I've started writing now for Sheffield Hallam Magazine (SHULife) as a film critic, so here are a few reviews that I have done thus far:
New Film Review- Tyrannosaur
Director- Paddy Considine
Cast- Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman, Eddie Marsan
Certificate- 18
Running time- 92 minutes
Released- 7th October 2011
Considine delivers a film which beautifully balances rage and emotion in this stunning full-length debut. This film may represent his first stint as a director (with the exception of his short-film Dog Altogether, which also features Mullan and Colman) but he certainly doesn’t pull any punches, and weaves a tapestry of passion and sentiment which is juxtaposed superbly with a darker nature of violence and revenge. This film boasts breathtaking performances from Mullan and Colman, the latter of whom is nothing less than a revelation, shaking off the shackles of her comedy roots by delivering a genuinely heart wrenching performance.
It’s a film driven by the intensity of the script, which portrays the story of two people; Joseph (Mullan), a man almost permanently intoxicated coupled with his combustible personality, and a charity shop worker called Hannah (Colman). When these two first meet, Hannah’s religious nature and naively innocent view on the world, coupled with her residence in an affluent area of the city, leads Joseph to believe her to have the life he so desperately craves. It is only once we are introduced to James (Marsan), Hannah’s extremely jealous and abusive husband, that it becomes apparent that Hannah’s existence isn’t wrapped in cotton wool, and with this the balance of the film shifts, and it becomes as much tale of friendship as a poignant and existential meditation of revenge, righteousness and love.
Shane Meadows’ (a personal friend and work colleague of Considine’s) influence is obvious throughout, and Joseph certainly has elements of Meadows’ own characters (namely Combo from This is England and Richard from Dead Man’s Shoes), but nevertheless, Considine takes this film down a different path, and thus firmly stamps his own personal marker on this blistering debut film, that has set the bar for his next film at a very high standard.
Classic Film Review- Withnail & I
Director- Bruce Robinson
Cast- Richard E. Grant,Paul McGann,Richard Griffiths
Certificate- 18
Running time- 108 minutes
Released- 1986
Seen by many as the quintessential ‘cult film’, Withnail & I has gone down over the last twenty five years as one of the greatest British films ever. Loved (and quoted habitually) by everyone who has seen it, it is a great mystery as to why this film still has such a limited fan-base. It tells the tale of two unemployed actors in sixties London, the alcoholic Withnail (portrayed by Grant) and anxious ‘I’ (McGann), who narrates the story. Despite its comedy genre, the film nevertheless constantly presents itself with certain brooding undercurrents; whether it’s the drab, dreary conditions in which Withnail and Marwood (as any Withnail & I enthusiast knows is McGann’s character’s real name) live, or their ultimately various encounters with the country folk whilst on their holiday. It’s these darker moments that really drive the narrative along and keep the reader hooked, and they work in conjunction brilliantly with the film’s funnier moments- Uncle Monty’s lusting after Marwood, Withnail’s drinking of lighter fluid after discovering a lack of alcohol, or the scene near the end when a highly intoxicated Withnail and ‘I’ are sat in a cake shop demanding “the finest wines available to humanity”.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Monday, 29 August 2011
Chapter One - Horror Films
Well this is my first ever blog, and considering I aspire to be a journalist, I figure some form of creative output would be a wise move on my part. So I have decided to allow my creative juices to flow freely over cyber space’s infinitely permeable essence. I’m currently sat in my flat watching a rather good horror film on Film4 called Primal, and I was wondering what my favourite horror films are (this being a subject I highly enjoy). I started off with a list of my ten favourite films, but realising soon that this would be insufficient, I decided to expand, and thus have created two lists of films; one of films prior to my birth year (1990); and one of films after. So sit back and enjoy, and if you are someone who loves to dabble in the macabre, the grotesque, and the chilling- then this list comprises a ‘must-see’ select of the finest cinema of the twentieth and twenty-first century.
List One- Post 1990
10. Wolf Creek (2005)
Australian backpackers. The middle of the outback. A psychopathic killer. Oh, and the five words which make all horror films ten times scarier; “based on a true story”. This film may be in for more sentimental reasons than others, as I have stayed in the town in the outback where these murders took place, and it is a chilling place on an unparalleled scale.
9. Mirrors (2008)
A highly disorienting film, Kiefer Sutherland finds himself trapped in a dangerous and disturbing supernatural encounter. There is a spiritual force at work in his new place of employ, and a spirit is attacking our protagonist through the mirrors. The opening scene grips the audience’s attention, and throughout the film, the unnerving use of reflections chills the audience in its own, unique, unheimlich fashion.
8. Saw (2004)
Now hear me out here. When I say Saw, I mean the first film, and not the drivel that’s been churned out by Lionsgate since. On its own, this film is little short of brilliant. An original storyline, which boasts intrigue and originality, Saw presents its audience with a genuine horror film that was made by horror fans, for horror fans. Its twisted moral fable is very real, and considering it’s made on a relatively shoestring budget of $700,000 (£427,429), it certainly stands up with the more big budgeted American films, and even surpasses many. A measure of its success is easy; it indisputably shifted all following horror films away from the ‘tongue-in-cheek’ structure that became so very cheesy after Scream started the trend. So whereas Scream was seen as a breath of fresh air in 1996, and a film that took horror down a different path, just under ten years later, Saw took it back down its original path but, thanks to advances in technology, a more realistic and thus more gruesome path.
7. Scream (1996)
Now this film is for me. The first horror film I ever watched and it started off my love affair with this genre. When this film came out, it completely shattered the boundaries of what a horror film could do, and for that it’s got to be in this list. Unfortunately it started a whole sequence of ‘tongue-in-cheek’ films because of its ‘self-awareness’ narrative, which although was a breath of fresh air in 1996, soon became clichéd and boring. This film on its own, however, works superbly, with clever twists, dark humour, and in Ghostface the most realistic and also the most human villain ever to grace cinema screens.
6. The Descent (2006)
Another superb claustrophobic film, The Descent presents its audience with a ‘gung-ho female empowerment and ends in a blood-soaked orgy of every-woman-for-herself pandemonium’. This film’s horror stems fabulously from Neil Marshall’s evident mastery of how to layer thrills and fright to maximise the horror on screen. It’s not just the man eating humanoids that they are battling against, but the location of the claustrophobic caverns increase the tension tenfold. Marshall is an expert at conveying an all-consuming dread and disorientation, and this is the purest kind of horror film – ruthless, unforgiving, showing no mercy.
5. 28 Days Later (2002)
Possibly Danny Boyle’s greatest creation, and also the only English-language film in the top 5. But what is it? It’s as much a zombie movie as it is an existential reflection of the human condition, and it truly shows off the remarkable brilliance of Danny Boyle. He controls the tempo of the film amicably; balancing hell-for-leather horror with periods of intimate splendour. The film centres on a rage virus that infects humans, and it’s the speed at which people become infected that really gives this film a kick. Forget your steady, measured transition in Living Dead or the aforementioned Primal, here the transformation is a matter of seconds, and thus cuts down the character’s decision time from hours to a matter of seconds. This film is superbly shot, and it’s scenes of a deserted London are spine-tingling on their own; a brilliant film.
4. Ju-On: The Grudge (2003)
A film utterly destroyed by the American remake, the original J-Horror is a truly brilliant film. Far, far scarier than its American counterpart, Ju-On is a creepy psychological horror that is thick with a brooding, ominous atmosphere that infects the audience from the beginning and leaves us begging for more. Like Takashi Miike’s Audition, Takashi Shimizu uses a disjointed, jumpy narrative that creates confusion but also forces the viewer to interact with the film on an intellectual level, and thus greatly increases the scare factor of the film.
3. Audition (1999)
Possibly the absolute pinnacle of J-Horror, maverick director Takashi Miike presents us with his crème de la crème; a superb 111 minutes of dangerously disquieting cinematic genius, culminating in one of the most excruciating, intolerable torture scenes in film history. The film centre’s around Aoyama, a lonely widower who lives alone with his son. He decides to hold an audition for the part of a female lead in a non-existent production, but the shy, introverted woman (Asami), turns out to be anything but, as her true intentions start to unravel after a romantic holiday, and from then on this film takes on a dark and dangerous nature. Miike uses a disjointed timeline to fully submerge the audience in feelings of unpredictability and confusion, reflected onscreen brilliant by the deep and highly affective characters he’s created.
2. Let the Right One In (2008)
This vampire horror film, based on a novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, isn’t your generic 'cheap-thrills' vampire film but is, on a fundamental level, a pensive deliberation of the immense therapeutic potential that exists in human connection. It’s a spectacular conception that divulges itself to the audience with grace, stunning visual performances and sublime cinematography. The plot to the film is simple- and even clichéd. It tells the story of a young, bullied, isolated boy named Oskar, who lives next door to a young girl named Eli, a vampire, and this film benefits from Alfredson’s self-confessed lack of knowledge of vampire and horror conventions, which led him to tone down certain aspects of Lindqvist’s novel, and decide to focus the attention of the film on the childhood relationship between Oskar and Eli. Where many films would fall short of the mark with such basic narrative, Tomas Alfredson uses it to deliver with acerbic insight and delightful originality a film that is as much a vampire film as it is a coming-of-age one. Oh, and it’s named after the Morrissey song Let the Right One Slip In; so that certainly gives it extra kudos.
1. [REC] (2007)
Forget The Blair Witch Project. Forget Cloverfield. If you want a genuinely scary ‘shaky-cam’ experience, look no further than Julio Fernandez’s superb, utterly brilliant [REC]. What the film lacks in length (it is only a mere seventy five minutes long) it certainly makes up for in thrills. It even takes a while to get going, but the documentary-esque feel to the film is genuine, and when the adventure starts it mercilessly holds you in its macabre grasp and refuses to let go. The film boasts a truly authentic feel to it, and the mise-en-scène throughout represents a darkly claustrophobic encounter which is almost guaranteed to meet its audience’s expectations for horror. The film has none of Let the Right One In’s depth or platonic emotion, but that’s because frankly it doesn’t need it. When it comes to a purely visual aspect, [REC] can hold its own with anything.
List Two- Pre 1990
10. Friday 13th (1980)
Sean S. Cunningham’s classic represents his first film that he both directed and produced. It tells the tale of Camp Crystal Lake, a summer camp where a sequence of mysterious murders are carried out on the group of teenagers who are vacating there (including a young Kevin Bacon). This chilling tale started the massive Friday 13th film franchise, which comprises a colossal twelve films, a television show, novels, comic books, and tie‑in merchandise. It acts as the start of the one of the greatest film villains of all time; Jason Voorhees, although in this film it’s actually his mother who is the murderer.
9. Evil Dead (1981)
A cult classic to this day, Sam Raimi’s film is seen by many as something of an unsung hero of eighties horror. Overshadowed perhaps by the bigger films of the day, Friday 13th, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street for example, Evil Dead’s contribution to cinema should nevertheless be overlooked.
8. The Wicker Man (1973)
Another film that has been derided due to its American remake, The Wicker Man is a powerful portrayal of paganism and ritualistic rites. Although its pseudo-hippie seventies feel is dated to the modern audience, its plot is still commanding and gripping. An inspirational performance from Christopher Lee help certainly help add depth and a chilling aspect to the film, and along with The Witchfinder General, it forms a good collection of ‘folk horror’.
7. Don’t Look Now (1973)
As a lover of the written word, I (along with thousands of other bookworms) often find myself frustrated with adaptations of books. This, along with the next film in the list, is a member of an exclusive list of films that stand up to- even surpass- the novels from which they are derived. Daphne du Maurier’s short story is impeccably modified for cinema by Nicholas Roeg. This film is a classically old-school horror film, and it superbly entices its viewers and maintains their attention throughout, combining mystery, horror, and underlying romantic tension between its two protagonists. More well known for its extremely graphic and controversial sex scene between Don Sutherland and Julie Christie. The film also uses clever recurring themes, such as the Polaroid picture, and the red cloaked figure. It emotionally explores the effect the death of a child has on a family, and this combined with the suspense of the murders in their new hometown of Vienna equates to a thoroughly brilliant, yet for some reason not widely known, horror film.
6. Carrie (1976)
No horror film list would be complete without a Stephen King film, and I could have chosen out of a vast selection; The Shining, Misery, It, 1402 to name but a few, but I’ve gone for his first novel, Carrie. A superbly frightening adaptation that masterfully visualises the truly gruesome horror of the novella. One of this film’s greatest attributes is the double edged nature to that prom night scene. We simultaneously experience pleasure at Carrie’s highly cathartic revenge and revulsion at the scenes of utter malevolence that she is causing. A perfect adaption that not only captures the terror of the book, but manages to weave in a slightly lighter side with moments of humour, without watering down the elements of the film that we all want to see.
5. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
One of the greatest horror movies of all time is in fact a silent film. Like all black-and-white horror films, the tension and suspense is generated through the incredibly evocative lighting. This tale of vampires is an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula written twenty five years previously, but with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel, for instance, ‘vampire’ became ‘nosferatu’ and ‘Count Dracula’ became ‘Count Orlok’. This film set the benchmark for horror films, and indeed the repercussions of it are still felt in modern day horror movies, as its inspirations have indeed become inspirations themselves. It also provides one of the most well recognised scenes in cinematic history, and indeed the use of shadows and darkness are this film’s forté.
Pretty creepy, huh?
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Another classic from the eighties, and a film that really kick-started Wes Craven’s highly successful film career, A Nightmare on Elm Street is undisputedly one of the most well known horror films of all time. I’m sure if you were to name five things to do with the horror genre, Freddy Krueger would appear in most people’s list. Presenting us with hitherto unknown terrors, and also capturing the audience with a horrifying thought; what if something could attack us in our sleep?
3. The Exorcist (1973)
Certainly one of the most controversial films of all time, The Exorcist continues to horrify audiences even to this day; so much so that the remake of The Grudge even contains a carbon copy of the infamous ‘spider walk’. Blighted by mysterious fires and other on-set disasters, this film has controversy written all over it. From the highly illicit material it portrayed, to the treatment of child actor Linda Blair, this film's terrifying scenes are often even more poignant when one understands some of the things that happened to her in those scenes. Still as dramatically terrifying today as it was back then, this film has truly stood the test of time, and passed with flying colours.
2. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Another film that truly horrified audiences in its day, Rosemary’s Baby’s success is maybe slightly lessened by The Exorcist’s release just five years later, which follows a similar storyline. A horrifying account of Satanism and pregnancy as our protagonist Rosemary Woodhouse slowly begins to realise that her child isn’t ‘of this world’. A theme copied by countless horror movies afterwards (The Exorcist, Joshua, The Orphan, The Oman to name but a few), this timeless classic still terrifies audiences to this day, and with due reason.
1. Psycho (1960)
What else? A truly mesmerising film from the true master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Like Nosferatu before it, this film uses lighting perhaps better than any other film before or since. A must see for absolutely ever horror film fan, Hitchcock here tells the tale of the lonely and schizophrenic Norman Bates, owner of the Bates Motel. The now infamous shower scene may be the most famous scene of the film, but for me the scariest is by far the ending scene, when Norman is sat alone in the locked room, and the skull of his mother is faded across his face as he grins. Hitchcock’s film is an incredibly forward-thinking film that was extremely controversial and has horrified audiences for the past fifty years, and will surely continue to do so for many years to come.
List One- Post 1990
10. Wolf Creek (2005)
Australian backpackers. The middle of the outback. A psychopathic killer. Oh, and the five words which make all horror films ten times scarier; “based on a true story”. This film may be in for more sentimental reasons than others, as I have stayed in the town in the outback where these murders took place, and it is a chilling place on an unparalleled scale.
A highly disorienting film, Kiefer Sutherland finds himself trapped in a dangerous and disturbing supernatural encounter. There is a spiritual force at work in his new place of employ, and a spirit is attacking our protagonist through the mirrors. The opening scene grips the audience’s attention, and throughout the film, the unnerving use of reflections chills the audience in its own, unique, unheimlich fashion.
Now hear me out here. When I say Saw, I mean the first film, and not the drivel that’s been churned out by Lionsgate since. On its own, this film is little short of brilliant. An original storyline, which boasts intrigue and originality, Saw presents its audience with a genuine horror film that was made by horror fans, for horror fans. Its twisted moral fable is very real, and considering it’s made on a relatively shoestring budget of $700,000 (£427,429), it certainly stands up with the more big budgeted American films, and even surpasses many. A measure of its success is easy; it indisputably shifted all following horror films away from the ‘tongue-in-cheek’ structure that became so very cheesy after Scream started the trend. So whereas Scream was seen as a breath of fresh air in 1996, and a film that took horror down a different path, just under ten years later, Saw took it back down its original path but, thanks to advances in technology, a more realistic and thus more gruesome path.
Now this film is for me. The first horror film I ever watched and it started off my love affair with this genre. When this film came out, it completely shattered the boundaries of what a horror film could do, and for that it’s got to be in this list. Unfortunately it started a whole sequence of ‘tongue-in-cheek’ films because of its ‘self-awareness’ narrative, which although was a breath of fresh air in 1996, soon became clichéd and boring. This film on its own, however, works superbly, with clever twists, dark humour, and in Ghostface the most realistic and also the most human villain ever to grace cinema screens.
Another superb claustrophobic film, The Descent presents its audience with a ‘gung-ho female empowerment and ends in a blood-soaked orgy of every-woman-for-herself pandemonium’. This film’s horror stems fabulously from Neil Marshall’s evident mastery of how to layer thrills and fright to maximise the horror on screen. It’s not just the man eating humanoids that they are battling against, but the location of the claustrophobic caverns increase the tension tenfold. Marshall is an expert at conveying an all-consuming dread and disorientation, and this is the purest kind of horror film – ruthless, unforgiving, showing no mercy.
Possibly Danny Boyle’s greatest creation, and also the only English-language film in the top 5. But what is it? It’s as much a zombie movie as it is an existential reflection of the human condition, and it truly shows off the remarkable brilliance of Danny Boyle. He controls the tempo of the film amicably; balancing hell-for-leather horror with periods of intimate splendour. The film centres on a rage virus that infects humans, and it’s the speed at which people become infected that really gives this film a kick. Forget your steady, measured transition in Living Dead or the aforementioned Primal, here the transformation is a matter of seconds, and thus cuts down the character’s decision time from hours to a matter of seconds. This film is superbly shot, and it’s scenes of a deserted London are spine-tingling on their own; a brilliant film.
A film utterly destroyed by the American remake, the original J-Horror is a truly brilliant film. Far, far scarier than its American counterpart, Ju-On is a creepy psychological horror that is thick with a brooding, ominous atmosphere that infects the audience from the beginning and leaves us begging for more. Like Takashi Miike’s Audition, Takashi Shimizu uses a disjointed, jumpy narrative that creates confusion but also forces the viewer to interact with the film on an intellectual level, and thus greatly increases the scare factor of the film.
Possibly the absolute pinnacle of J-Horror, maverick director Takashi Miike presents us with his crème de la crème; a superb 111 minutes of dangerously disquieting cinematic genius, culminating in one of the most excruciating, intolerable torture scenes in film history. The film centre’s around Aoyama, a lonely widower who lives alone with his son. He decides to hold an audition for the part of a female lead in a non-existent production, but the shy, introverted woman (Asami), turns out to be anything but, as her true intentions start to unravel after a romantic holiday, and from then on this film takes on a dark and dangerous nature. Miike uses a disjointed timeline to fully submerge the audience in feelings of unpredictability and confusion, reflected onscreen brilliant by the deep and highly affective characters he’s created.
This vampire horror film, based on a novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, isn’t your generic 'cheap-thrills' vampire film but is, on a fundamental level, a pensive deliberation of the immense therapeutic potential that exists in human connection. It’s a spectacular conception that divulges itself to the audience with grace, stunning visual performances and sublime cinematography. The plot to the film is simple- and even clichéd. It tells the story of a young, bullied, isolated boy named Oskar, who lives next door to a young girl named Eli, a vampire, and this film benefits from Alfredson’s self-confessed lack of knowledge of vampire and horror conventions, which led him to tone down certain aspects of Lindqvist’s novel, and decide to focus the attention of the film on the childhood relationship between Oskar and Eli. Where many films would fall short of the mark with such basic narrative, Tomas Alfredson uses it to deliver with acerbic insight and delightful originality a film that is as much a vampire film as it is a coming-of-age one. Oh, and it’s named after the Morrissey song Let the Right One Slip In; so that certainly gives it extra kudos.
Forget The Blair Witch Project. Forget Cloverfield. If you want a genuinely scary ‘shaky-cam’ experience, look no further than Julio Fernandez’s superb, utterly brilliant [REC]. What the film lacks in length (it is only a mere seventy five minutes long) it certainly makes up for in thrills. It even takes a while to get going, but the documentary-esque feel to the film is genuine, and when the adventure starts it mercilessly holds you in its macabre grasp and refuses to let go. The film boasts a truly authentic feel to it, and the mise-en-scène throughout represents a darkly claustrophobic encounter which is almost guaranteed to meet its audience’s expectations for horror. The film has none of Let the Right One In’s depth or platonic emotion, but that’s because frankly it doesn’t need it. When it comes to a purely visual aspect, [REC] can hold its own with anything.
List Two- Pre 1990
10. Friday 13th (1980)
Sean S. Cunningham’s classic represents his first film that he both directed and produced. It tells the tale of Camp Crystal Lake, a summer camp where a sequence of mysterious murders are carried out on the group of teenagers who are vacating there (including a young Kevin Bacon). This chilling tale started the massive Friday 13th film franchise, which comprises a colossal twelve films, a television show, novels, comic books, and tie‑in merchandise. It acts as the start of the one of the greatest film villains of all time; Jason Voorhees, although in this film it’s actually his mother who is the murderer.
A cult classic to this day, Sam Raimi’s film is seen by many as something of an unsung hero of eighties horror. Overshadowed perhaps by the bigger films of the day, Friday 13th, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street for example, Evil Dead’s contribution to cinema should nevertheless be overlooked.
Another film that has been derided due to its American remake, The Wicker Man is a powerful portrayal of paganism and ritualistic rites. Although its pseudo-hippie seventies feel is dated to the modern audience, its plot is still commanding and gripping. An inspirational performance from Christopher Lee help certainly help add depth and a chilling aspect to the film, and along with The Witchfinder General, it forms a good collection of ‘folk horror’.
As a lover of the written word, I (along with thousands of other bookworms) often find myself frustrated with adaptations of books. This, along with the next film in the list, is a member of an exclusive list of films that stand up to- even surpass- the novels from which they are derived. Daphne du Maurier’s short story is impeccably modified for cinema by Nicholas Roeg. This film is a classically old-school horror film, and it superbly entices its viewers and maintains their attention throughout, combining mystery, horror, and underlying romantic tension between its two protagonists. More well known for its extremely graphic and controversial sex scene between Don Sutherland and Julie Christie. The film also uses clever recurring themes, such as the Polaroid picture, and the red cloaked figure. It emotionally explores the effect the death of a child has on a family, and this combined with the suspense of the murders in their new hometown of Vienna equates to a thoroughly brilliant, yet for some reason not widely known, horror film.
No horror film list would be complete without a Stephen King film, and I could have chosen out of a vast selection; The Shining, Misery, It, 1402 to name but a few, but I’ve gone for his first novel, Carrie. A superbly frightening adaptation that masterfully visualises the truly gruesome horror of the novella. One of this film’s greatest attributes is the double edged nature to that prom night scene. We simultaneously experience pleasure at Carrie’s highly cathartic revenge and revulsion at the scenes of utter malevolence that she is causing. A perfect adaption that not only captures the terror of the book, but manages to weave in a slightly lighter side with moments of humour, without watering down the elements of the film that we all want to see.
One of the greatest horror movies of all time is in fact a silent film. Like all black-and-white horror films, the tension and suspense is generated through the incredibly evocative lighting. This tale of vampires is an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula written twenty five years previously, but with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel, for instance, ‘vampire’ became ‘nosferatu’ and ‘Count Dracula’ became ‘Count Orlok’. This film set the benchmark for horror films, and indeed the repercussions of it are still felt in modern day horror movies, as its inspirations have indeed become inspirations themselves. It also provides one of the most well recognised scenes in cinematic history, and indeed the use of shadows and darkness are this film’s forté.
Pretty creepy, huh?
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Another classic from the eighties, and a film that really kick-started Wes Craven’s highly successful film career, A Nightmare on Elm Street is undisputedly one of the most well known horror films of all time. I’m sure if you were to name five things to do with the horror genre, Freddy Krueger would appear in most people’s list. Presenting us with hitherto unknown terrors, and also capturing the audience with a horrifying thought; what if something could attack us in our sleep?
3. The Exorcist (1973)
Certainly one of the most controversial films of all time, The Exorcist continues to horrify audiences even to this day; so much so that the remake of The Grudge even contains a carbon copy of the infamous ‘spider walk’. Blighted by mysterious fires and other on-set disasters, this film has controversy written all over it. From the highly illicit material it portrayed, to the treatment of child actor Linda Blair, this film's terrifying scenes are often even more poignant when one understands some of the things that happened to her in those scenes. Still as dramatically terrifying today as it was back then, this film has truly stood the test of time, and passed with flying colours.
2. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Another film that truly horrified audiences in its day, Rosemary’s Baby’s success is maybe slightly lessened by The Exorcist’s release just five years later, which follows a similar storyline. A horrifying account of Satanism and pregnancy as our protagonist Rosemary Woodhouse slowly begins to realise that her child isn’t ‘of this world’. A theme copied by countless horror movies afterwards (The Exorcist, Joshua, The Orphan, The Oman to name but a few), this timeless classic still terrifies audiences to this day, and with due reason.
What else? A truly mesmerising film from the true master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Like Nosferatu before it, this film uses lighting perhaps better than any other film before or since. A must see for absolutely ever horror film fan, Hitchcock here tells the tale of the lonely and schizophrenic Norman Bates, owner of the Bates Motel. The now infamous shower scene may be the most famous scene of the film, but for me the scariest is by far the ending scene, when Norman is sat alone in the locked room, and the skull of his mother is faded across his face as he grins. Hitchcock’s film is an incredibly forward-thinking film that was extremely controversial and has horrified audiences for the past fifty years, and will surely continue to do so for many years to come.
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