Thinking back to where it all began, I guess I have my dad to thank for my love of horror films.  He has always gotten me sucked into anything that could possibly give me the heeby-jeebies.  Now that I think of it, ‘sucked in’ is the predominant term used here – combine Dad’s love of vampire films as well as the suckiest of sucky Z-grade horror films, and you know exactly what I mean.

With consideration to the episodes of ‘Are You Afraid Of The Dark?’ we used to watch when I was not even in double digits, as well as the lure of ‘The Lost Boys’ (one of my personal faves, cheers for that Dad!), I know that I have to trust his judgement. Don’t get me wrong though, this man has forced me to watch some absolute shockers from time to time (and, I suppose, vice versa…).  I knew though that I had to give him the benefit of the doubt and give John Carpenter’s 1978 ‘Halloween’ a stab (literally, bahh!).

As a child of the late eighties, it is really hard not to get drawn into all of the graphically amazing remakes of the films my dad relates to his teens.  I think he secretly hates that I like them – and in a way, I do too.  I feel like I am being disrespectful when I liked the remake of ‘The Omen’ better than the original.  But when Dad watched Rob Zombie’s ‘Halloween’ and enjoyed it, it only made sense for me to catch up with the original and see what I thought.  And to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised!  It isn’t everyday I get that tingling in my spine, that feeling where you stare into the television, looking for the reflection of some serial killer standing right behind you. 

‘Halloween’ totally did this for me.  Michael Myers is – wow, he’s iconic.  Everybody knows who Michael Myers is, and even if they don’t, they can associate his ghostly mask with the movie that made him.  The storyline was fairly interesting; psycho kid kills his sister, gets locked up in asylum until he’s an adult, escapes and goes on a killing spree in his native town of Haddonfield.  I especially love that his prey is Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, someone who we have absolutely no freaking idea why he is going after her (see Halloween II for further info).  Myers stalks her throughout the entire day of October 31^st, following her and watching her and waiting for his moment to strike.  After knocking off a few of Laurie’s friends, Myers’ time to shine is while she is babysitting a couple of local kidlets.  It is moments like these that give me that uneasy feeling – they usually never kill the kids in the movies, but in this moment can you really be sure? 

I won’t give away the ending because I think this movie is truly worth a look; I will be picking it up at JB Hi-Fi in the near future (think it retails for about $14 on DVD).  But I am deliriously happy that I finally felt a surge of discomfort throughout this movie, something that so many ‘horror’ movies lack thesedays.  There was one moment especially where I got goosebumps and that urge to shout “Look behind you!” like a moron at the television.  You can see it in the above picture.  It’s one of those truly magnificent moments in cinema where if you blink you will probably miss it, but for some reason I found my eyes glued on the screen. 

I think John Carpenter did a tremendous job at this film, something that was surely revolutionary for the horror world.  I mean, let’s face it, would ‘Scream’ and Ghostface actually have existed should it have not been for Michael Myers?  If you haven’t seen this movie, definitely give it a shot.  It’s obviously not as slick and blood-drenched as post-1995 horror, but you will surely find that sense of satisfaction you’ve been longing for.  Enjoy!

For those of you that don’t know me well, I live for movies.  Not just any movies; horror movies.  They are my absolute favourites.

I love nothing more than to chill out with a choice snack and flick on a film that I hope will send shivers down my spine, tingles to my toes and gurgles in my gut.  Generally, I feel none of these things, just disappointment and a sense of disbelief – can they actually come up with a decent concept?

I’ve laughed my way through many modern horror movies, although ‘horror’ isn’t really a good definition of the genre.  More like ‘poxy teenybopper gore-porn’.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve shuddered through ‘Saw’ and hidden my eyes from ‘Hostel’, but those movies rely on bloody torture and shock factor.  The only reason they cause me grief is from the thought of having those disgusting, inexplicable things done to me.  Not out of scare factor.

So when I feel like a good scare, which is often follow by a hearty laugh at myself, I turn to classics.  Very few modern films have the same thrills and chills as an old-school horror movie, and so it is obvious I have to turn to films that were made even before I was born.

Today I revisited a movie that I would deem one of my all-time favourite; it is original, scary, funny and sadistic.  It checks all the right boxes and cements itself as not only one of my classics, but one of the horror world’s ultimates.  It is 1981’s ‘The Evil Dead’.

If you have never seen this movie then you now have a mission.  It is beyond cool and is just downright awesome.  Sam Raimi wrote and directed this one, as well as its sequel ‘Evil Dead 2’ and the last in the trilogy, ‘Army of Darkness’.  That one is a whole different ball game, but let’s not get off track.

‘The Evil Dead’ follows the traditional formula; a bunch of American teenagers venture out to an isolated cabin in the woods, strange things start happening and one by one, each character is picked off.  I will have to do a bit of investigating to see if this was where the clichéd formula began, and it is quite possible that this was one of the very few movies where the formula worked.  The thing about ‘The Evil Dead’ is that there are no axe-wielding psychos, no chainsaw-revving in the background.  It relies on the concept of ‘The Book of the Dead’; a book that exists in the cabin that causes all sorts of fun and games as the film progresses. 

‘The Evil Dead’ was Bruce Campbell’s breakout role, and for those of you that don’t know who he is, he is God.  No, obviously he’s not, but you need to Google him.  I cannot explain to you how amazing he is; he is a cult hero.  I’m sure most of you are familiar with Sam Raimi’s work on ‘Spiderman’, which was very good, yes. But there is nothing more satisfying than the claymation-type exploding bodies that you will witness in ‘The Evil Dead’.  If you are in need of something a little more recent to get your Raimi horror fix, try ‘Drag Me To Hell’.  Another of my self-declared classics.

I very much recommend ‘The Evil Dead’.  You will either love it or hate it; either way you will laugh, jump, roll your eyes and wrinkle your nose.  It is a brilliant horror movie that sets the benchmark for every other horror movie you will ever watch.

Greetings fellow crazy people!


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