If this were a film (in which case I would be played by someone like Christopher Eccleston-Northern, rugged, somewhat rebellious), right now we would be having a flashback, and things would get all wobbly and blurred, perhaps with the musical accompaniment of harp strings or violins.
We are back in a small kitchen of a small house in Salford, back in the 70's. In one small room, are a middle aged man, wearing his work clothes, a middle aged woman, usually cooking and a small rotund boy with very bad hair. All three are in front of an aging black and white TV and they are all watching BBC2 on a Saturday night. Can you guess, dear reader, which one is me? Course you can. Stupid question. But what's wrong with a bit of rhetoric between friends?
On the TV is a classic black and white horror film, which for the purposes of this self-indulgent flashback, we will identify as House of Frankenstein, made in 1944 and starring two veteran horror film actors, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. When it finishes, it will be followed by a 60's Hammer horror called "The Reptile". Whilst Mum is not that interested in what's showing, the two males are absolutely rapt. The fat one with bad hair is also a bit scared as he's only about 14 years old and gets frightened by Frankenstein's monster and snake-women. (Although in years to come, in his life as a DJ, he will see far worse). But, and here's the point of all this, he loves watching these films, back to back. Better still, these horror double bills are on every week for about two months and enable him to see lots of films that he has only read about in the large number of books and magazines about horror films that already overflow from the small bookshelves in his bedroom upstairs.
Time to stop this flashback nonsense as I'm finding it hard to maintain the right tense. Back in the 70's BBC 2 ran these double bills fairly regularly over a number of years and for spods like me, who loved horror films, they were a godsend. You just didn't see that many scary films on TV back then. After all, we only had three TV channels, which usually closed down round about 1am on most nights. And horror films were usually seen as a bit rubbish by a lot of people. At the cinema, they tended to turn up infrequently (again partially due to the fact that not many cinemas had more than one screen) and lots of them were very low budget and could be fairly shonky.
I was obsessed with horror films from round about the age of 7 when my dad let me stay up to watch Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, a 1940's comedy horror film which took two vaudeville comedians and bumped them up against a bunch of classic monsters.To be fair, it's hardly Shakespeare or Bergman. It's not even really half as well written as an average episode of Hollyoaks (which shows you just how bad the writing actually was).
But.... in all honesty, that one single viewing shaped my film tastes for the rest of my life and I've always loved the horrible, macabre and fantastic side of movies. I bought as many magazines and books about them as I could afford, and still do (much to the bemusement of my family, especially Mrs D who often goes to the bathroom and finds a magazine with a cover picture of a decapitated Zombie next to the throne).My shelves are full of every kind of weird and wonderful film you can imagine. (But nothing featuring Paul Walker or Vin Diesel as I DO have some standards).
The BBC double bills usually showed an older classic horror film followed by something a little more recent. Hammer horrors and Roger Corman adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe novels got a fair old bit of exposure after the Universal horror classics. It's surprising how many creative types operating today, often refer back to these screenings as a bit of a formative influence on their artistic endeavours. Whoever put them together at the Beeb clearly knew their stuff and found a link between the films and they were treated seriously by the announcer too - no jokey introductions, or mocking sketches about the sometimes daft content. For a whole load of us over forty years of age, they were really important.
Obviously, these days, there are a multitude of ways to watch films at home; On satellite TV, there are two dedicated channels showing horror, sci-fi and fantasy films, plus so many of the obscure and weird films I only ever read about back in that small 70's house, have emerged in all their glory on DVD. But it would be good to have the Beeb put some of that nice licence money they take from us, into doing these double bills again. It would make a welcome change from more repeats of Dickinson's Real Deal, which I find very frightening, for different reasons.
The series they made the other year with Mark Gatiss on Horror films, reminded me how well the BBC can treat that genre when they take the time to do it properly. And since the late 70's, horror films came out of the B movie shadows and started to make lots of money, get some occasional critical acclaim and even pick up an Oscar or two. It's still one of the most popular genres of film, not just for moviegoers, but also for film-makers, and it's a global genre, too. In recent years, some of the best and most imaginative horror films have come from Asia, France and Spain. There's even been a resurgence in UK horror films. The horror genre also enables film-makers to put across some very subversive and thought-provoking ideas and issues, even if they are somewhat disguised under rivers of Kensington Gore or sheets of latex. I'd rather watch an obscure Korean monster movie than another screening of Knocked Up, or How To Lose A Man In 40 Days. Although, that last film does make me very scared whenever it comes on.
If you would like to show some support for this, go and have a look at www.classichorrorcampaign.com. You'll find lots of people writing about some of the movies that inspired and scared us and maybe you could sign their petition to bring the double bills back to the Beeb. I'd like to be sat in my own living room one day in the future, watching my kids get the same thrills and shivers as I did, all those years ago.
Right...now where is that issue of Fangoria that I was reading on the loo, yesterday? It's got a picture of a Zombie on the front eating someone's brain.
No comments:
Post a Comment