To psyche ourselves up for the scares and thrills of Halloween, we focus on the black and white French animated film Fear(s) of the Dark, in which celebrated illustrators and comic book artists explore our most profound phobias. Comics expert Paul Gravett reviews the film for us and we also have an interview with Charles Burns (the author of the acclaimed Black Hole), whose section is one of the highlights of the film.

In the cinema releases, we look at the perversely pleasurable Korean thriller A Bloody Aria, twisted female-centred indie anti-rom-com Good Dick, Tarsem’s visual feast The Fall and socially conscious Mexican thriller La Zona

DVD releases include the warped dream world of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, John Carpenter’s anti-apathy B-thriller They Live, psycho-political western Terror in a Texas Town, explosive black British youth manifesto Babylon, Abel Ferrara’s gangster tale King of New York, the two sci-fi classics Westworld and Logan’s Run and more B-movie fun with Killer Klowns from Outer Space. And we celebrate the re-release of Eraserhead and discuss David Lynch’s shorts, now available on DVD, in relation to his entire career.

As the festival season closes, we have a preview of the London Film Festival and a report on the Toronto Film Festival. And fuzzy folksters Christy and Emily pick their favourite films in the Jukebox.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team