There’s something about a boat-full of boozed up British wankers that always ends up in on the wrong side of seaworthy. In this Hammer Horror effort various 1960s British stereotypes board the tramp steamer Coritia bound for Caracas from Freetown. Now I’m no Geography George but I’m pretty sure Freetown is in SIerra Leone (that’s West Africa to all you “me no know places so good” loathsome types) and Caracas is in Venezuela (South America). That’s a lot of British people who are a long way from home that happen to meet a bunch of other British Hooray Henry’s to head even further from home. Various exposition is given to explain why these Brits are all heading from random port A to random port B, but it’s so bloody convoluted in the first place that you already don’t give a shit. Oh, and the Captain’s smuggling chemicals onboard that explode when they come into contact with water. What a twat. Anyway the ship starts to sink, the chemicals might explode, so everyone abandons ship only to find themselves lost, adrift, engulfed in some wacky tentacled seaweed, and in some timeless vortex (aka The Lost Continent). But hey the Coritia turns up unharmed, meaning abandoning ship was a complete waste of fucking time (yours and theirs!). The titular Lost Continent is populated with various figures from naval history (Conquistadors, pirates etc) who wear snow-shoes on their feet and balloons on their backs and have taken up some cult that worships a kind of vagina sea plant.., this happens. I don’t know. I’m confused. Characters flip-flop so frequently between douchebag and hero that I didn’t know who to root for. An absolute car crash of plotting and characterisation. Crazier than a Greek sank’n'crack wax. Needless to say, I fucking loved it.

PS This also features smoking hot Suzanna Leigh.

Airplanes (or aeroplane to use the correct spelling IMO) are fantastic narrative devices for horror; claustrophobic, isolating, and miles away from help. It’s like being locked in a Camp Crystal Lake cabin that also happens to be hurtling through the air at 5,000 feet. Personally I soil myself from fear on most commercial flights with or without airborne zombies, demons, or William Shatners. Aviophobia and international terrorism aside let’s explore the horror genre’s best entries into the mile fright club (that pun tastes like the sweetest honey). Reader note, I’m going to keep this to horror and sci-fi so that rules out all aeroplane action and disaster flicks. I’ll also list movies largely set within the plane, ruling out the likes of Final Destination and Twilight Zone The Movie.

The Ghost of Flight 401 (1978): Ghosts on a plane! More drama than horror this little known TV movie recalls how the victims of 1972′s crashed commercial Eastern Airlines flight 401 began re-appearing aboard planes which had been built from the salvaged pieces of the doomed craft’s wreckage. Supposedly based on true events and in-flight sightings, the movie is given some much-needed credibility by disaster movie icon Ernest Borgine and features a young, and super hot, Kim Basinger. Effectively spooky in places.

Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane (2007): The living dead on a plane! Utterly stupid and very entertaining. How did it take until 2007 for a producer to find a script about zombies on a plane? Modern b-movie zombie horror often struggles to recapture the charm, fun, and spirit of previous decades but the airplane setting elevates this way above the average direct to DVD release. Much more fun than Quarantine 2 and very much the bastard child of the 2000s Romero remakes and Snakes on a Plane. Leading us nicely into..,

Snakes on a Plane (2006): Ummm, what the title says. Infamous for Samuel L Jackson signing on to star based on the title alone, the movie become one of the first true pre-release internet sensations with producers ordering re-shoots solely based on the online demand for more violence and swearing. Imagine, a movie where producers looked to increase the age restriction of the final cut. Now there’s an anomaly. A rare example of modern b-movies capturing the spirit of what it is to be a b-movie.

The Langoliers (1995): Strangers on a plane! An odd and underrated movie adaptation of the Stephen King book. A small group of passengers aboard a flight between LA and Boston awake to find that they’re alone; the rest of the crew and passengers having vanished, leaving the plane on autopilot. Worse of all it appears everyone else on the ground has disappeared too. The mystery is far more effective than the reveal. There’s also Al from Quantum Leap, a great performance from Brosnon Pinchot, and David Morse sporting a delightful moustache. Never has 1995 looked more like 1982.

The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973): Demon on a plane! William Shatner vs a demonic demon loose aboard a transatlantic night flight between London and New York. That alone sells this to you right? The demon in question was trapped in a piece of ancient English abbey and only a cynical, alcoholic, faith questioning priest named Shatner can stop it. Yeah you ain’t got shit on the Shat demon.

Cameo pens at the ready to check-off the who’s-who of industry folks on show in John Landis’s Spies Like Us. There’s Frank Oz, Terry Gilliam, Joel Cohen, Sam Raimi, and Larry Cohen, as well as Bob Hope and BB King (amongst others). During the ‘doctor, doctor’ sketch (also starring Gilliam) one of the Pakistan stationed UN doctors encountered Dan Akroyd and Chevy Chase is non other than creature feature legend, the late, great Ray Harryausen. It’s a nice nod from Landis who’s career in creature horror was clearly influenced by the wondrous practical effects and stop-motion that Harryhausen gave life throughout his career. There’s also a cameo for another practical effects specialist Derek Meddings. It’s cameotacular, and while it’s certainly no high point for Harryhausen, any recognition of the great man’s work is more than welcome.

Director Joe Dante started off his filmmaking career under the guidance of B-movie supremo Roger Corman, getting his big directorial break with the Corman produced Piranha (1978). Dante gives Corman a brief, but lingering, appearance at the beginning of The Howling as an impatient man waiting for Dee Wallace to finish a call in a phone booth. Dante fills The Howling with nods and winks to horror’s past including TV footage from The Wolf Man (1941), a sketch of Lon Chaney Jr in full Wolf Man makeup, and there’s small roles for Corman regular Dick Miller and B-movie leading-man icon Kenneth Tobey. Dante would up the cameo ante in Gremlins (1984) with Steven Spielberg, Robby The Robot, HG Wells’ Time Machine, and animation legend Chuck Jones all getting a little screen service (see all Gremlins cameos here).

Dr Rob (Foxworth) is on the hunt for environmental pollutants which he fears are causing mutations on a grand scale amongst the animals of Maine. Look deep into those greys, browns, and blondes within that beard tapestry. What are the filmmakers trying to tell us? Clearly the grey is the wisdom of years at University, job and tax dodging. The brown is the masculinity to wrestle a mutated bear-pig in the wilds of New England. The blonde is the kind of sexual man musk that makes women’s panties slip themselves off. Tie all of that into a crop of blonde head curls that Adonis himself would sweep-up off the barber-shop floor to glue unto his undeserving scalp. Dr Rob; smarter than you, stronger than you, and having sex with your wife and sister right now. All because of a three tone Neapolitan beard that today is a designated campus in its own right with an all female faculty and student body numbering 50,000. Majors at The University of Dr Rob’s Beard (or UDRB) include Beach Volleyball, Locker-room Leg Oiling, and Woodland Promiscuity.

“O Canada! Our home and native land! Tax breaks and incentives that all thy US producers command” and so on..,

Canada. The true north, strong and free and home to more horror movies than you would ever realise. I know this as I live in the glorious city of Vancouver BC. “But I’ve never seen a horror movie set in Vancouver Mr Deadly Movies“. No you haven’t my good lad. But you’d be amazed at the times you’ve watched San Francisco, Seattle, LA, New York, and my personal favourite, unnamed American City on the big screen and the whole thing was shot right here in Hollywood North (that’s Canada in case you drifted). Here’s Deadly Movies’ Top 5 Canadian Horror movies:

My Bloody Valentine (1981): You could easily put Terror Train, Prom Night, or Happy Birthday to Me in here. All four are of similar tone, quality, and success, and oddly enough all made between 1980-81, a real purple patch for Canadian slasher cinema. I’ll go with My Bloody Valentine (uncut) simply for some great kills and a decent boogeyman in The Miner. A very solid 80′s slasher.

4. Deranged (1974): One of the closest cinematic adaptations of the infamous Ed Gein at a time when his crimes were the inspiration for a glut of horror producers. Remarkably made for $200,000 (Canadian!) the film has that dirty, low-brow feel shared by same-year The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In fact it’s not far-fetched at all to label Deranged Canada’s (little known) answer to TCM. Recognise Ezra Cobb (aka Gein) above? It’s none other than Roberts Blossom, Home Alone‘s Old Man Marley The South Bend Shovel Slayer!

3. The Changeling (1980): The winner of the first ever Genie Award for best feature film. What’s a Genie Award? It’s basically Canada’s Oscar awarded by The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. Not bad for a horror movie as the genre is hardly renowned for winning shit from any national academy. Starring George C scott (who also won one of the movie’s seven other Genie’s) this is a seriously spooky haunted house film that’s taught and tense.

2. David Cronenberg’s Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977), The Brood (1979), Scanners (1981), and Videodrome (1983): Yeah, yeah It’s a copout, but I found it too hard to make a Canadian Top 5 which wasn’t a Cronenberg Top 5, so I’ll group them all together for the sake of variety (“why didn’t you write a Top 10 instead?” Because that’s why you asshole). This quintuplet of surreal horror delights are, as far as I’m aware, 100% Canadian bacon to boot (unlike say The Fly, a US co-production).

1. Black Christmas (1974): A personal favourite and the standard for holiday horror. Director Bob Clark pulled off a number of casting coups by landing Olivia Hussey, John Saxon, and Margot Kidder. While praise is rightly lavished on Halloween for birthing the modern stalker/slasher, Black Christmas (which predates JC’s classic by four years) certainly laid sturdy foundations. Eerie, unsettling, and engaging.

Admirable mention to The Pit (1981). A totally fucking wacky film that needs to be seen to be believed.

It’s a rather blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in Senor Spielbergo’s dinosaur classic, but it does indeed happen; Jeff Goldblum sits legs akimbo the T-Rex’s nose (snout? I’m not too up on my dinosaur anatomy). Think back to the glorious T-Rex attack sequence.., It’s dark, it’s raining, the fences have failed, and Jeff Goldblum self proves chaos theory by running inexplicably, with emergency flare in hand, towards a bamboo public-washroom. As the T-Rex bursts through the washroom walls to devour the cowardly lawyer inside, Goldblum is shown falling to the wayside. But hold-up. rewind that sequence a few seconds and slow it down. Goldblum isn’t brushed aside by the T-Rex, but is actually saddling the beast’s nose like a bride-to-be on a bucking bronco. It’s a pretty wild sequence which lasts all but a second on-screen and isn’t made any easier to see as Goldblum’s dressed head-to-toe in sultry black.

But it is there, and it does exist. Jeff Goldblum rides the T-Rex.

It’s hard to  know what to expect from the Evil Dead remake: Homage? Remake? New take? Sequel? The answer is a bit of all and not enough of one. Like many a contemporary remake Evil Dead doesn’t quite have the conviction to play its own hand (but plenty of conviction to sever two). That doesn’t, however, mean that there isn’t plenty to enjoy and even marvel. Some spoilers ahead.From the outset Evil Dead wants you to know it means business, there’ll be death, possession, and foul-mouthed demons and that’s all within the (not really necessary) prologue. None of this is wicked comedy. Director Fede Alverez is setting his own much nastier and dirtier tone and you’re on-boarded within seconds. All to a thumping score from Roque Barios, who expertly weaves the sound of (something like) an air-raid siren into moments of heightened tension and dread. From the title card onwards it’s a test of endurance, not only of the wonderfully graphic violence and body horror but also of clunky and endless exposition and baffling characterisation.

The first fifteen minutes drowns in terribly awkward exposition between recovering drug addict Mia, supportive brother David, and their group of tag-along buds; forgettable girlfriend, nerdy teacher, and film’s most inexcusably unprofessional nurse. The narrative device of isolating Mia in the cabin to go cold turkey is a decent way of getting the group into the woods in the first place. Although the background to all this personal history is shoved down your throat harder than a horny tree penis. Saying that, the thought of seeing all too real terrors when all around you believe you’re experiencing some kind of Woodstock come-down is truly scary.

However, once poor Mia is possessed the move really picks up pace and it’s pretty much full force blood and guts for the next hour. Here’s where Alverez really delivers. Faces are chopped up, hands and arms severed, heads caved in and horror’s greatest weapons, the crowbar, the chainsaw, the nail-gun, the syringe, the machete, and the shotgun all get a moment in the spot-light. But it’s the humble electric kitchen knife that steals the show with an arm severing that’ll  make Aron Ralston look away. There’s some real craft to the body horror too, what a difference practical effects make.

Jane Levy does a fine job as Mia, a role that interestingly mixes victim and antagonist, masochistic ghoul and final girl. She could easily become a genre darling. The rest of the cast do a decent job with standard slasher characters (for all the film’s praise there’s little to the cast that you can’t find in any Friday the 13th movie). Two characters need a special mention. Firstly Lou Pucci’s unbelievably annoying school teacher who’s actions raise the evil (presumably the only reason for singling him out as a teacher is that he likes to read books.., books wrapped in barbed wire marked ‘do not read’) and who becomes less and less likeable and sympathetic as the movie progresses. Secondly Jessica Lucas’s nurse who at one point justifies the plan of taking a drug addict into these horrible squalid conditions as “the exact same treatment she’d receive in a hospital“.., WHAT KIND OF MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL ARE YOU!?! What an asshole. Just plain bad characterisation.

Character flaws are countered by the balls out visual horror and likewise the movie’s flaws ultimately succumb to a crazy, CRAZY finale which must be the single most blood soaked moment in horror and cinema history. Gallons of the red stuff flow as a successfully exorcised Mia confronts her demons for the final time. It’s a highly enjoyable finale which isn’t without questions (Why does Mia look so good considering pre and during possession she looked liked leprosy had taken a hold? Why sever Mia’s hand as a wink to Evil Dead 2 when we’ve already severed half an arm 20 minutes earlier?).

Evil Dead is certainly scary, definitely (and gloriously)  gory, and very well photographed (there’s a lovely colour pallet on display). When it gets to where the director clearly wants to go it’s a strong, fun, terrifying movie.., but the road to get there is so clunky it’s no wonder Sam Raimi’s 1973 Oldsmobile never did attempt the return journey. PS stay in your seat until after the credits role for something a little groovy.

Cute yellow chicks; an Easter must. Boiled or fried, your choice. So while you ponder that decision most fowl join Deadly Movies in a self indulgence Easter exercise in eggceedingly prodigious poultry. AKA a list of fucking big chickens from film and TV. Carry on:

5: Chunky Chicken in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993): Toho wannabe man-in-rubber-suit giant chicken. What you need in such a situation is a giant radioactive lizard not a bunch of 90s Saved By The Bell wannabe punk teenagers in spandex.

4: Giant Muppet Chicken in The Muppet Show (1977): A giant version of Gonzo’s Camilla. Hopefully with a Jim Henson, Frank Oz, or Dave Goelz locked inside; more likely a lowly PA or unpaid intern.

3: Giant Chicken Hallucination in The Gold Rush (1925): An early movie warning from Chaplin on the poultry side-effects of too many mushrooms in your magic soup.

2: Giant Mutated Chicken in Food of the Gods (1976): So real, so very, very real. It’s just how H.G. Wells imagined it.

1: Henrietta in The Hoboken Chicken Emergency (1984): Strage, probably pedophile, man-in-suit chicken hangs around children’s parks in New Jersey with Peter Billingsley. Truly terrifying.