[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Dread (2009)

Two college students conduct a thesis where they film their fellow students discussing their greatest fears...and then it starts to get really f*cked up.

On the whole this is a pretty nasty little chiller that even when it's not going full on gruesomeness has a mean spiritedness to it that's quite rare in horror today.

There are some standout shocks such as a stripper being slashed by an unknown force as she dances, with great gashes opening up across her body but the sequence as a vegetarian girl is locked in a cell like room with only a piece of meat to eat as it slowly rots and becomes maggot infested as the days go by. I found this just as gross as any of the torture sequences in Martyrs (2008) which is generally cited as a pinnacle of torture porn movie making.

And yet some scenes are surprisingly moving especially a standout with a girl who has a huge dark birth mark from her face right down her body. It was as much a gut punch listening to her talk about the cruel jibes she's had to suffer throughout her life. It was a scene i found incredibly moving and provoked interesting thoughts in my head.

Dread is so much more than a typical teen horror movie, it's a descent into obsessive madness and i really liked it once more.

Rawhead Rex (1986)

Like Dread, Rawhead Rex is also a story from Clive Barker's Books of Blood but is quite literally a different beast altogether.

A film with strong elements of folk horror in it, Rawhead Rex concerns the resurrection of a monstrous Pagan deity on the rampage in the Irish countryside.

The excavation of the stone at the start screamed Stigma and Clive Exton and it has a nice Pagan vibe throughout. Whilst Rex himself is not the greatest monster you'll see in horror cinema it is a lot of fun and pretty memorable also it's a big plus that you actually get to see the monster. A lot.

Although not the goriest of films, the SFX of the slash wounds the creature inflicts are Fulci-esq in their gruesomeness. Filmed entirely on location in Ireland the film has an authentic feel and look to it which also adds to it's charm and it's rewatch value because on Blu-ray it's a beautiful film to look at.