mention this Brit-horror oddity, but, on reflection it's arguably hinkey enough for more tweaked B-Horror obsessed misfits to give it a shout. Ray Burdis's 'Angel', sadly, had the potential to be a decent psychological horror film, all the lurid ingredients were certainly present, but the so-so execution, prosaic dialogue, and wildly inconsistent performances did much to clip this Angel's wings. On the plus side, the gamine, Jenn Murray's portrayal of cutesy kooky psycho killer Angel was suitably incandescent. Angel's increasingly demented interludes proved memorable, and the macabre flashbacks to her distressing childhood trauma were genuinely unsettling. Once I realised that 'Angel' was veering inexorably into Schlock Central I started to dig on it most righteously. This skeevey tale of bloody-minded vengeance is a creepy curate's egg, but one hopes that another equally twisted reprobate might share a modicum of my, perhaps, entirely misguided enthusiasm for, Ray Burdis's earnest misfire!

 

 

 

 

'Haunted House of Horror' (1969) – Michael Armstrong.

Michael Armstrong's enjoyably Scooby Dude sixties slasher is a delightfully chintzy, dazzlingly polka-dotty 60s terror time capsule! While the cliche-clotted text is creakier than an armadillo's codpiece the splashy kills are agreeably lurid, and the conspicuously hip Carnaby Street schmutter is a deliciously dayglo delight! Haunted House of Horror's highlights are pretty, Jill Haworth's heroically voluminous blonde barnet, Julian Barnes's hilariously comatose acting skills and, Reg Tisley's fantastically groovy theme! 

 

 

'Dogman' (2018) – Matteo Garrone.

Like a nihilistic, anti-'Of Mice and Men', Matteo Garrone's 'Dogman' is an unflinchingly tough, brutalist character study of two disparate men bound in an increasingly toxic partnership. While the diminutive, Marcello (Marcello Fonte) is a doting father and a meticulous, empathic dog-groomer, he is also a small time drug dealer who becomes fatefully dominated by hulking halfwit hoodlum, the neighbourhood terrorizing tyrant, Simone(Edoardo Pesce). Foolhardily running risky errands for, Simone whose forceful demands for free cocaine escalates to violence. The amiable, Marcello, once a jocular, well liked member of the close-nit working-class community is ostracized due to his ill-judged servitude to the vile, bullish, psychotically larcenous thug. Without a shred of humanity, Simone continues to cruelly subjugate the weaker, misguided Marcello, quite literally keeping him under his elephantine, blood-smeared thumb. 'Dogman' almost immediately puts your nerves on a razor's edge, and even if it were not based on a true story, the actions of these two tormented souls has the feral stink of truth about it.

Their criminally uneasy alliance leads inexorably to a devastating life-altering crisis, wherein, Marcello's moral turpitude, and total submission to the maniacal might of, Simone fatefully turns him into a corrupted stooge, a social pariah, an outcast. Observing the pitiless, arbitrary manner of, Marcello's destruction is an uneasy experience. He is certainly not without blame, the morality of Marcello's mercenary activities are entirely questionable, and yet, he remains a sympathetic figure. Marcello's stupidity and conspicuous weakness are ultimately forgivable, but, Simone's shameless brutality is truly reprehensible. Matteo Garrone's searingly unsentimental drama is an emotionally bruising vision of uncommonly visceral power. The sordid world of 'Dogman', while prosaic, is wholly credible, and the banality of evil it contains rings uncomfortably true. The stark climax is exhausting, like some forgotten parable from an especially grisly gnostic text, the desperate sight of, Marcello's haunted visage is not one easily erased!