London Film Nights

I suppose it would be foolish not to mention the great piece Tony Paley did on London Film Nights, while certainly by no means comprehensive, solid and covering a good range of evenings.
From our friends at Filmbar70 and their classy approach to cult films to The Duke Mitchell Film Club and their treasure troves of trailers and the down right bizarre cult films to the Exploding Head Film Club and Tom's love of American Cinema, not to mention ourselves. I think Tony did a great job.
London has a near endless supply of film nights, some pop up for a few weeks and others stick around for years, but if you want to, you can catch a film and a pint almost every night of the week.

Anyway - have a read, come down to each of the nights mentioned, wander through the comments where even more are mentioned.
Film Clubs: Fancy a Cheap Night out at the Picture and a Pint?

Night of the Long Shorts Cont'd

As Saturday draws closer and everything seems to be coming together, fingers are tightly crossed in CBHQ that everything will run as smoothly as it looks like it may.
All parties involved have put in endless hours of work and I'm guessing when Chu-I and Tijuana Brothers member Surfing Kurt hit those decks at the end of the night, there's gonna be a lot of hair being let down.
Not that we are known for being the reserved type when it comes to indulging in a bit of tipple.

In the meantime, we are getting some lovely words spewed forth about us, Rue Morgue, one of the worlds largest and most respected Horror magazines did a little piece on Night of the Long Shorts here. May I suggest that you not stop reading what they have to say just about us, and get lost on their site, better yet, track a printed copy down.


Then today, we were fortunate enough to get a write up on another great horror blog, Brutal as Hell. Which has always been one of my personal favourites as they tend to steer clear of the more adolescent side of things and take a fair and educated appraoch to difficult films like A Serbian Film and Antichrist (if memory serves there's a great article on there about the upcoming I Spit on your Grave remake). Anyway, have a gander here.


I would like to point out that Josh isn't the only element of Cigarette Burns Cinema, there's a lot of us who all do their thing and help out and have helped out to make it what it is. Whether it's Ed, Matt or Will playing the face for the evening or Andy at V2 designing our artwork, or Angus serving you pints, there's a lot going on beyond this screen.

Enough with the soppy shit - We're hitting the Rio Cinema in September muthafuckas!!!!
Proper big screen. Howsabout dem apples, huh?!
More on that later...

Night of the Long Shorts

Busy busy busy bees over here in Cigarette Burns HQ.
Night of the Long Shorts is creeping ever closer, but getting ever better.
On 7th August we will invade the Rosemary Branch's theatre and screen some of the best horror shorts we could find, a wonderful mix of zombies, ghosts, brutal killings, sexy ladies and twisted murders await you in our den of video nasties.

I can promise you that you have not seen the majority of these films.
And certainly not shown on a nice lovely big screen.
We're really chuffed that we will have several of the film makers and actors in attendance to say a few words, intro their films and generally liven up the evening.
Check out the Facebook Page for more info.

The great blog Gore Press did a great little write up for us and of course we tip our hat to them with a massive thank you. Gore Press is a well written blog, that deserves your time and among the very few we bother with.

Otherwise, of course we have Wild Zero coming up on the 2nd.


Contray to what the poster says, prizes will be donated by Flashback and the Rio Cinema in Dalston.


Cuz we only work with the bestest people we can xxx

Mega Piranha Reviewed

Words fail to convey the sheer astonishment that overwhelms you when you settle in to watch Mega Piranha.
Hearkening back to the mutated beasts of the scifi classics of the 50’s, mixing in a sizable chunk of 80’s cheese and disregard for logic and firmly placing their tongue in their cheek, SyFy has come up with a true classic of a film.
There is nothing about this film that leads one to believe it was borne out of anything but love for the ridiculous, the special effects are disastrous, but strangely effective, the acting is dire, but endearing, the script borders on the retarded but adds to the flavour, the title, Mega Piranha, tells us, without a doubt, we are in for something special.
Starring Tiffany, she of 80s pop fame, a counter attack to Debbie Gibson’s recent appearance in SyFy’s Mega Shark v Mega Octopus, which, it must be said, is lacking the charm that Mega Piranha has. Tiffany plays a scientist who has been trying to genetically modify food stuffs and though, quite understandably, that if she is trying to grow giant corn, she ought to test this out on animals, before she starts messing with the corn. What better animal to mess around with than the piranha? I mean, they are only little, seem cute and harmless, what could go wrong by making them bigger? As it turns out, quite a lot. They will pretty much eat anything, boats, big boats, submarines, helicopters and for a change, even towns. Indeed, nothing is safe from these mega piranha who just keep growing and growing and growing.
But all is not lost! No, Barry Williams aka Greg from the Brady Bunch, steps in as some shady top US Government official and sends out his top man, Special Agent Fitch, played by American Soap Opera Star Paul Logan, to save the day. Fitch wastes little time in literally kicking some piranha ass, but complications arise when the Venezuelan military decide to unleash all hell on the river containing the piranha and in a hail of helicopter delivered bombs, missiles and bullets, releases them into the ocean, where they set a course for Florida.... as piranhas are known to be fans of sun bathing and frat parties, it only makes sense.
All hell has broken loose, the hounds have been released and even the might of the US Military can’t save the world!!!
Will Tiffany live to sing another day? Will Greg Brady ever get laid?! Will Fitch be able to kill the Piranha and save them all from a fishy death??!
Well, you’ll really really have to see the film to find out.
Conveniently for London based folks, the lovelies at Way to Blue have set up a special screening at the Alibi on Kingsland Road in Dalston on 12th Monday.
I strongly suggest you head down there for some insane, pointless giant fish fun.


More piranha action here

Weer all crazee now

Psychosis is hitting DVD next month, looking like a mash up of Polanski's classic Repulsion, a touch of Peckinpah's Straw Dogs to me the most important element is the metalhead and the fake punks. Seriously, I say bring back the 80's. I want punks and metalheads throwing horns guzzling booze and getting their heads kicked in.


Charisma Carpenter, of Buffy and Angel fame (but more confusingly not related to John as the name and career might suggest) has moved into a lovely new home, which may or may not be haunted. Regardless, the local alternative scene seem pretty intent on driving her mad while her husband, British model Paul Sculfor, plays dumb.



We also get loads of kids looking tough in the trailer.
Check out Mr Metalhead's hard as nails DIY work.
Obviously at this point, we know Carpenter is seeing things. No Metaller worth his denim would be caught dead painting window trim white.
This hits DVD on 19th July.


Cigarette Burns loves a good dose of British horror and we're massive fans of the newest wave, so we will definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

Triumph or disaster?

Predator is back.
Those three words teeter on the edge of glee and terror. So many films are being revisited, most unjustly. Remakes, like Friday the 13th are more often than not a waste of time. Predators, even with Adrian Brody, looks like it might be ok. The combination of Robert Rodriguez and the scariest man on earth, Danny Trego might be just enough to pull Brody back from his terrible (yet delightful) excursion with Argento in Giallo.
Watching this trailer, I can't help but hope that the Predators win. What a wonderful way to mix things up. We all prefer the Predators to their human counterparts anyway, don't we?
The ultimate anti hero.

We are le cool

We have had the great fortune to have a write up in this week's le cool a fantastic weekly e-magazine highlighting some of the more interesting and worthwhile ways of spending your time in our fair city.

Scroll over to Monday to read what they have to say about us.

And while you are there, you may as well sign up and support those that support us!