44 British horror films released in 2011 - and that's down on the year before!

My latest Devil’s Porridge blog for Hemlock Books is my annual round-up of the British horror films given their first commercial release last year. If you’re a completists about these things, you may want to revise your expectations.

Back in 2001 there were just three British horror films released: Nigel Wingrove’s Sacred Flesh, Simon Hunter’s Lighthouse and Richard Driscoll’s Kannibal. Ten years later, there are 41 titles on my Devil’s Porridge blog. But even that's not complete.

But first there are some updates to the 2010 round-up that I posted twelve months ago. That listed 32 films. This month’s blog adds 16 titles to that list. And since sending the blog post off just before Christmas, I’ve found five more! Four were US releases: Russ Diaper’s 2008 second feature Spirits of the Fall in January; Graham Guy’s ‘old-fashioned ghost story’ Underwood in March; Jason Impey’s double-bill lash-up Woods of Terror in September; and also that month Tales of the Dead, the debut feature from Impey’s mate Kemal Yildirim. Plus Shaun Troke’s Anglo-Polish horror feature Sparrow - shot in Poland with a UK cast - played cinemas in Poland and the Ukraine apparently.

32+16+5 should come to 53 but I have discovered, while writing about Adam Mason’s early films for my book, that he now lives in the States and his later ones are entirely American productions so one of the originally listed 32, Blood River, can be dropped from the list.

As for the 2011 list, again research for the book has pointed up US DVDs of two Jason Impey features, Tortured (June) and Psychopaths: Sex with Hostages (July - good grief). I also managed to miss out - simply because of the sheer weight of numbers - the September UK theatrical release of Susan Jacobson’s The Holding. Mea culpa on that.

My book, covering 1998-2008, includes 111 movies (curse you, Impey, stop making bloody films!). But in the three years since then there have been 124, largely due to the ease with which a ‘US DVD release’ can be arranged for pretty much everything. These films are on sale - but is anybody buying them?