Happy Halloween

So as I don't have control of the TV this evening I can't watch the films I had planned. Instead I've been thinking about scary films. I've read loads of blogs this week about people's favourites but it is difficult to actually think of something frightening to me. I enjoy horrors but haven't been truly scared watching a film for ages. Watching Alien this month is was great to see so many people in the audience jumping at the scary bits, it shows the endurance of a classic film but having seen it several times it doesn't do it to me anymore which is a shame.

When I was a child it was easy to get scared. I remember once listening to a Secret Seven tape and being paralysed with fear lest a nasty (no doubt racially sterotyped) hoodlum appear. Similarly the film Evil Under the Sun made me leave the light on when I went to bed. Cheesey as it was, Diana Rigg's characters death seemed horrific and cruel. Perhaps it is nice to have not yet been made cynical by the real horrors that are going on in the world.

In recent years it is films like London to Brighton that affect me most. The events in London to Brighton are believable, almost banal, yet utterly shocking. Watching it is emotionally draining as you almost plead with the film to not kill Kelly and Joanne. Afterwards I felt terribly sad and worried for their real life equivalents.

So watching genuinely scary films may not be a good idea emotionally and horror films aren't as engaging. So perhaps some nostalgia... here's a link to Anything Can Happen on Halloween from The Worst Witch. Tim Curry singing to young girls, and Diana Rigg features too. It is so great and the special effects are cutting edge! It disturbs me to think how often I watched the video when it came out.