Guide to scaring yourself senseless.
I don’t know if any of you guys noticed past all the Christmas pudding and tinsel, but Halloween’s coming up. Yup, I even saw a small section dedicated to it in a corner of an aisle in Sainsbury’s. Which is nice of them to do, as Christmas seemed to have bought out every crevice of the building. When I was there I purchased neither Christmas, nor Halloween decorations, but what I did do was get excited. That’s right, I got naked and ran around Sainsbury’s screaming ‘FROLIC IN BRINE, GOBLINS BE THINE’, snatching children from crying mothers and disappearing into a cloud of ominous smoke. I won’t go on about the food shop I did on Sunday, as you can probably catch it on the news. What I will talk about is three films. These three films have made it impossible for me to do certain important things, like walk calmly up the stairs in the middle of the night, and not run so fast you stub your toe, drop some water and jump into bed with tears streaming down your sweaty, plump face.
Ringu (1998) Dir. Hideo Nakata
I have a soft spot for Japanese films, but an even softer spot for Japanese horror. This Japanese horror in particular is the reason behind many of my anxiety issues. So, yeah totally watch it if you want a heart attack.
This film follows a female lead (I KNOW RIGHT?!), Reiko Asakawa, who is a journalist (YEAH, I KNOW!), investigating rumors behind a ‘cursed video’; when you watch it, you get a creepy phone call and subsequently 7 days to live. When her niece dies of unexplained reasons, Reiko investigates further and delves into the bizarre world of Sadako (the girl behind the cursed video). Reiko watches this video, and spends the rest of the film shitting herself until deadline of her death. It’s okay though, she figures out a loop hole. Or does she?! I don’t want to spoil it, either way. I’ll mention now that there’s been an American remake starring Naomi ‘nipples’ Watts which, if anything, scares me into wondering what the future of our artistic stamp will be if we continue to destroy things of such beauty. But that’s just me. And most other people with a brain.
Also, the fact that the original was based in Japan, a country shrouded with beautiful mythology and with such a unique culture, it makes the thought of a creature such as Sadako more plausible than Samara, from a Western culture.
Ringu is beautifully shot, the music is hauntingly simple and the imagery is truly horrifying. Unplug your phone before pressing play. Just a friendly warning.
Event Horizon (1997) Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson
This was an unexpected fright. I remember thinking ‘a space movie…naww, but I want to watch Buffy. DDAAAADD!’. Getting in a strop, sitting in my bucket with a block of cheese and knife, I got ready to watch it nonetheless.
The cheesy title sequence, the introduction of the characters, you can see elements of Alien pulled into it, there’s so many moments you think ‘this is going to be shit, isn’t it’. It doesn’t take long though, for it all to kick off and within no time, you’re squirming in your seat, slowly moving your cheese block over your eyes in frightful deliberation.
A crew go into space with a new member to the team, Dr Weir. He tells them, once they are all onboard that they are on a search and rescue and the ship they will have to board is the Event Horizon. Gasps, whispers. They’ve obviously heard of it before. The doctor then goes into some scientific mumbo jumbo and basically the ship is creepy. So they board it and OMG EVERYTHING HAPPENS I’M SCARED JUST THINKING ABOUT IT.
That video they watch, when they see what happened to the crew before them is forever etched in my brain. I’m surprised I sleep at all.
[Rec] (2007) Dir Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
Zombies. Or creature-like zombies. Seriously guys. I don’t even know where to start with them. I have a genuine fear of some kind of potential zombie-style invasion. So, a reporter and cameraman are doing some kind of tv feature on the local fire fighters, and follow them to a call at an apartment building, where a woman goes a bit mental and attacks them. People get bitten, building gets sealed off and everyone inside is now vulnerable to anything that attacks. Cue hand held camera, blood and screams. The building is a few stories, so there are so many rooms to walk into and people to encounter. The lights go off quite a lot, which is fun. Oh sorry, have they not changed the word ‘fun’ to ‘intensely fucking horrifying’ yet? Silly me. Some of you may be thinking, ‘them fackin hand held camera films are well shit’, and I can tell by the way you express yourself so eloquently that you must know what you’re talking about. But I urge you to watch this. The ending…with that…no…I won’t ruin it for you.
Seriously though, I watched it on Halloween last year and shat myself.
Peatree Bojangles
