Poché Pictures

Ah, Fright — the little British thriller that wants to be the godfather of every babysitter-in-peril slasher you’ve ever seen, but ends up looking more like the god-uncle who drinks too much sherry and ruins Christmas. On paper, this should’ve been a genre milestone. Susan George babysitting in a spooky country estate, a kid asleep … Read More “Fright (1971)” »

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you combined a taxidermist, a sister with stabbing issues, and an endless supply of horse tranquilizers, congratulations: you’ve just described Deviation. José Ramón Larraz’s 1971 sleaze-fest is the kind of movie that makes you feel like you need a tetanus shot just for watching it. The setup … Read More “Deviation (1971)” »

If you ever wanted to watch a movie about an old sculptor who kills women by encasing them in plaster and pouring molten bronze into their eye sockets, congratulations—Crucible of Terror exists. It’s British, it’s dreary, and it’s so boring you’ll start rooting for the bronze. Mike Raven, who was basically a Vincent Price knockoff … Read More “Crucible of Terror (1971)” »

If Ed Wood had been handed $500, a desert shack, and a hangover, the result would’ve been Blood Shack. Ray Dennis Steckler—working under the laughably German-sounding pseudonym “Wolfgang Schmidt” (because nothing screams legitimacy like hiding behind a fake name)—brings us a movie so cheap it makes public access TV look like Citizen Kane. The plot, … Read More “Blood Shack (1971)” »

Ah, Blood and Lace—the movie that proves the early 1970s would slap a GP rating on literally anything, even if it had corpses in freezers, severed hands in suitcases, and an ending twist so wrong it feels like the script was written by a drunk Oedipus with a typewriter. This “proto-slasher” thinks it’s shocking, but … Read More “Blood and Lace (1971)” »

Roddy McDowall—yes, the guy from Planet of the Apes—decided he wanted to direct a movie. And what we got was Tam-Lin (also known as The Ballad of Tam-Lin, The Devil’s Widow, or Why the Hell Did I Sit Through This?). On paper, it’s folk horror: witches, enchantments, a Scottish ballad, pagan rituals. In practice? It’s … Read More “Tam-Lin (1970)” »

On paper, Scream and Scream Again sounds like a dream for horror junkies: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing—three gods of the genre—sharing the screen in a slick Amicus sci-fi horror thriller. But in reality? It’s like promising a gourmet steak dinner and then handing you a half-melted hot dog from the gas station … Read More “Scream and Scream Again (1970)” »

Lokis isn’t just another dusty Gothic tale about aristocrats losing their minds in drafty castles—it’s a bear story, and not the kind you tell around a campfire with marshmallows and a flashlight under your chin. This one’s blood-soaked, folkloric, and oozing with the kind of dread only Eastern Europe can conjure when it mixes Catholic … Read More “Lokis (1970)” »

If Goodbye Gemini were a cocktail, it would be a tepid gin-and-tonic left sweating on a Soho bar counter, garnished with incest, blackmail, and a teddy bear named Agamemnon. Yes, you read that right—the most emotionally stable character in this film is a stuffed toy. The setup is pure Swinging London exploitation: a pair of … Read More “Goodbye Gemini (1970)” »

Some movies are nightmares. Some movies are dreams. And then there’s Dream No Evil—a movie that’s more like falling asleep on NyQuil, waking up to find your cat staring at you, and realizing you’re drooling on the couch cushions. Here we’ve got Grace, the poor orphan girl raised by a traveling evangelical circus where her … Read More “Dream No Evil (1970)” »