The Gore Connoisseurs

IT: Chapter Two may be one of the mostly hotly anticipated horror flicks this year, but the first part of Andy Muschietti's adaptation of Stephen King's novel was far from perfect. Although  IT: Chapter One is undoubtedly enjoyable and gloriously nostalgic, it also has some glaring problems. Such as: 1) It's easy to escape Pennywise - just shut the door One of the most annoying shots in the entire film is the resigned look on Pennywise's face when Bill (Jaeden Martell) escapes his clutches by fleeing the basement and shutting the door. Surely it's not beyond the remit of a demonic clown to follow Bill through said door. Shit like this keeps happening. In the movie's homage to The Ring and Sinister,  Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) emerges from the image on the projector, only to promptly disappear again when the kids open the garage door. No tenacity, this clown. 2) The heavy-handed Carrie callback In what comes across as a clunky homa...

Typewriter , Netflix 's latest Indian horror, blends pre-teen comedy, clever scares and ghoulish gore. It narrowly gets away with it. The plot of five-part Netflix series Typewriter is incredibly busy. It involves school-age paranormal investigators, creepy-as-hell doppelgangers and a long-dead mass murderer looking to make a comeback from beyond the grave. The scares, when they come, are arresting, but they're dotted inbetween gentle comedy and heartfelt character development. The supernatural mechanics at play may be elaborate, but at the heart of the series is Sam (Aarnaa Sharma) - a kid who becomes obsessed with ghosts in the hope of reconnecting with her deceased mother. Sam leads a gang of preteen ghost hunters looking to "catch" a spirit they believe to be haunting the creaky Bardez Villa. Legend has it that, following the unexplained death of a celebrated writer in the house, his typewriter churned out his most famous work, The Ghost of Sultanpur...

The Transfiguration, which recently dropped on Shudder, is part of a wave of movies exploring what "realistic" horror could look like. Milo, the teenage anti-hero of 2016 indie horror  The Transfiguration, judges his impressive collection of vampire VHS via an unusual criteria – is it "realistic"? Martin and Let the Right One In pass; Twilight not so much. Of course, The Transfiguration itself is trying to be a "realistic" vampire movie. Milo is a borderline sociopath who's taken vampire-roleplay to the next level. At regular intervals, he stalks his native Queens and drinks the blood of unfortunate passersby. Milo, then, is not an immortal, undead bloodsucker, just a messed-up teenage mass murderer. Except the film is constantly toying with our expectations, slyly suggesting that Milo's killing spree may have endowed him with supernatural powers. There's that title too, implying Milo is being "transfigured" into somet...