Is That One Drop of Blood or Two, Darling?

Horror films have always been a big part of my movie-watching life since my early teens. I remember the first horror film I ever saw was IT, based on the Stephen King book of the same name. I remember watching it with my friend, Ian, when it first aired in two-parts on Sky One around 1990/1991, and I must have been about seven years old. It scared the shit out of us for a long time. I think from then on I had a penchant for visual scares that's lasted up to this day.

In my early teens I discovered Halloween, then the Friday the 13th series, as well as movies like Scream, Nightmare on Elm St., and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I couldn't really tell you what it was I liked about them, and I probably still couldn't now, but there is something appealing to me about the way these films gnaw into the fears of their audience. I can tell you it isn't the gore that captivates me. I could name a heap of films that offer gratutious, graphic violence that turn me off. I think the best I can offer as to why they interest me is the fact that they are so formulaic. You go into a horror film knowing damn-well what you're expecting, and you go out feeling satisfied, to an extent. Even those that are just shockingly terrible movies (The Ring Two, and the remake of The Omen) are intriguging because they give us, the audience, what we're after - no matter how awful it may be.

The two things that horror movies lack these days, particularly Hollywood horror, is originality and scares. Films like Halloween were successful because they provided their audience with something fresh, or at least a new perspective on an existing formula. I don't think there has been such a refreshing take on an old, stale genre since Scream in 1996. Maybe that's a foolish statement to make, but can you even tell me of an American horror film that's influenced the genre so much in recent memory? The post-Scream, post-modern slasher died long ago, around the time Valentine hit the cinemas, and it now needs something new. Maybe these gross-out, back-to-the-basics gore-fests like Hostel could be horrors saviour for the time-being, but that said, most of the better ones seem to be foreign (Wolf Creek, Switchblade Romance).

But for now, I think Hollywood will continue to be happy in churning out bland, MTV-style remakes and making a small earning from those films such as House of Wax, The Amityville Horror, The Hills Have Eyes (admittedly not so bad), and The Hitcher. Even the remake of Halloween will be out soon. What's next? Alien? Jaws? Rosemary's Baby? The Thing is already in the pipeline, as is The Evil Dead, so it wouldn't surprise me if Michael Bay decides to wipe his arse on something like The Birds next. Oh, wait...



Other Horror Must-Sees



Profondo Rosso and Suspiria (dir. Dario Argento, 1975 and 1977)
The Tenant (dir. Roman Polanski, 1976)
Zombie Flesh Eaters (dir. Lucio Fulci, 1979)
The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
The Return of the Living Dead (dir. Dan O'Bannon, 1985)