Magazine Review: The Dark Side Magazine – Issue 151

It was always going to be a tough job for The Dark Side to follow up issues like their spectacular Hammer and Amicus specials, but while issue 151 isn’t quite the classic that other recent issues have been, it’s still brilliant. This one is centred on the Scream Queens phenomenon, and thus it’ll be an issue which divides opinion somewhat.

I really enjoyed it, as ever, but there are some glaring omissions from the lineup of interviews and suchlike which I would personally have liked to have seen in there. Of course, when it comes to films and film history, nothing is really fact, rather pretty much everything is a question of taste and personal opinion.

That said, it would have been great to have interviews, or at least some material on, people like Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, Debbie Rochon and Michelle Bauer. That said, the lineup of interviews and related material is still of a ridiculously high standard.

Interviews include a superb feature with The Human Centipede’s Ashlynn Yennie (who comes across as a really nice lady), Traci Lords (sure to set a lot of fans’ pulses racing), Barbara Leigh-Hunt (with some glorious reminiscences of working with Hitchcock), Sleepaway Camp’s Felissa Rose (who is ageing very well indeed) and none other than Heather Langenkamp (who also seems like a supremely pleasant person – even when faced with subjects she’s been dealing with for decades now).

Add to this a fascinating (if not completely exhaustive) feature on the role of women in genre cinema, the magazine’s usual excellent standard of reviews and more, and you have another very good value issue for the cover price.

The Dark Side Magazine has gone from being a title which went under and was consigned to the scrapheap and has become a truly admirable and formidable publication once again, just as its long-term readers always remembered it. This new era for the mag continues to bring you value, quality and stuff that just doesn’t get put out by other, lesser titles.

Magazine Review: The Dark Side Magazine – Issue 151