Yesterday was the 241st birthday of William Henry Ireland.

I wrote a reappraisal of Rob Zombie's 2007 remake of Halloween for The Quietus.

I've a new essay up at The Learned Pig.

It's titled 'Before the Beginning' and is about insomnia, volcanoes and the origins of Frankenstein.

The third in a loose trilogy of films from the great Lindsay Anderson which set out to satirise Britain’s dominant institutions – education in If…. (1968), the justice system in O Lucky Man! (1973) – Britannia Hospital’s focal target, as the title implies, would appear to be the NHS.

Here, like In the Mouth of Madness, is another film which perhaps doesn’t quite qualify as ‘underrated’ as such. But still, although it has developed something of a lofty film-buff appreciation, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Bob Rafelson’s grubby 1981 remake of the much loved 1946 noir touchstone, remains a hard sell.