A Vault of Victims coming to DVD in September

A new British horror anthology from Will Metheringham and friends is lined up for a US release in September through WorldWide MultiMedia. Metheringham, director of The Photographer: Inside the Mind of a Psycho, has teamed up with his missus, Maria Lee Metheringham, and their mate Anthony Brems for the three segments of A Vault of Victims.

Death, Murder, Love Triangles, Evil Teddy Bears and Sex Galore. Three wickedly sexy tales in this terrifying anthology that are sure to make your blood curdle while fulfilling your deepest fantasies. In Sweet Mirror: A timid girl finds an escape from her sexual repression in a mysterious old mirror. Her new confidence allows her to confront her inner demons. In Terror the Bear: An evil teddy bear plots the demise of a group of self-absorbed students. In Hidden Camera: Steve's secret recordings are found by his girlfriend Lyndsey and her plan for revenge is death. Horrifying, deadly and dangerous consequences abound behind this Vault of Victims.

Here's the Facebook page and here's the trailer. Astute BHR fans will spot that the middle story, Terror the Bear, ploughs a similar furrow to Karl Holt's award-winning 2006 short Eddie Loves You. That's alright - there can never be too many films about psychotic cuddly toys!



Metheringham is apparently finishing off a feature called Snuff Reel and also prepping a sequel to his debut - The Photographer 2: Inside the Dark Room.

Can't wait to see: C Thomas Howell in Siren Song

Here is the trailer for Siren Song, the first feature from Benedict Mart. Shot in Cornwall earlier this year - during all those really bad storms - this tale of cannibal psychos on a creepy island is the first British horror title on the CV of B-movie legend C Thomas Howell, a man more commonly to be found in the output of Fred Olen Ray or The Asylum. And those who know me will understand that this is far from  a criticism - quite the opposite!

Siren Song focuses on two friends, one of whom pursues a relationship with a mysterious woman who part owns a guest house and who he has been dating online. Problems occur when guests at the isolated guest house begin to disappear and the guys discover the truth about the woman and her monstrous sisters and how they must escape from a mysterious island if they want to survive beyond dawn.

Ben tells me: "I had the idea a couple of years ago and commissioned a friend Lisa Edwards to write the story retelling the Siren myth with their song sung though the web. Also with the outbreak of the horse burgers scandal, what are we eating? Both ideas intertwined so well together.

"We had a fantastic team from the camera department headed by Tobias Marshall who with the help of  the gaffer, Martryn Culpan, lite up Polperro Harbour during one of the smaller storms. The production designer Heather Dunn did a fantastic job in set dressing the siren 'hotel'; many of the rooms got a complete face-lift to fit our narrative. Also our editor Tom Kemplen fine-tuned the narrative of the film and post house team Onlinepp gave their outstanding commitment to the project, which we are very grateful for."

25 British Horror Revival titles available on TheHorrorShow.tv

Online horror source TheHorrorShow.tv continues to be a good place to find some of the best new British horror. Their current list includes a full 25 BHR titles, as detailed below - with links to my reviews where they exist. (NB. The site does fall down somewhat on its tagging,m so their 'British horror' tag omits a lot of these and includes a couple of decidedly non-British films.)

• 13hrs - "takes the teens-in-peril monster flick on a different spin and keeps the action and horror going, never really letting up"
• The Amityville Asylum
• Bane - "an impressive, original and skilfully crafted piece of sci-fi cinema"
• Bordello Death Tales - "flies the flag for the venerable subgenre of British horror anthology films with panache, verve, a warped sense of humour, a dose of gore and a splash of sex"
• The Casebook of Eddie Brewer
• Dead of the Nite
• Don't Let Him In
• Gallowwalkers
• Harold's Going Stiff - "beautifully acted, wonderfully directed, with fine indie-British production values that belie its low budget"
• The Harsh Light of Day - "a storming debut and a gripping, thought-provoking, serious, very British horror film"
• Heretic
• In a Dark Place
• The Machine
• Nazi Zombie Death Tales - "Never, in the field of indie horror movies, has so much scary fun been created by so few."
• Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection
• Outpost 11
• Peter
• The Reeds
• Resurrecting 'The Street Walker' - "an imaginative, original, clever, gripping film ... a rare realistic look into the British film industry"
• Sawney: Flesh of Man
• Shame the Devil
• Silent Night, Bloody Night: The Homecoming - "will give slashers fans precisely what they’re looking for ... it hits its targets"
• Slasher House - "individual and distinctive ... attempts something different with the hackneyed tropes of slasherdom"
• Splintered
• Stag Night of the Dead - "if your blood alcohol level is high, your mates are jovial and your pizza has just been delivered... this film could satisfy you"

Watch 'Benny Loves Killing' free for the next week and a half

Ben Woodiwiss' feature Benny Loves Killing is free to view online between 1st and 10th July courtesy of the fine folks at Cinema Zero, a fantastic bunch of guys who are commendably working to break the mould of old-fashioned distribution models. Their manifesto is pretty much everything I tried to get people to understand in Urban Terrors. Cinemas are dead, long live cinema.

Benny Loves Killing "follows the struggles of a student making a horror film, only for her life to fall apart".
It is "a tense, claustrophobic love letter to cinema". Woodiwiss previously wrote Blood + Roses. The film stars Pauline Cousty and Canelle Hoppe (London Voodoo, Hellbreeder).

Once you've watched the film, you can watch it again because there's also a commentary version on the site with Ben and producer Nick Jones discussing the making of the film.