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 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!

A soldier made into a mutant with radiation.

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.

Behind a killer watching a van drive away.

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.

A light in a boy's eye as he looks through a keyhole.

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.

Santa with an axe stalks around a brightly Christmas-lit house

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?

Santa Claus with a bloody nose looking at someone with unexpected violence.

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.

A woman is doing the dishes in a dark kitchen.

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.

A priest and a metalhead sit in a car watching for something.

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.

A man looks at his watch and checks the time against the wall clock.

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.

A boy and a girl sit across from each other and talk about a book the boy is holding.

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.

A woman is reading something on a screen with a city’s lightt behind her.

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.

Detective Mari and rogue cop Brannan sit together at a desk.

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.

A frightened woman stumbles down an empty train corridor.

November 28 2024, 19:36

Sleepless

Young Giacomo watches a hidden figure stab his mother to death with a flute. Police Chief Moretti promises the boy he will catch the killer, and he does, but seventeen years later the killings begin again. The retired Moretti teams up with adult Giacomo to catch the Dwarf Killer who seems to be back from the dead.

Christine looks confused and fingers a jade fan.

November 26 2024, 21:11

The Phantom of the Opera

A baby is put in a basket and released into the sewer where rats pull it to safety and raise it as one of their own. Argento’s Phantom is the king of the rats, but also a hunky blonde stud in Julian Sands, beautiful, charming, with no mask in sight.

Our heroine (and anti-heroes) talk edgily around an opulent table.

November 23 2024, 13:02

Gothic

I love Ken Russell. He’s not afraid to be weird, sexual, gloopy and violent. Byron, Godwin, Shelley and Polidori whip each other into a fervour as a metaphor for the artists creative process and the courage required in the face of all the imagery and emotions that can fly around while making art.

A female vampire gazes hungily at a male neck.

November 22 2024, 18:09

Dracula

Christopher Lee’s Dracula is iconic. He’s tall, his face carries an animalistic quality when in vampire mode, he’s sometimes slow and imposing, but then he strides up castle stairs three at a time. Beneath his civility is a barely held in check hunger. It’s wonderful to watch.

November 20 2024, 20:09

The Eternal Daughter

Julie, an artist and photographer, takes her mother to a luxurious country hotel for her birthday, but is unsettled by strange noises and half-seen figures. The hotel was once her mother’s family home, and the visit unearths unexpected memories.

November 19 2024, 21:00

The Car

Deputy Wade Parent is raising two daughters alone after the death of his wife and policing the usually peaceful small town of Santa Ynez—until a black car with darkened windows drives out of the Utah desert and runs two cyclists off a bridge into a ravine.

Paper with the words no change written over and over in pencil.

November 18 2024, 20:19

Enys Men

A woman in a bright red coat walks the barren landscape of an island somewhere off the coast of Cornwall. She’s a volunteer monitoring wildlife, in particular a clutch of white flowers of which she records the soil temperature at their roots every day.