2024 saw the return of Splintered - the British noise rock collective who have largely been AWOL for the last thirty years. In their initial run between 1992 and 1996, they released four albums and recorded two sessions with John Peel. The band's new album Between Scylla And Charybdis is a rewarding blend of lo-fi and the expansive, and since its release in May of this year, it has gone on to be one of my favourite more formal rock-focused albums of the year. It’s a release that brings together elements of jam rock, moody punk-edged psych, and droned-out/murky art-rock/post-punk. Imagine if Pink Floyd appeared in the early ‘80s, and had more sinister/murky intentions. I tracked down the project’s vocalist Richard( Richo) Johnson for an email interview.

Most Films within the serial killer found footage/ faux snuff film genre feature both gory murder & brutal torture. One of the few film series to step away from these tropes is the Amateur Porn Star Killer trilogy from the early 2000s. They focus on the more coerced & manipulative side of their killer, with the added addition of jarring real hardcore sex, and grim mumblecore drama. The three films are directed/written by Canoga Park, California-born Shane Ryan-Reid- who also plays the film's charming/ highly manipulative killer Brandon. Earlier this year as part of their Raw & Extreme Wild-Eyed Releasing reissued all three films.  Shane kindly agreed to an email interview- where we discuss his influences, the three films, and the most recent appearance of the Brandon character in 2020’s Choke.

The rather controversial named Whore’s Breath is the wall-noise project of  Cincinnati’s David Hilshorst. It started in 2021, and to date, it has coming on for one hundred and fifty releases to its name. The project’s work moves between set/ old school, shifting & active, or texturally experimental- with it being one of the more consistent/interesting projects on the walled noise scene.  David Kindly agreed to give us an email interview.

This year saw the fine folks at Headpress releasing Cannibal Error by David Kerekes & David Slater- the truly definitive and wholly fascinating chronicling of the so-called ‘video nasties’ phenomena/era. The book is a revised, reworked and expanded edition of the year 2000 book See No Evil — pushing the original page count up from four hundred to nearly six hundred pages. I tracked down one of the book’s authors David Kerekes for an email interview —discussing the book, and his personal history with the video nasties.

Tim Ritter is one the key/ important figures in the Shot-On-Video/ultra-low-budget horror genre. He was behind titles such as Truth Or Dare (1985), Killing Spree (1987), and Day Of The Reaper(1985). His work often features creative/ interventive gore/ kills, shifts in tone between unsettlement & humour, and darkly quirky touches. Late last year the fine folks at SRS Cinema released The Tim Ritter Collection- a four Blu-ray set, taking six of his SOV releases- these move between the classic low-budget horror anthology Twisted Illusion (1985),  deranged & demented Escape from Prison Killer film Creep (1995), and Reconciled Through The Christ (2004)  a Christianity-focused mix of horror, drama,  and thriller.  Tim kindly agreed to do an email interview, and below we’ll find our in-depth/ lengthy interview.

Set up at the start of 2023 Radiance Films is one of the more recently formed boutique labels, though to date it’s released over a hundred titles. These move all over the film genre map- with a general focus on great & fascinating cinema. Each release- be they single films, or boxsets feature wonderful new scans and a great selection of the most worthy/interesting extras.   Behind the company is Francesco Simeoni, the former director of content for Arrow Video. Below is an email interview with Francesco.