Housebound (2014)
Rima Te Wiata, Glen-Paul Waru
When she’s placed under house arrest, Kylie Bucknell is forced to return to the house she grew up in. Her punishment is made all the more unbearable by the fact she has to live there with her mother who’s convinced the house is haunted. Kylie dismisses her mom’s superstitions until she too notices unsettling whispers & strange bumps in the night. Kylie begins to wonder whether she’s inherited her mother’s overactive imagination, or if the house is in fact possessed by a hostile spirit who’s less than happy about the new living arrangement.
Currently portraying General Glenn Talbot on ‘Agents of SHIELD’, Persian American actor Adrian Pasdar is probably better known as Nathan Petrelli, superhuman politician from Tim Kring’s NBC series Heroes.
The actor has done any number of horror roles on both TV and in the cinema and these are two of my favorites.
Near Dark (1987)
Near Dark was a cult hit blending vampires into a modern Western motif. Oscar winning director Kathryn Bigelow (Hurt Locker, Zereo Dark Thirty) co-wrote and helmed this dramatic road trip horror. Her direction gives things a feel that is somehow both epic and trashy. A 21 year old Pasdar stars in one of his first sizable roles. He is the heart-throb reluctant hero while Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton up the creepy factor with over-the-top bad guy action. A classic.
Home Movie (2008)
A dark and effective horror indie in the found footage motif that takes a seemingly idyllic family into sociopathy with a tinge of the supernatural. Here, 20 years after Near Dark, Pasdar plays an earnest pastor and adoring dad trying to create normalcy where there is increasingly less and less of it.
Director’s horror film “Rigor Mortis” is a “drama about life.”
Juno Mak — Photo: SCMP
Director: Juno Mak, Producer: Takashi Shimizu
Hong Kong’s multi-talented wunderkind Juno Mak has struck gold in his every creative endeavor in music, fashion, and film. As the director of this 2013 vampire flick, Mak pairs up with J Horror innovator Takashi Shimizu who birthed the Ju-on/Grudge franchises.
The resulting movie pays tribute to Ricky Lau’s 1985 horror/comedy Mr Vampire and bends the fourth wall by including cast members from that iconic film. Eschewing the Western take on bloodsucker mythology, both films instead hinge Chinese folklore’s jiangshi, a Taoist creature roughly described as a “hopping vampire”.
Dark Matters 
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