Welcome!
This is my word garden on the internet. I’m Michael Walters, author of The Complex, a novel out with Salt Publishing. I’m deep in the writing of a follow-up. I also have a PATREON where you can follow me and get more about my writing in particular, including notes on the novels I’m reading.
And check out my film collections in the sidebar—I do love a film challenge!
December 28 2024, 19:57
Dark Glasses
Diana, a sex worker, is chased by an unknown assailant, leading to a car accident that kills the parents of a young boy and leaves her blind. She slowly adapts to her new life and temporarily takes in the orphaned boy, but the killer returns to finish the job.
December 26 2024, 20:11
Argento’s Dracula
There’s a moment when Rutger Hauer’s Van Helsing arrives two-thirds in and my spirits lifted because perhaps the film could be saved, but the moment he started to say his lines, I knew it was actually a stake through my heart.
December 24 2024, 11:32
MadS
Romain tries a new drug from his dealer before going to a house party in the suburbs of a French city. He picks up an injured woman who might have escaped from a nearby military facility. From there things get progressively darker—what is real and what might be a bad trip?
December 23 2024, 17:26
The Hound of the Baskervilles
This was a dose of good cheer after watching Dario Argento’s Giallo. A Hammer Studios production, Peter Cushing, André Morell and Christoper Lee, as well as a supporting cast of luminaries, play off each other beautifully. Fisher made this not long after Dracula, and the sets and costumes are similarly lush.
December 23 2024, 13:21
Giallo
Inspector Enzo Avolfi specialises in finding serial killers. In Turin, someone is cutting up and killing beautiful young women, and when model Celine fails to arrive to meet her sister, Linda, Avolfi has to help her search the city before Celine becomes another victim.
December 22 2024, 07:50
Mother of Tears
A grave containing a rune-covered box is discovered outside a churchyard in Rome. Art restoration student Sarah Landy helps her tutor open the box, which contains magical artifacts including a tunic that bestows great power to the still-alive medieval witch Mater Lachrymarum.
December 20 2024, 15:22
A true note
I called this website ‘Notes from the Peninsula’ with the intention of posting personal thoughts and mixing in reports from a character on a quixotic quest on the coast of an imagined peninsula.
December 16 2024, 20:41
Maniac Cop
The VHS cover for Maniac Cop was iconic to video shop-haunting teens like me. Tom Atkins plays Tom Atkins as the detective, Frank McCrae, hunting a mysterious police officer who’s killing innocent people on the streets of New York. Also - Bruce Campbell!
December 16 2024, 07:11
Nightmare City
A radiation incident is reported in an anonymous Italian city moments before a military plane lands at the civilian airport. Mutant humans pour out and begin a city-wide massacre, killing indiscriminately, drinking victims blood, and infecting everyone who manages to survive.
December 15 2024, 13:04
In a Violent Nature
It’s rare a film comes along in the horror space and asks questions about the form. Cabin in the Woods did it back in 2011, and this does it with the slasher genre, subverting its conventions in pointed and interesting ways.
December 14 2024, 22:43
Anna and the Apocalypse
Staying festive, a Scottish zombie musical that captures the longing to escape a small town, the tricky relationships we navigate as teenagers, with peers, parents and teachers, and the power of musical theatre to kill the undead.
December 11 2024, 18:29
Silent Night, Deadly Night
On the way home from visiting his grandfather on Christmas Eve, young Billy Chapman watches his parents slain by a robber dressed as Santa Claus. Years later, grown-up Billy gets triggered into violence when he has to be Santa Claus himself.
December 10 2024, 16:23
Christmas Bloody Christmas
A grimy, low budget, fun-but-annoying mashup of Terminator, every sleazy slasher ever, a hangout movie, Texas Chain Saw Massacre and... First Blood?
December 09 2024, 21:27
Violent Night
Santa Claus is drunk in a bar, despairing of children’s greed, and thinking about giving it all up. While delivering presents to a rural mansion, he interrupts a robbery, and to save good girl Trudy he has to call on his skills as a Viking warrior.
December 08 2024, 15:14
Saint Maud
Maud, a private nurse from a Catholic care agency, starts a new job looking after acclaimed dancer Amanda Kohl who has Stage 4 cancer and is close to death. Amanda lives a hedonistic and drama-filled life which clashes with Maud’s newfound faith.
December 05 2024, 22:25
The Day of the Beast
A real horror comedy to repair the damage of Polanski’s vampire farce. And a Christmas movie! A priest thinks he has solved the puzzle of when the Antichrist will be born, and goes to Madrid to stop it which involves giving his soul to the devil.
December 04 2024, 21:49
The Fearless Vampire Killers
I wanted something light. I remembered not enjoying this a few years back but loving it as a kid, so I gave it another go. It’s a farce based on a mixture of Hammer horror and Universal Monster films.
December 03 2024, 22:31
The Appointment
The shocking opening death of a schoolgirl becomes a realistic family drama, then a woozy nightmare of attacking dogs, car crashes and things in the woods.
December 02 2024, 20:33
I Saw the TV Glow
Nostalgia is both comforting and soul crushing. Owen bonds with Maddy over a TV show she’s obsessed with, The Pink Opaque. Maddy is miserable in her life, and decides to run away from home, giving Owen a choice that will affect the rest of his life.
December 01 2024, 16:28
Red Rooms
Kelly-Anne turns up every day at the trial of a high profile alleged serial killer who is charged with broadcasting on the dark web the torture and murder of three teenage girls. She meets a groupie of the suspect who believes he is innocent, but Kelly-Anne’s motives remain elusive.
November 30 2024, 11:10
The Card Player
Rome detective Anna Mari pairs up with rogue Irish cop John Brennan to find a gambling serial killer who challenges the police to games of online poker to save the lives of kidnapped women. Twists and turns (but not that many) ensue.<< < Previous | Next > >>