About Me

It was, I guess, inevitable that I'd take this route. Growing up, my fate was sealed when I saw the mighty King Kong on TV.

I was eight years old.

I would never be the same again. As my peers turned their attention to football (or, if you’re in the United States, soccer) I found my entertainment elsewhere - on the screen.

King Kong was quickly followed by TV viewings of several fifties sci-fi movies, It Came from Outer Space, War of the Worlds, Them and The Thing. All burned themselves into my consciousness, and the only thing that burned more was a desire to see more and know the answer to the eternal question... "how did they DO that?"

Thus, I bade farewell to my pocket money (and later, as an adult - my disposable income), because where the other kids idolised sports stars, I was following the likes of Ray Harryhausen, Jack Arnold, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney. I might not have known who was playing centre forward for Manchester United in 1969, but I knew who created the make-up for Frankenstein in 1931. I might not have an idea what the offside rule was, but I knew, beyond a doubt, how stop motion animation worked

For years, I suppose I was the oddball loner whose interests were always "different" - I graduated from watching the TV screenings of the Universal classics of the 1930s and 40s to the Hammer movies of the 1950s to the 1970s, somehow, coincidentally, managing to see a lot of the material in some sort of chronological timeline, all the time amassing a library of books and magazines to try and satisfy my insatiable hunger for more.

The world caught up with me in 1977, when just about everybody succumbed to the Star Wars craze. Sci-Fi was the new "cool" and the old term "movie buff" was quickly overtaken by "geek". (Previously a term used to describe a person in a freak show who would bite the heads off live chickens, incredibly enough. Anyhow, now it's a term for someone with an obsessive and specialised knowledge of a subject. I guess I qualify on THAT basis, but have never bitten the head off a live chicken - just so we're clear on that.)

Then came VHS and the ensuing home video revolution which put power back in the hands of the viewing public. No longer would we be at the mercy of re-releases or have to wait five years for a truncated TV showing of a favourite movie. We could OWN them. And boy, we embraced THAT notion. (Thankfully, DVDs take up far less room. Streaming even less so - but I'm a collector. I like tangible physical media. It's the only way with the current trend toward cancel culture)

Then came the computer revolution - and no self-respecting geek could ever be without one. All of a sudden, newsgroups, forums, social networking, blogging and home-made websites were all the rage, and anybody can be a critic. Even me.

Through all of this, I’ve made forays into the media. (Some would call me a media ‘ho). Since 1998, I’ve run a short-lived movie forum at my former place of work, (which almost cost me said job on a number of occasions back in the day.) I’ve been a regular guest co-presenter on a live three-hour Friday Night Show on a local radio station from November 1999 - April 2000, where I wrote and presented a regular feature called "RobinP’s MovieWatch" - a review of the week’s releases. I’ve been writing an online blog since 2007. I’ve contributed to websites such as Harry Knowles’s Ain’t It Cool News, Nuke the Fridge and Dr Gore’s Funhouse. I was published in various magazines.

In February 2007, I became a writer for GoreZone magazine, and was promoted to Chief Writer in May 2008 - the year I finally turned pro. I wrote there steadily until August 2010. This allowed me to be not only a geek, but a professional geek with access to interview actors, directors, effects technicians - a dream come true. Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to speak to a great many of my heroes and - being in print, I’ve become one of the people who get to actually answer the eternal question "how do they DO that?" to an eager and inquisitive audience world-wide. I like to think I'm encouraging the next generation of geeks.

From March 2011 until June 2024, I was a part of the writing team for Starburst magazine, which had become my font of all genre movie & TV knowledge from its first issue in 1978 onwards. I made my debut in May 2011 in issue 366 and shortly after that became a lead writer. For a little under 14 years, had the privilege of not only working for a magazine I've read avidly for over 46 years, contributing film and book reviews, but also writing feature articles about the classic movies I love so much for a whole new generation of fans and geeks. In 2015, I returned to the media of radio for a monthly horror sci-fi genre show called The Stone Tapes where I reviewed and discussed films, books and all the really cool things in a fan's life which ran until 2020. I went on to appear regularly on a range of shows by Southside Broadcasting including The Midweek Drive, Midweek Drive Morning Edition and a show covering cult TV and movies called Resonance Rewind. All in all, I appeared on over 400 shows in an eight-year span until my departure in April 2023.

I've also been given the opportunity to conduct onstage interviews at the Sci-Fi Weekender convention with cast members from Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Trek: Voyager as well as hosting film panels.

When I wasn't not busy with all that - I launched a podcast called Piercing the Veil with my son, Steve and daughter Tiff, details of which are available by clicking the link on the navigation bar at the top of this page.

So, basically, that’s me. I’m a movie junkie, published writer and scourge of the internet. Basically, I try to spend as many of my waking hours in front of one screen or another. It's a good life.

I’ll be updating this site pretty regularly. It’s a celebration of what I enjoy, my at times slightly skewed view of everything and of a fulfilling life spent chasing those shadows that flicker across our screens, both on TV and in the cinema.

Enjoy.