[REC] tells the story of a young TV reporter, Angela who along with her loyal cameraman Pablo are recording a real-life late night news programme when things go horribly wrong. What appears to be a routine emergency call quickly turns to hell as the team are trapped inside a building with no means of escape as things go from bad to worse. The only thing that matters is trying escape while capturing everything on camera.

Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero, the film is a claustrophobic excursion into our deepest fears. It has a const ... »

In 1996 some of the population was preparing for the world to end. Turn of the century tensions were slowly increasing and a panic about a world holocaust was creeping into people’s conscience. Chris Carter, creator of the global hit The X-Files, picked up on this and society’s ever-increasing fear of the evil that lurked in the shadows on every street. He created Millennium, a series that brought high gloss production values as well as true to life horror to TV screens across the world. It was controversial, hard-hitting and violent, but it was also intelligent, mature and compulsive viewing.

Millennium concerns Frank Black (Lance Henriksen), an ex-FBI Agent who has become part of a team named as The Millennium Group, a specialist section who create accurate profiles of serial killers. Frank has a gift, he is able to put himself into the mind of killers, to see what they are thinking, their motives etc thus making him an invaluable asset not only to the Millennium group but also to soc ... »

Pat Higgins directed and produced the film TrashHouse on a shoestring, shooting digitally in warehouses in Southend. It premièred at the TromaFling festival in Edinburgh 2005, where it was awarded Best Screenplay and runner-up for Best UK Feature. It was released on DVD by Screen Entertainment in February 2006 (and later re-released by budget label Shriek in summer 2007) and received positive reviews in many magazines, including Empire. He has gone on to produce a string of successful low budget fright flicks. Here, in the first part of a four part series he gives honest and invaluable advice for those who are contemplating on creating their own horror movies

STAGE ONE: Writing

Each and every day, write a thousand words. Even if those words are ‘I can’t think of anything’ 200 times, take the time to sit and write that. Go fully stream-of-consciousness. Do not expect what you’re writing to be a finished thing; just let it be what it is.

Your only, ONLY obligation is to make sur ... »

Very few comic strip characters transfer successfully to the big screen. History is littered with failures such as The Phantom, Popeye and err The Fat Slags. Horror/Fantasy figures have also had a rough deal with movies such as Judge Dredd springing to mind. But there have been some really cool interpretations including Tim Burton’s Batman and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. So a few eyebrows were raised back in the early when controversial horror movie maker Wes Craven decided to take DC Comics ecological warrior Swamp Thing and turn him into a box office star.

Created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson in 1971 Swamp Thing is a walking eco warning, a defender of all things environmental. He was originally a scientist named Alex Olsen but he got caught up in the deliberate sabotaging of his lab. The ensuing chemical blast turned him into a walking piece of vegetation. Bizarrely the characters captured comic reader’s attention almost immediately and lead to some incredi ... »