Things that go bump in the night.

Hello everyone and welcome back.

It's that scary time of year again, Halloween. A time for trick or treating and of course for watching your favourite scary movies. I gave this some thought and came up with the movies I would recommend for people to watch over the Halloween weekend. Films that were the forerunners of so many imitations that followed. So enjoy them from behind the sofa or on it, depending on your fright level.

Psycho (1960) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Starring Anthony Perkins as the psycho of the title Norman Bates, who has a mother fixation that includes keeping her corpse in a rocking chair and dressing in her clothes to kill women that are unfortunate to stay at the Bates Motel. Everybody is familiar with the shower scene in which Norman stabs Marion Crane, played by Janet Leigh, a scene that shows the brilliance of Hitchcock's direction as you never see the knife hitting Crane, but with superb editing, camera angles and sound effects the audience believe they are witnessing the full horror of the attack. That one scene took an extraordinary one week to shoot but the end result is one of the most memorable in cinema history. While promoting the film Hitchcok caused controversy by demanding that audiences didn't turn up late for the film as they would miss the introduction of Leigh's character and therefore would feel cheated at the end.



The Exorcist (1973). Directed by William Friedkin.

The first time I experienced this film I was around 15 and I remember the controversy surrounding the casting of Linda Blair as she was only a young teenager at the time playing the role of Regan, a 12 year old girl possessed by a demon. Most of the anger from the media, church and public was aimed at Blair's mother for allowing her daughter to be put through the ordeal of the character. In fact the film wasn't released on video in Britain until 1999 and the first time it was shown on British TV was in 2001. So why all the controversy, well most of it stemmed from the scenes involving Blair's character, in particular with her violating herself with a crucifix and various other violent scenes while Regan was at the peak of her possession. Controversy aside, this was a film that started the trend of demon possession movies that still continue to this day. If this film was released now I'm not sure it would be so controversial, but back then boy was it. It earned a total of 10 Academy award nominations only winning 2, Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound Mixing.

Halloween (1978) Directed by John Carpenter.

The film that not only introduced Jamie Lee Curtis to millions of adoring young male fans but also kick started the slasher movie genre. Itself would spurn as many as seven sequels and a remake. But it was this film that remains the best of all.  Having escape from a mental hospital creepy Michael Myers stalks teenagers in a town called Haddonfield, especially promiscuous girls, in a blue jumpsuit and a white mask that would become so iconic and worn by many a trick or treater. For me the star of the movie has to be British actor Donald Pleasence who played Myers' doctor Samuel Loomis. Pleasence was actually third choice for the part as they originally wanted Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee, but both declined due to not being offered enough money. There is a connection to Psycho as Sam Loomis was the name of Janet Leigh's boyfriend in the film and Leigh is the real-life mother of Jamie Lee Curtis

The Evil Dead (1981) Written and directed by Sam Raimi.

We all know the films where a group of youngsters head off to a wooden cabin in the middle of some woods for the weekend, only to be terrorized and killed off one by one by dark forces. Well The Evil Dead was the original. Raimi and good friend Bruce Campbell found the funding for the film after Raimi had made a short called Within the Woods. The movie became a huge success in the video market and is now such a cult classic that Campbell regularly attends conventions at which people adore his characterization of hero Ash. Having a low budget to spend on the effects and monster make-up tends to make this film more enjoyable visually. It was the beginning of a trilogy that included Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, which went onto become one of the largest cult film trilogies in history and cemented Campbell into the horror hall of fame.

So there you have it my choices for Halloween viewing with the lights off, closets checked and no one under the bed.

Until next time.

Miles Dunton.