Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 452

Taking Europe To Extremes

This lovely rant was brought to my attention by Jennifer Siegel, from my old pal John 'Muriel Volestrangler' Cleese, with whom I had the pleasure of working a few times. Good to see that in these times when we carefully avoiding national stereotyping (except, it seems, when it comes to Arab countries, he has maintained [...]

Re:View – 'Heartbreaker'

French comedies have a very different internal logic to their American counterparts. There's the same mix of frivolity and cold-eyed ambition when it comes to landing the right man, but the French confections seem less sentimental and prepared to touch on the financial downside of making a mistake. 'Priceless' ('Hors De Prix') was extremely cynical [...]

London's One Stop Culture Shop

On Friday night I appeared at a terrific Polari event run by Paul Burston, with six of the most varied writers imaginable, talking about everything from South African weddings to bonkbusters. The room overlooked the London Eye, and had a bar and a bookshop, and what was interesting was that the entire South Bank was [...]

Favourite Horror Double Bills 2: 'Orphan' & 'The Orphanage'

The former is a guilty pleasure for its Enemy In The Home set-up, its shameless B-movie set-pieces (the hammering of a kindly nun!) and the utterly outrageous twist ending that, for once, feels entirely in keeping with the rest of the film.

Kate and John are rebuilding their troubled marriage. Kate drank after her miscarriage. John [...]

Re:View – Susan Hiller @ Tate Britain

This major exhibition at Tate Britain offers a selection of key works from the Florida-born UK-resident artist, including many of her pioneering mixed-media installations and video projections. Hiller collects, catalogues and restages cultural artefacts and experiences to allow us to experiences the gaps between them. Most rely on a disconcerting aural/ visual mix, some of [...]

Macabre Pub Signs

Watching my friend Paul Davis's excellent documentary on 'An American Werewolf In London' the other night, I was thinking about the pub sign 'The Slaughtered Lamb' – I have a macabre pub sign in 'Hell Train' – and dug out a very odd old book about English pub signs. My favourite, 'The Last Drop', featured [...]

London's Dead Good Books

I realised yesterday how many books I have about London's dead – having written a story about them called 'Dead Ground Zero' for 'Zombie Apocalypse' I'd been doing some research.

Amongst my favourites are 'London's Dead' is Ed Glinert's guided tour to the city's corpses,and is full of great details – did you know the Elizabethan [...]

Sold Out In London

London's darkest months are lightened by the fact that the evenings contain the brightest sights. Last night, in the bitter chill of the West End I passed a zillion people queuing for the premiere of the new 'Wizard Of Oz' production, and almost every pub and theatre had crowds outside drinking and smoking (Britain being [...]

Favourite Horror Double Bills 1: 'Rec' & 'Rec 2′

I was never a big fan of George A Romero's lumbering slo-mo zombies. Romero removed the plots from undead films, so that it has become the norm not to explain why things are happening. Jaume Balaguero could have taken the easy way out and made a traditional zombies-on-the-loose sequel to his hit documentary-style Spanish horror [...]

My Top Horror films 1: 'Rec' & 'Rec 2′

I was never a big fan of George A Romero's lumbering slo-mo zombies. Romero removed the plots from undead films, so that it has become the norm not to explain why things are happening. Jaume Balaguero could have taken the easy way out and made a traditional zombies-on-the-loose sequel to his hit documentary-style Spanish horror [...]