THE late-night horror-film slot is an Edinburgh tradition. Audiences

flock to them. The problem is finding halfway decent horror movies,

although given what succeeds discrimination is not the name of the game.

George Romero is a master of the genre, making his reputation with

Night of the Living Dead in 1969. His latest film, The Dark Half, stars

Timothy Hutton and is based on a Stephen King novel which explores the

flip side of Misery.

Hutton is Thad Beaumont, an academic who is also a best-selling

schlock horror novelist under the pseudonym of George Stark. He decides,

because he has aspirations under his real name to write serious books,

to kill off his pseudonymous twin. But the twin, the other side of his

personality, objects, assumes physical shape, and sets about killing the

people who are involved with Thad in ending his existence.

It is a nice Jekyll and Hyde variation, stylishly photographed by Tony

Pierce-Roberts and well played by Hutton and Amy Madigan as his

understanding wife. Tim's problem is he was a twin, but the other foetus

did not evolve properly and survived only as what was regarded as a

tumour in his brain. The ''thing'' was excised in the operating theatre,

but once a twin, always a twin.

* The Dark Half is on tomorrow at Cameo 1, 10.45pm.

George Stark: once a twin always a twin.