The Dead Center (2018)

Director: Billy Senese
Starring: Shane Carruth, Poorna Jagannathan, Jeremy Childs, Bill Feehely, J Thomas Bailey. USA. 1h 33m

For the most part Dead Center seems to be built on the idea of keeping its audience in a perpetual state of WTF tinged with the feeling that something is creepily wrong. Shane Carruth, stars as Dr Forrester, the eggfree shrink who genuinely cares for people and is often pulled up by his superiors for trying to help everyone, his concerns are not budget related but actually trying to make people better. The really interesting aspect of the films that slowly creeps out from between the slowly driven office politics.

Crimson Peak (2015)

Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Starring:Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam. USA. 1h 59m

With the lack of modern genuine gothic literature making it to the big screen, Crimson Peak had a lot to make up for, however despite it’s well crafted story, delicious cast amongst opulent sets, I wasn’t blown away by this epic ghost story. There’s a massive divide between Guillermo Del Toro’s Spanish and American work. Crimson Peak battles with its style and substance, for the most part it will wow it’s audience with an oil slick blend of colours but it seems to pluck the worse elements of gothic literature to mix but remains true and doesn’t step a foot out of the box.

Devils Chair (2007)

Director: Adam Mason
Starring: Andrew Howard, Pollyanna Rose, Olivia Hill .UK. 1h 31m

For a movie that actually is fairly interesting for what it is, a laddish take on a supernatural psychological thriller, but if it could only drop the attitude for a minute… sheesh. It feels as if Mason wanted to make a new football ‘hooligan’ movie and a gory horror then decided to clash the two together but dropping unlikely characters into a Saw trap with a strange entity watching the games being played is a bitter tasting bag of all sorts. Merit has to be given for his ability to blend the it all together successfully, but why would anyone want to do this? I have the feeling I’m not the target audience, but I dug in and was surprised in many ways but not thrilled with the overall results.

The AOFA Short Introduction and History of Bigfoot and B Movies.

Since my uncle gave me my first secondhand copy of Fortean Times back in about 1986 I’ve been hooked on the paranormal and the earth’s mysteries, everything from spontaneous human combustion, ghosts and possession, to UFO’s, rolling rocks and Bigfoot. I’m not saying I believe everything I read about these subjects but I enjoy a great skeptical tour of those unusual things which are often talked about around the campfire.

It seems that some monsters and paranormal entities are easily adapted to the big screen, I couldn’t fathom how many ghost or vampire movies have been created to date but the number of Bigfoot movies are probably outnumbered by the sightings.

Each yeah more explorers and adventurers seem to find more shaky cam blurry footage of the elusive creature, more books are written, more strange stories catch small press headlines. The latest was only yesterday (literally why I am writing this today, lord knows when I’ll post it. but on the 25 January 2020, in Washington, traffic cameras supposedly caught a hairy hominid and you can see the evidence on Twitter (https://twitter.com/WSDOT_East/status/1220090003805442048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fkatu.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fwsdot-camera-captures-images-of-figure-that-might-be-sasquatch)