Author: Peter 'Witchfinder' Hopkins

2020 sees Grimmfest reaching the dirty dozen: Twelve years at the cutting edge of genre film. And to celebrate, next year’s festival will be bigger, bolder, and bloodier than ever – running from the evening of Wednesday 7th October 2020 through to the evening of Sunday 11th October 2020 at Odeon Great Northern in Manchester UK. Hell has expanded itself: the festival will now run for five days, to cram in even more amazing genre content. The Grimmfest team is also excited to announce the first confirmed guest. Mick Garris has been at the heart of the horror genre since…

What would you do if you only had 8 DAYS left to live? A meteorite is on a collision course with Earth. The chances to survive in Central Europe: Zero. This colossally ambitious German series explores the answer to this impossible question through the eyes of an ordinary Berlin family living through the last days of mankind as we know it. Showing on Sky Atlantic, the series arrives on DVD and digital 6th January from Acorn Media International. Each episode of this eight-parter brings us one day closer to annihilation. The impending catastrophe sets in motion the reorganisation of society…

SANTA’S SLAY *** USA 2005 Dir: David Steiman. 78 mins SANTA’S SLAY aims low in terms of humour – there are characters named Dick, Bush and Caulk (pronounced “Cock”) – but can be forgiven for anything because it opens with one of the great festive horror sequences. The scene occurs pre-titles and involves Jewish wrestler Bill Goldberg as an evil Santa (actually the Son of Satan via Immaculate Conception!) interrupting a miserable Christmas family dinner by announcing “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!” and murdering a succession of guest stars. Fran Drescher gets her head set on fire, Rebecca…

Jackhammer Entertainment is pleased to announce the Indiegogo crowdfunding pre-launch of the campaign to produce the forthcoming original sci-fi/horror graphic novel, INVASION NANO SAPIENS, created and written by screenwriter/designer Corky Arnold, (www.jackhammer.cc) and graphic novel artist Ian J. Miller (www.ianjmiller.com). The pre-launch campaign is at: https://igg.me/at/Invasion-Nano-Sapiens-Graphic-Novel INVASION NANO SAPIENS tells the story of a young, maverick scientist, Fulton Bengis, who creates experimental blood with living nano robotic red and white blood cells and platelets that can improve body functions and kill disease. But when his love, Alison Wintergreen, injects the blood without his knowledge to eradicate her terminal…

ASSIMILATE **** USA 2019 Dir: John Murlowski. 93 mins Jack Finney’s evergreen paranoia classic “The Body Snatchers” tends to get a Hollywood reinterpretation every two decades or so and the era of Trump and fake news feels like the most apt backdrop for the story since the McCarthy-era emergence of Don Siegel’s 1956 original. Recycling familiar beats from earlier BODYSNATCHERS movies while adding a video blog narrative device and protagonists struggling to prove video evidence is “real”, this is a fast-paced, teen-pitched variation on the theme. Likeable Joel Courtney and Calum Worthy’s spy-cam web series dedicated to showing the people…