We are only into the second month of 2015 and the Horror scene is already hotting up! If you’re feeling cultural, enthusiastic and want to be one step ahead of the gore game then you should definitely go North to bonny Glasgow for the superb Film4 FrightFest Glasgow event kicking it’s 10th festival off on Thursday 26th (for more head here: http://www.frightfest.co.uk/news.html ) or if you’re feeling lazy and want to cozy up with some Class A gore then Horror Channel has it covered with our insane and immensely good humoured Mad Science Season. I for one love this little divergence of the genre and you are going to love our film premieres!
MAD SCIENCE SEASON: Fridays at 10.50pm from February 6, 2015
Yes we’re flexing our omnipotent urges this month as we celebrate demented doctors, toxic depravity and ungodly experiments, all with an 80’s tinged palate. First up is the network premiere of the 1981 now classic SCANNERS from David Cronenberg Friday February 6th. Probably one of his more mainstream and successful movies, the subject matter explores telekinesis peppered with corporate corruption. Scanners are people with highly powerful minds who were born with psychic and telekinetic abilities thanks to a dodgy drug administered during pregnancy. The Scanners have now gone underground and are led by Revok (a brilliantly maniac Michael Ironside) who wants to take over the world. This is the film (as if you don’t already know!) that features the famous head exploding scene! A total must see.
The following Friday 13th sees a horror channel fave, BASKET CASE (1982) return to our screens. Directed by the ever deranged master of bad taste Frank Henelotter, this film has been referenced over and over (even by The Simpsons) and follows a young man who carries his previously conjoined deformed twin around in a basket!
Proceedings take a toxic turn on Friday 20th February with Troma’s CLASS OF NUKE EM HIGH (co-directed by the deliriously unhinged Lloyd Kaufman. Always one to consciously stick a finger up at the mainstream, this is one demented movie that sees a gang of pot smoking youths called The Cretins undergo some serious changes when they take drugs contaminated by radiation! Bring on lots of green goo, mutant babies, penis monsters – you name it. Typically Troma-rific.
The season comes to an exemplary climax with the network premiere of Re-Animator (1985) Friday 27th February at 10.50pm. Directed by Stuart Gordon and produced by Brian Yuzna (the gang down in Barcelona’s Fantastic Factory) and based on HP Lovecrafts short story Herbert West Re-Animator. Herbert West (portrayed to perfection by Jeffrey Combs) is the epitome of a mad scientist; at the top of his game West becomes disillusioned by the establishment and embarks on his own diabolical experiments, determined to become remembered as the man who can bring back the dead thanks to his revolutionary green reanimating serum. Suffice to say, the experiments don’t often go as planned!
This is one amazing season and will definitely make it worth staying in with Horror Fridays in February!
My other highlights this month include THE ABANDONED, directed by the controversial Nacho Cerda. I took a double look when I saw his name, for this was one of my first (very bizarre) interviews for my TV show Shock Movie Massacre. I hung out with this man all day in Barcelona back in 2003 when he revealed his thinking behind his gross out necrophilia short “Aftermath.” He even took me to a morgue where half the interview was done on a morticians slab! Anyways, here he is in fine feature film form and no necrophilia in sight thank god. A woman inherits her ghostly ramshackle childhood home back in Russia where she not only discovers a long lost twin, but also her own doppelganger and a family tragedy she must relive in order to escape. Beautifully shot and very atmospheric this is an unusual supernatural mystery. The Abandoned gets its UK TV premiere Saturday 7th at 9pm.
Iceland. What comes to mind? The cold? Bjork? Whale Watching? Gunnar Hansen?! Well you get all of the above and a whole lot more with the country’s first foray into slashing cinema. Did you know Texas Chainsaw’s Leatherface (Hansen) was from Iceland? No, me neither. Billed as Iceland’s answer to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre all you need do is swap meat hooks for fish hooks and hillbillies for ‘fishbillies!’ A peaceful Whale Watching trip turns into a horrific massacre when a group of tourists come under attack from said Fishbillies. Oh and Bjork isn’t actually in the movie but you do get a shaky rendition of “Oh So Quiet” from one the movie’s soon to be victims! Brilliant. HARPOON REYKJAVIK WHALE WATCHING MASSACRE gets its UK TV premiere Saturday 28th February at 10.50pm
Saturday 14th February sees a fun gory slasher with the UK TV premiere of HAZARD JACK. A group of horny friends head to an abandoned hospital for a game of paintball only to find they’ve stumbled upon the stomping ground of a deranged soldier from Afghanistan now suffering PTSD and expressing his anger with an alarming array of DIY tools! Cue lots of inventive hideous death scenes!
Also worth checking out is the network premiere of Australia’s PRIMAL. 12,000 years ago a caveman tried to communicate the presence of an unknown primal entity only to be devoured by the Neanderthal evil. Now six friends exploring ancient caves discover caveman paintings depicting monsters and madness, but the past is about to reawaken. An immensely fun well crafted rollercoaster of a horror! PRIMAL, is a network premiere Saturday 21st Feb at 10.55pm.
February really is a brilliant month and boy do we have more gore in store for you in the coming months, for now my lips are sealed but watch this space!
Follow me on twitter too! twitter.com/emmybooth & remember to check out horrorchannel.co.uk
