7 h. ago We Bury the Dead review – Daisy Ridley tackles the undead in solid zombie twist

Star Wars alum gives an impressively modest performance in this slightly smarter-than-average survival taleUnlike some other less resilient horror subgenres, the zombie movie is, fittingly, never going to really die. Neither will film-makers attempting to add their own twist, understandable given how repetitive the die, wake up, lumber, bite and repeat formula has become. Australian director Zak Hilditch’s attempt, the rather buried We Bury the Dead, is therefore not quite as striking as it might have seemed a decade and change ago. Using words such as “contemplative” and “mournful” to describe a film that includes its fair share of gnarly head-smashing has become something of a cliche, so much so that last month’s meta-comedy Anaconda reboot had its characters joke that these days, even a film about a giant snake needs “intergenerational trauma” to work.But Hilditch mercifully avoids drowning his film in drab self-seriousness. Yes, it’s a zombie survival thriller that’s also about ...

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69 h. ago The Dead Don’t Bleed by Neil Rollinson review – a gripping tale of family and forbidden love

Two brothers attempt to escape their father’s gangland past in a tense, tender debut that moves between Thatcher-era Northumberland and southern SpainAndalucía is famous for its variety: high alpine mountains and snow-capped peaks, river plains and rolling olive groves, sun-baked coastlines and arid deserts. It is the perfect setting for Neil Rollinson’s debut novel, which is its own kind of spectacular mosaic. Built from short, seemingly discrete chapters that take us between Spain in 2003 and the coalfields of Northumberland in the 70s and 80s, The Dead Don’t Bleed coheres into an extraordinarily tense and tender portrait of two brothers trying to escape their father’s gangland past.Until now, Rollinson has been known as a poet; his collection Talking Dead was shortlisted for the 2015 Costa poetry prize. Here he brings his talent for compressed evocation to an exploration of fraternal rivalry and the enduring impact of a violent patriarchy. If you took Frank and his...

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7 d. ago Serial killer who buried victims in flower pots lived double life as Santa Claus

Bruce McArthur would dress up as Father Christmas to hand out gifts in a shopping centre but he had a dark secret as a serial killer who buried his victims in flowerpots

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7 d. ago Twisted crimes of Santa the serial killer who buried victims in flower pots

WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT: Canadian serial killer Bruce McArthur was in the middle of another possible murder when he was arrested by police in January 2018 after more than a decade of getting away with his gruesome crimes

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9 d. ago Killing the Dead by John Blair review – a gloriously gruesome history of vampires

Shroud-chewers, lip-smackers and suckers populate this fascinating study of ‘the unquiet dead’ across the centuriesThe word “vampire” first appears in English in sensational accounts of a revenant panic in Serbia in the early 18th century. One case in 1725 concerned a recently deceased peasant farmer, Peter Blagojević, who rose from the grave, visited his wife to demand his shoes, and then murdered nine people in the night. When his body was disinterred, his mouth was found full of fresh blood. The villagers staked the corpse and then burned it. In 1745, the clergyman John Swinton published an anonymous pamphlet, The Travels of Three English Gentlemen, from Venice to Hamburgh, in which it is written: “These Vampyres are supposed to be the Bodies of deceased Persons, animated by evil Spirits, which come out of the Graves, in the Night-time, suck the Blood of many of the Living, and thereby destroy them.” And so a modern myth was born.But it is not so modern, or exclusively Europ...

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1 week ago Twisted serial killer's horrifying explanation for murdering 13 including two children

Herbert Mullin was a deluded and warped killer who terrorised Santa Cruz in the early 1970s over a four-month spree, even murdering someone in public in broad daylight

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2 w. ago Watch: Silent Night performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Chorus

Silent Night - Performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Chorus Conducted by Gregory Batsleer

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3 w. ago Silent Night, Deadly Night review – killer Santa remake is overstuffed

There are too many competing and overfamiliar ideas in this busy slasher reboot that’s sorely lacking in styleThere was a bizarre moral outrage back in November 1984 when seasonal slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night dared to put an axe in the hands of Santa. Despite being, you know, not a real person he was once treated with enough reverence to cause parent-led protests, a ban of all advertising and then of the film itself. It provided a sharp edge to an otherwise blunt and unremarkable post-Halloween knockoff and might help to explain why it managed to eke out four junky sequels and a 2012 remake.We’re now at the inevitable second remake stage but the 2025 redo arrives after the gimmick of Killer Santa has now become a subgenre in itself. He’s cropped up in Christmas Bloody Christmas, Christmas Evil, Santa’s Slay, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Deadly Games and last year’s Terrifier 3 and the makers of this December’s take are more than aware that seeing Santa with a weapon isn’t e...

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3 w. ago Film reviews: Eleanor the Great | Silent Night, Deadly Night | Lurker | Preparation for the Next Life

Scarlett Johansson brings humour and heart to her directorial debut about an elderly woman lying about being a Holocaust survivor, writes Alistair Harkness

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3 w. ago The Dead of Winter by Sarah Clegg audiobook review – haunting Christmas tales

An esoteric blend of folklore and festivity reveals the lesser known, dark side of Christmas, from horse skulls and Yule cats to Icelandic ogresChristmas nowadays tends to revolve around family, food and a furtive visit from a pot-bellied stranger down the chimney. But in The Dead of Winter, the historian and folklorist Sarah Clegg reveals a lesser known side to the festive season, unearthing unsettling midwinter traditions and stories that fell out of favour in the Victorian age.Subtitled The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas, the book opens with Clegg embarking on a pre-dawn walk to a graveyard on Christmas Eve. She is recreating an old Swedish tradition called årsgång, or “year walk”, which is said to offer glimpses into the walker’s future along with “shadowy enactments of the burials of anyone who will die in the village this coming year”.Available via WF Howes, 4hr 21min Continue reading...

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