The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973)

In pre-Second World War Poland, a young man, Józef (Jan Nowicki), travels to a run-down sanatorium in the country to visit his dying father, Jakub (Tadeusz Kondrat), only to be told that his father is dead.

However, the strange properties of sanatorium mean that, like Schrödinger's cat, he is also still alive. From there Józef sets off on a surreal journey into his memories, where the Jewish community he grew up in becomes interwoven with the rooms - and residents - of the sanatorium as he tries to come to terms with his guilt over leaving his father in such a place and the events that led to his father's incarceration in the first place.

The Hourglass Sanatorium (aka Sanatorium Pod Klepsydra) opens on a strange train where all the passengers, bar Józef, appear to be corpses and this unnerving Lovecraftian Hammer Horror feeling continues up until the scenes where Józef meets his father.

At first it appears as though our perfectly-normal protagonist is simply taking his increasingly peculiar surroundings in his stride, but quite suddenly we realise that Józef is as out-of-sorts with normality as everything else that is unfolding before our eyes.

Apparently based on a series of short stories by Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz, the film quickly dispenses with such mainstream concepts as a narrative plot and instead swims dream-like through a cycle of reality-blurring vignettes that whisk Józef from swamplands overrun by soldiers to lost loves of his youth.

The dialogue and scene structure has a strong William Burroughs 'cut-up' vibe going on and much is reminiscent of Naked Lunch (the book more so than the film, but without the sexual obsessions) mixed in with Jacob's Ladder, Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and, if I really reach, Rob Zombie's House Of 1,000 Corpses and Grant Morrison's The Invisibles.

However, this isn't a horror film so much as magical realism; an exercise in trying to capture on film a concept that this is ultimately indescribable, the experience of visiting a place where time works in ways alien to our normal perception.

Visually hypnotic and lyrically directed by Wojciech Has, The Hourglass Sanitorium is the strangest film I've seen in a long while, but it flows so beautifully and provocatively that you're soon convinced it's either incredibly meaningful or else the cast and crew were simply making it up as they went along.

Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD (2015)

Released on DVD in 2015, Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD is a gleefully foul-mouthed oral history of Britain's foremost home-grown comic book.

Through a series of talking heads, the documentary charts the comic's growth from its birth in the depressing and anarchic days of the late 1970s.

After 2000AD's founder Pat Mills' first attempt to kick back against the turgid state of boys' comics - Action - had been crushed by the establishment, he realised that sci-fi was a better avenue for his style of storytelling.

Eventually, the success of 2000AD attracted the attention of American comic book companies, particularly DC, and the local talent was quickly poached (Brian Bolland, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison etc) and 2000AD began to suffer because of this.

And it's not really until the title was brought by video game company Rebellion in the year 2000 that the comic started to regain some of its former glory.

A veritable galaxy of comic book talent appears in this documentary, from Pat Pills, Alan Grant and John Wagner, to Grant Morrison, Dan Abnett, Brian Bolland, Kevin O'Neill, Carlos Ezquerra, and Dave Gibbons, to name but a few.

First and foremost this is a historical document, presenting the story of the title, its struggles, its inspirations, and the targets of its subversive satire, but it's also a joyful celebration of a counter-culture icon, a scrappy little niche comic book that has endured for decades, and retained its uniquely British accent, despite occasional great adversity.

It also looks at the enduring legacy and influence 2000AD has had on the comic book landscape (interviewees from DC Comics acknowledge there'd be no Vertigo imprint without 2000AD, for instance) and cinematic aesthete (pointing out that Robocop was a better Judge Dredd film than the first actual Judge Dredd film etc).

Growing up with 2000AD, this was the first comic I read regularly. I still fondly remember the 'free gifts' with the first few issues (a Frisbee, 'bionic' stickers etc) and, in those post-Star Wars days, early strips like Dan Dare and, of course, Judge Dredd had a massive impact on my imagination, my writing, and eventually my gaming.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell (1995)

Trapped inside a haunted house, a body builder must survive a blood soaked night of insanity to save himself and his friends from a demonic ghost that is hell-bent on revenge.

Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell aka The Japanese Evil Dead wears its love of Sam Raimi's original movies proudly on its sleeve and makes no bones about "homaging" styles, shots, and even classic lines from Evil Dead and Evil Dead II.

Writer/director/star Shinichi Fukazawa's 1995 subtitled horror barely lasts over an hour and while it starts slowly, the extended final act is simply a gonzo sequence of man-versus-indestructible demon that fans of Raimi's early work will really appreciate.

The basic plot wallows joyfully in its grainy, direct-to-video, amateur constraints following the titular bodybuilder opening up a creepy, rundown, old house in the city - which his father owned decades ago - to try and woo back his ex-girlfriend, a photojournalist looking for a "ghost story".

They've brought with them a psychic, who promptly gets possessed by the angry spirit of a murdered woman and can only be stopped by the complete dismemberment and destruction of their corpse.

The ghost uses the psychic's abilities to boost her own and trap the bodybuilder and journalist in the house, like a supernatural escape room where their only chance at freedom depends on the total eradication of the paranormal presence. 

There are moments - particularly when animated body parts combine - that reminded me of that other old school, darkly funny, Grand Guignol splatter classic, Re-Animator.

Stop-motion special effects bring a touch of Jan Švankmajer to the proceedings, while also feeling very Japanese, and the body builder's climactic discovery of his 'inner power' was reminiscent of both the TV iteration of The Incredible Hulk and Grant Morrison and Richard Case's Flex Mentallo in Morrison's seminal run on the Doom Patrol comics.

A shockingly fun, cheap and cheerful, short film, what Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell lacks in originality it makes up for in its passion for the material, accepting its budgetary and technical limitations and embracing them with great aplomb.

All-Star Audio Treatment For Beloved Superman Story

One of the most highly-regarded and universally-loved Superman stories, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s award–winning All-Star Superman, will be released as a five-hour, full-cast audiobook in June (and is already available to pre-order on Audible).

Adapted to audio by Meghan Fitzmartin, All-Star Superman was originally a 12-issue comic book series, published between November 2005 and October 2008, recounting Superman's final deeds as he comes to terms with his impending death.

For more details on the audio production, cast and so on check out DC's website here.

"What's Your Favourite Superman Story?"

Hope. Legacy. The ultimate symbol of truth and justice.

Join DC’s superstar creators as they celebrate the timeless tales that made us believe a man could fly. What’s your favourite Superman story?