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by Stephanie Scaife

1987 was a good year to be a vampire. In October, just a few months after the release of The Lost Boys, Kathryn Bigelow’s vampire western hybrid Near Dark was unleashed on cinema screens across the US. Although initially doing poorly at the box office, Near Dark was well received by critics and has gone on to become a cult classic and a film that is often heralded as the first non-gothic vampire picture. Gone are the crucifixes, holy water and stakes; here instead we have an ancient RV and an endless desert landscape with not a castle or cave in sight. Our disparate band of vampires rely more on weapons, ammo and straight-up brawling than any sort of supernatural powers or fangs, and the word “vampire” is actually never used in the film,; but the one ever constant threat that remains true to the roots of the mythology is the threat of the sun, hence the title Near Dark. Bigelow even took the actors away for a vampire boot camp before they started shooting where she would time them blacking out a room, using anything from tinfoil to duct tape (apparently with them getting down from 5 minutes to 30 seconds), which is a useful skill if you’re supposed to be a vampire living in the sun bleached Arizona desert.

I have endless amounts of respect for Kathryn Bigelow, as not only is she a woman working in a very male dominated industry but she is also making genre films (Near Dark, Strange Days), a war film (Hurt Locker), not to mention a homoerotic foray into action movies (Point Break); something that you don’t often, if ever, see from female filmmakers. In fact Bigelow has said that she had real trouble securing financing for Near Dark due to that fact that the studio wasn’t sure a woman could make a horror film. She was given the task to prep the film and shoot for the first 3 days and if she wasn’t up to scratch then the producers going to take her off the project and replace her with a more bankable director. Luckily for us, she more than stepped up to the mark and as a result we have one of the best vampire films ever made.

It wasn’t until a friend recommended Strange Days to me, a fantastically dark dystopian film that has been criminally overlooked and underappreciated, that I started to seek out Bigelow’s other films. Near Dark was her first solo outing as a director, having previously co-directed The Loveless with Monty Montgomery, and it remains her best work in my opinion. Aided in great part by the cinematography of Adam Greenberg (The Terminator), creating a noir-ish aesthetic that ensures that almost every shot looks like a work of art; not an easy task when shooting almost entirely at night and whilst capturing Bigelow’s desire to make a western perfectly, right down to the tumbleweeds and a final showdown. The combining of the two genres, that of the western and the horror film, creates a fantastic opportunity as a filmmaker to be visually and thematically striking. The vampire subtext in itself is almost seen as a complication in what is at its roots the age old love story where two young people are unable to be together due to familial complications.

Near Dark is about Caleb (Adrian Pasdar), a naive Midwestern farm boy who comes across the beautiful Mae (Jenny Wright) and is instantly smitten with this apparent ingénue, although appearances can be deceiving, as Caleb soon finds out. As it would happen Mae doesn’t take too kindly to sunlight and needs to consume human blood to survive, and after giving Caleb a little love bite, he too starts to turn. Confused, injured and literally about to be burned alive, Caleb stumbles home across the fields towards his family farm only to be swept up into the RV along with Mae and her extended family led by Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein) and Jesse (Lance Henricksen). Along with Mae this gang of vamps also includes the psychopathic Severn (Bill Paxton, in perhaps a career defining performance) and Homer (Joshua Miller), a 40 year old vampire trapped in the body of a child.

Mae is the youngest having been turned by Homer, and clearly he feels that he has some sort of ownership of her, meaning that the arrival of Caleb instantly causes some rifts within the previously solid family unit, especially as he is so reluctant to make his first kill and fully turn: a common theme throughout the genre, that is in this instance firmly grounded in the ultra realism of the film and hinges on a pivotal scene, the now famous bar brawl. This scene is 10 minutes of almost entirely flawless filmmaking and if there were ever any doubts that Bigelow could do this movie then they are completely quashed here. In fact a lot of filmmakers could learn a thing or two from Bigelow, there is nothing in this scene that isn’t needed. It’s tight, the dialogue is sharp (although heavily improvised by Bill Paxton after he got sick and was given B12 injections – which perhaps aided Severn’s manic persona) and don’t let it ever be said that female filmmakers can’t do horror because it’s about as visceral and violent as you’re likely to see. It is pure bravura that pays off exponentially, guaranteeing Near Dark’s place within the cult canon, not to mention the excellent use of Fever by The Cramps.

This scene is also pivotal for Caleb and it’s a turning point for his character. His Faustian pact becomes increasingly appealing and although horrified by the actions of himself and those around him he starts to relish in the violence and imagine the possibilities of eternal life. A shot to the gut being nothing more than a minor inconvenience for him and it becomes, for all intents and purposes, his indoctrination into the family. This scene also perfectly sets up our characters for their own individual downfalls: Severn in all his reckless glory as he lives solely for the fulfilment of what it means to be a vampire, Diamondback with her assumed maternal role is just as dangerous as the others, Jesse is the clear leader and alpha male who ensures that nothing harms his pack at any cost, Mae is the beautiful seductress, and Homer is the wildcard, infinitely frustrated at forever being a child and treated as such. You know things aren’t going to end well, but for the duration of this scene you are rooting for these anti-heroes and relishing in the chaos along with them.

One of the strongest aspects of Near Dark, and a smart move in terms of writing is that it takes itself very seriously. There is no self-awareness, it’s played entirely straight, and although often funny at times, the lack of in-jokes, nods and winks etc. really pays off and you believe the unbelievable. It invents its own mythology, although borrows from both Bram Stoker and Anne Rice, and as it’s played more like a straight up western the supernatural element, the vampirism is more of a subtext, and like many vampire films of the 80s it’s often paralleled with addiction. These vamps are outcasts, living on the fringes and feeding, literally, from society. At its core Near Dark is a Western, and what Bigelow does is take this particular ideology, which is oftentimes very consistent and instantly recognisable, and she turns it on its head by introducing the vampire element, creating a transgressive reconfiguration of the genre. The traditional Western is characterised by its celebration of the American dream, and here it is transformed into something that is full of death and decay.

Released to cash in on the October Halloween market, Near Dark was like the indie cousin to The Lost Boys’ widespread release. Perhaps it was just a little ahead of its time. But looking back it still holds up today and its subsequent influence on the genre is widespread. There has been a massive resurgence in the vampire genre in recent years, what with the popularity of True Blood and Twilight, but 1987 is where it’s truly at if you really want to experience the best contemporary interpretations of the vampire mythology.

by Dustin Hall

“What is blood for, if not for shedding?”

This year saw not only the 25th anniversary of Hellraiser, but also the 20th anniversary of another Clive Barker creation, Candyman. The two are not, by any means, on equal footing, and it is daunting, in some ways, to do a retrospective on the pair so close to each other, when Pinhead became such a transcendent, timeless force, and Candyman has drifted into such a humble holding pattern in pop-culture.

However, to say Candyman is without any impact would be to do it a disservice. Based upon the short story The Forbidden, it was released back in 1992 to some critical acclaim, gained two sequels, and has continued to earn the respect of film fans across the decades.

At this point, the film is loaded with nostalgia, and film connections missed in the original watching. The opening features the old Tri-Star Pegasus logo, and some awkward practical effects of bees swarming over an entire city. Ted Raimi makes an appearance as a hopelessly miscast motorcycle riding bad boy, come to use his beguiling charms on the flattest starlet in recent memory (surely, what separates a 90’s film from an 80’s one). The score is fantastically Carpenter-esque, full of chanting choirs and organs piping, and there are even a couple instances of people yelling ‘psych!’ to punctuate their jokes. Ahh, so 90’s.

But, despite the foibles of the era and the turning of time, Candyman still holds its own as a story. It features Virginia Madsen (Dune) as a college graduate who is studying the lasting nature of folklore and superstition on modern society. In particular, she has a fascination with the Candyman, a legend much like Bloody Mary, an urban myth which has a particular power amongst the local population. Her investigations lead her to find that the myth has a connection to the notorious Cabrini-Green, an actual slum that, until 2011, was actually located in the North of Chicago, and was known for gang violence and terrible living conditions. Virginia finds that the Candyman, a figure with a terrible past and a fearful, vengeful spirit, may really inhabit Cabrini-Green, and her meddling has set his attentions upon her.

The best horror films tend to reflect certain personal truths and real-world terrors in their otherwise fantastical settings. The ghettos, in this case, hold as much threat and terror as the Candyman himself, and many of the characters are lucky that the only pains suffered from the gangs they encounter are black eyes and bruised egos. Likewise, Clive Barker has always been good at making stories that are relatable and analogous to some much more cerebral concept. Candyman is no exception, tying in with the familiar concept of urban myths. Candyman’s mirror transport powers are much like Bloody Mary’s and his deformed hand is much like the hook-handed man of so many tales. The power of those stories comes, typically, from some sort of truthful occurrence, or gains power from an association with a real place. The filmmakers, by using the real Cabrini-Green as an inspiration for Candyman’s origins, have given him an enduring life in the real world, with chat boards and forums speculating that the urban legend is a real, centuries old legend, rather than something from one of Barker’s short stories. The Candyman has left the film, and become a real legend after all.

And why not? The Candyman, though a simple villain in appearance, is hauntingly portrayed by Tony Todd (Hatchet), and with nothing more than a pimpin’ coat, a metal hook, and a bit of voice modulation, he leaves a lasting impression. Well, maybe a bit more than that. I mean, he’s got bees in his mouth. BEES! IN HIS MOUTH! All those bees don’t stop Candyman from dropping some extremely poetic one liners, though, or from letting out some downright sexual grunts and he hooks people from groin to grin.

With all of this quality up on the screen, its hard to believe that Candyman never became as potent of a franchise as Hellraiser, or so many other slashers out there. But unlike Freddy and Pinhead, Candyman never had a sequel that was up to snuff. His returns simply diminished too quickly. Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh moved the legend to Louisiana, and was a serviceable but mediocre sequel. The less said about Candyman 3, the better. For most, his tale remains a one-shot, isolated in time, and without its anchor, now that Cabrini-Green no longer stands to give credence to the legend. But Clive Barker has mentioned that he has interest in reacquiring the rights to Candyman for a revival. Maybe in 25 years time, we’ll be celebrating that landmark with a comparison between the first and fourth films. Maybe the Candyman’s legend is not yet done.

by Dustin Hall

It’s been spoken about in hushed, excited whispers. For months, Las Vegas visitors and residents have been watching black sheets and saw blades perched along the top of the Planet Hollywood Casino, waiting for The Goretorium to open its doors. All that anticipation is finally ready to be met, as Eli Roth’s pet project, a high-end, year round haunted house, opens its doors to horror hounds and their relentless thirst for frights and gory fun. “Slaughter on the Strip,” its ads proclaim; “You’re Fucked.”

I was lucky enough to get into the preview night of this event last weekend. How lucky? Well, over 1,000 people were waiting in a line extending outside of Planet Hollywood to get into the place. Only a couple hundred of us were able to get in to see Roth chainsaw open the doors for the first time, literally, and see the sights. Since then, a good number of reporters and celebrities have made their way through the malicious maze, but the common folk remain in the dark. This week will see the venue open proper, with anyone able to take a tour.

At $40 a pop, $60 VIP, the Goretorium is a bit more expensive than your typical haunted house, though not ridiculously so. Yeah, the cheap crap places are about $20, but the better houses are $30 or more already, so it seems reasonable. And what’s it like inside? Well, I can’t give away all the surprises, but I can say that what you’re really paying for is production value. The Goretorium doesn’t have a lot of things, in principle, that other houses don’t have. They’re not reinventing the wheel. You’ll still find a lot of people screaming, air guns, dark halls, rotating tunnels and tight spaces. It’s the usual fare. But what the Goretorium offers is production value. Your slightly inflated ticket fee pays for quality make-up job on the cast members, richly detailed sets with custom construction, and a large cast of characters, running madly through the maze.

What’s the big deal about the production value? Well, compare the Goretorium to Vegas’s other big horror attraction, the Fright Dome. The dome happens every Halloween, when Circus Circus transforms the Adventuredome amusement park into a massive haunted house, with rides going all night, and five-ish mazes spread throughout. It may sound amazing, but the mazes offer little. Each is a series of isolated rooms, each connected by walls covered in black trash bags, each sparsely decorated, each with one guy hiding in a corner, ready to pop out and say BOO! or whatever. And all of them have a chainsaw guy at the end. All of them. I know the sound is scary guys, but come on, its predictable. Overall, its a lame experience, it feels really cheap. In past years, the reason to go has been to find the one celebrity sponsored maze and enjoy that, like when Saw took over a couple years ago.

So, by comparison, the Goretorium has a fully realized set, with a narrative about the hellish Delmont Hotel to back it. There are no sparse rooms to be found, and indeed the room at the finale is full of crazed character, an orgy of blood that was quite impressive. Its worth it just to go in and see what kind of scares can be drudged up with such deep pockets, instead of having to rely on Wal-mart make-up kits, strobe lights, and thrift store furniture.

That said, I currently wouldn’t go through the Goretorium more than once or twice. The maze is cool, but not any longer than any other house, and while the beginning and end of the experience were really interesting and unique, most of the real meat of the experience is pretty typical to haunted houses, just with prettier trappings. Also, while the house has a narrative, it’s actually executed fairly weakly. All the sets follow the theme pretty well, but the characters we’re introduced to in the hallways were unseen during my walkthrough, and all the crazies running about inside seem unrelated to Roth’s vision of the story. So, for a place set to run year round, that seems like a problem.

Happily, the plan at the moment seems to be for Roth to continually find new ideas, and make seasonal changes to the maze, in order to find new and more impressive scares. If that’s true, then I’ll certainly find reasons to go back, just to see the new additions, and hope that the innovations that open and close the experience eventually spread throughout, bringing new surprises and shocks found nowhere else.

So, there it is, a new Vegas highlight for the tourists, but now one that caters specifically to horror fans, starving in this city for a few more attractions. Maybe nothing new to the haunted house genre, but just for the effort, the sheer visual, visceral quality in the venue, a worthy attraction, and one I’m happy to recommend.

Update: here are some stills from opening week, courtesy of the official Goretorium Facebook page.

by Nia Edwards-Behi

CAUTION: Contains spoilers.

Independently made on a tiny budget, Carnival of Souls is the sole feature film directed by educational and industrial filmmaker Herk Harvey. A weird little film, it was instantly forgotten on its B-release in 1962. However, it has since rightfully gained a cult appeal, playing festivals and having received several home entertainment releases. Although admittedly rough around the edges, it predates Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead by six years as a masterclass in suspense, shocks and genuine terror. 50 years on, why is Carnival of Souls still so incredibly frightening?

Music plays a key role in the film. Carnival of Souls’ lead character, Mary, is an organist. The film is scored by Gene Moore, and organ music pervades the entire film. Indeed, by the end of the film’s slim running time the instrument has been so incessant that it’s easy to dismiss it as irritating. The organ music, however, is central to not only the story, but to what makes it so damn creepy. Organ music is inherently quite creepy, and has a rich horror movie history, associated with characters like the Phantom of the Opera and Dr. Phibes. There’s a duality to the way the music is used in Carnival of Souls. On the one hand, the music is associated with religion, as Mary gets work as a church organist. Almost conversely, the music is also entertainment, as the organ is so readily associated with the pier its amusements. Importantly, we only ever see these places as empty – Mary rehearses to an empty church, and the pier is wholly abandoned, aside from its ghosts…

Carnival of Souls doesn’t really have a ‘villain’ per se, but if it has a monster, for much of the film it might be The Man. Played by the director himself, The Man appears to Mary throughout the film, scaring her senseless, and seeming to lead her along an unseen path that leads to her fate. He’s creepy because he’s unknown – who is he? What is he? Why is he appearing to Mary? What does he want? He is only threatening because he is unknown – it’s never wholly clear if he means to harm Mary. The look of him is so simple: pale, pale skin, dark piercing eyes, anonymous suit. He’s so clearly human, and yet…clearly not. He’s really quite uncanny, which is far more frightening than a more obviously monstrous monster. If The Man is creepy because he is unknowable, then the Ghouls who accompany him are somehow even creepier. They are free of intent, drifting in whatever plane of existence they inhabit.

If The Man and the Ghouls are uncanny, then Mary herself is uncannier still. Carnival of Souls is not a simple ‘she was dead all along!’ story. She begins the film in a should-have-been-fatal car accident, then she interacts with people and leaves traces of herself before being dredged up as a corpse when the car is eventually found. Throughout the film she encounters people who cannot see or hear her, and has whole episodes in a state of unbeing. A sequence toward the film’s end reveals itself to have been a dream, but it’s probably the film’s most terrifying, and, regardless of its position as a dream sequence, still entirely accurate to Mary’s experience. Ultimately, it’s the notion of being invisible to the world that’s most terrifying in the film, not the ghouls or strange men that lurk around Mary. More ultimately still, the film is simply about death, or rather, the fear of it. As Mary in the end literally disappears, and is pulled from the river she crashed into at the film’s opening a corpse, we see the whole film has been about her desperate, futile attempt to cling to life.

The film is currently in the public domain, so if you haven’t seen it, get to the Internet Archive, download it, and feast your eyes and ears on one of horror’s creepiest gems.

Alternatively – watch it right here! Crank up the sound, hit full screen and dim the lights…

by Ben Bussey

It’s no accident that the words ‘cheap’ and ‘nasty’ so often go hand in hand. Horror is perhaps the one film genre which can be done on an ultra-low budget without damaging its chances of reaching a wide audience (well, there’s also porn, but let’s not get into that now). Indeed, it can be argued that the roots of most modern independent cinema are in horror, with the likes of Night of the Living Dead, The Evil Dead and more recently The Blair Witch Project providing not only a creative template but also a business model for generations of cash-strapped filmmakers. However, this has long proved to be something of a double-edged sword. Many inexperienced filmmakers do not approach the genre as fans, but simply as an access point into the film industry. Certainly, there are instances when this approach has paid off – by all accounts Sam Raimi didn’t like horror at all before making The Evil Dead – but more often than not it results in tedious, formulaic dross, the likes of which so often threatens to drown the marketplace. Too many filmmakers and distributors seem to view horror as nothing more than a licence to sell crap, and by extension view genre fans as uncultured, undiscerning numbskulls who’ll happily snap up anything with a bit of sadism in it. (And that perception extends into the popular consciousness, as demonstrated recently by a jawdroppingly awful excuse for journalism at a supposedly upmarket website, which I will not deign to link to here…)

As much as I hate to say it, I can’t help feeling things have only gotten worse this past decade. The digital age has of course brought many tremendous advantages, allowing fledgling filmmakers to massively reduce their budgets and production time, and Blair Witch, 28 Days Later and Paranormal Activity proved that films shot that way can make crazy money. But – and this a big but – the aesthetics of DV leave so much to be desired. The debate rages on as to whether shooting on film will soon be a thing of the past, and I’m sure it will continue to rage on for some time; I look forward to seeing Keanu Reeves’ new documentary on the subject. I’m nowhere near technically knowledgeable enough to contribute to that debate, but so far as I’m concerned one simple fact remains: unless you’re using the absolute top of the range stuff, digital simply does not look anywhere near as good as film, and I get the feeling that’s not going to change.

Then, of course, there’s that key underlying problem with how DV enables anyone with access to a camcorder and a PC to create their own films: the fact that a great many so-called filmmakers don’t have the first clue what they’re doing. I don’t wish to seem elitist or undemocratic, but seriously – a lot of the people out there making films today are simply not cut out for it. I think I can speak for just about everyone in the horror critic community when I say there are few moments I dread more than when the latest no-budget screener lands on my doorstep. Nine times out of ten it’ll have some mindnumbingly prosaic title, and a logline cut-and-pasted from Chain Saw/Dawn of the Dead/I Spit On Your Grave/Blair Witch/delete as applicable. Before you’ve even hit play every fibre of your being is warning you that it’s going to be beyond awful, and very rarely does that feeling prove wrong. A small part of me is tempted to name and shame every bargain basement abomination I’ve had to endure in my tenure at Brutal As Hell, but I’m not sure I have the emotional strength to undertake such a task. And anyway, believe it or not, I don’t write about films because I want to bitch about how terrible everything is; I do it to share with others my own excitement when I happen upon something cool.

And this is the problem with modern microbudget horror: once we’ve endured more than a few of the aforementioned festering piles of elephant shit, it can result in a knee-jerk reaction when approaching other digitally-shot films. It can become hard to see past the wobbly camerawork and flat sound mix, and to appreciate those comparatively rare occassions on which a microbudget horror film actually brings real skill, passion, intelligence and wit to the table. Every once in a while, if you look hard enough, you might even find they’re doing something genuinely new and different. Isn’t that what we look for in independent film overall: a unique perspective and aesthetic that we don’t get from the glossy, overpriced mainstream?

With this in mind, here are what I consider to be some of the best digitally shot microbudget horror films of the past five years, listed in descending order of production cost. They stand as proof that even in the cut-price section we can find real filmmaking craft and ingenuity. None of them are flawless, and certainly none of them will be to all tastes (as if any horror film ever has been); but all of them are different, and anyone looking to pick up a DV camcorder and get to work on their own macabre masterpiece would do well to take note of them all. 

Absentia (Mike Flanagan, 2011)
Production budget: $70,000

This one was a really pleasant surprise earlier this year. Funded through Kickstarter, Mike Flanagan’s low-key supernatural chiller works for the simple fact that it has good actors, good writing and good direction. The premise may be reminscent of J-horror, but the film is wise enough not to ape that style, doing its own thing in a simple and understated fashion. Low on special effects and obvious scare tactics, Absentia’s most powerful attributes are Katie Parker and Courtney Bell, whose brilliant performances drive the film. And Flanagan clearly knew the film needed these actresses above all else, as he rejigged the script to work in the fact that Bell was heavily pregnant at the time of shooting; a wise move indeed.

Read my full review here.

Blood Car (Alex Orr, 2007)
Production budget: $25,000

Proof positive that it is possible for a modern horror film to be largely based around environmental and political concerns without being all preachy, po-faced and humourless about it. In fact, it’s possible to do that and still deliver all the schlock, gore and gratuitous nudity that genre fans know and love. Yes, Alex Orr’s film has its cake and eats it too. It’s helped considerably by above average performances from Mike Brune, Katie Rowlett and Anna Chlumsky, but the wit of the direction and writing really lifts it above the pack. The practical gore ain’t bad either.

Read my full review here.

Small Town Folk (Peter Stanley-Ward, 2007)
Production budget: £4,000 (approx US$6,500)

At a glance, Small Town Folk seems like nothing more than another backwoods hillbilly horror, but it takes the concept in a really quite unexpected direction, giving that time-honoured Hills Have Eyes set-up a surprisingly upbeat, action-adventure flavour. And on a microbudget, no less. Peter Stanley-Ward’s film is also particularly noteworthy for making a real virtue of its lo-fi aesthetics; much of it is shot in the Sin City style on blue screen with digitally imposed backdrops, which lends a suitably otherwordly, cartoonish feel to proceedings.

Read my full review at B Through Z.

Dead Hooker in a Trunk (Jen & Sylvia Soska, 2009)
Production budget: $2,500

I rather doubt this film or its writer-directors require any introduction at this point. However, I’ll be the first to admit that on seeing the film at its world premiere over two years ago, I was initially dismissive of it, owing largely to that knee-jerk reaction to DV that I spoke of earlier. It was only when I took a step back that I realised just how much Dead Hooker In A Trunk breaks with conventional wisdom. Where so many first-time filmmakers restrict their action to a single location and a minimal cast, the Soskas keep things moving at all times, hopping locations as gleefully as they cross genre boundaries. Once again, good writing and acting really saves the day, but it certainly doesn’t hurt that there are stunts and special effects which are significantly above average for films made at this budgetary level, not to mention how good CJ Wallis’ soundtrack is.

Read my full review here.

Cockhammer (Kevin Strange, 2009)
Production budget: $500

Given that the very first shot of this film is a woman’s naked breasts, and within two minutes said woman is being bloodily beaten to death, you’d be forgiven for thinking Cockhammer was just another sick, juvenile piece of trash. Well… actually, Cockhammer is another sick, juvenile piece of trash, but it also sports some of the sharpest, funniest and most mind-bogglingly verbose writing I’ve come across in recent years. It’s no mean feat to get an amateur cast to deliver this kind of ridiculously overloaded, expletive-ridden dialogue at a machine gun pace, without faltering or corpsing – sample line: “I swear to God Gert, I don’t know what’s worse, sitting here in this cold damp room waiting to be butchered on film by a fucking lunatic, or the fact that I haven’t had a hard dick in my ass, mouth or vag in hours!” – but Kevin Strange and his ensemble manage to make it seem effortless. Even if you don’t care for the ultra-low brow mish-mash of weed, dick and fart jokes, you have to acknowledge the skill with which it is executed.

Read my full review at B Through Z.

Colin (Marc Price, 2008)
Production budget: £45 (approx US$70)

Few films of recent years have surprised me as much as this one. First of all, it’s hard to believe there haven’t been more zombie films in which the central protagonist is a zombie; secondly, when you hear a film was made for such a pittance, you certainly don’t expect something as intense, atmospheric and artful as Marc Price’s film proves to be. Colin is another film which makes a virtue of its lo-fi production value, boosting the sense of intimacy, and demonstrating that you don’t need to go the found footage route to justify shooting on DV (a lesson that should not go unheeded). And the most vital thing Colin can teach any would-be filmmakers: if you’re going to cast your friends, try to have friends who are as good at acting as Alistair Kirton. Great performances, great scripts: the cheapest special effects of all.

Read my full review here.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

Caution – as with most retrospectives, expect strong spoilers.

The year is 1972, and the ideals of the Summer of Love already feel like a distant memory. It is three years since Woodstock; four years since the assassination of Martin Luther King. Hippies are on the wane and anarchy is on the up. Though the United States military will soon end its involvement in the Vietnam conflict, the country and its citizens have been constantly reminded of this war since the escalation of American intervention started in the 60s. 1972 is also the year that the film which began life as Sex Crime of the Century is released in the USA, beginning its decades-long journey toward becoming a cult classic that is still loved and reviled forty years later.

The film was initially envisioned as a hard-core exploitation picture, but as its production progressed it became a less explicit, though no less effective, film. Partially inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960), in the film, soon-to-be 17 year old Mari and her supposedly wayward friend Phyllis head into town to attend a rock concert, while Mari’s parents prepare a surprise birthday party for her at their rural home. While looking to buy some marijuana, Mari and Phyllis are kidnapped by a gang of escaped criminals: Krug, Weasel, Sadie and Junior. The next morning they drive the girls to the woods, where they subject them to physical, psychological and sexual torture. Phyllis runs away, as a distraction, so that Mari can escape. Phyllis is eventually caught by Krug and she is killed and mutilated. Krug rapes Mari, before killing her too. Krug and company’s car breaks down as they attempt to make a getaway, and unbeknownst to them they seek shelter in the house of Mari’s parents. Mari’s mother uncovers the truth about their guests, and the dead girl’s parents exact a violent revenge on the criminals in their home. Last House on the Left is significant in a multitude of ways, but perhaps the two most notable ways are because it launched the career of one Wes Craven (as well as Sean Cunningham), and due to the intense controversy, and in some instances, hysteria, its shocking content caused.

It would be fairly easy for me to rehash these same discussions. We all know that Wes Craven went on to make The Hills Have Eyes, and Nightmare on Elm Street, amongst other films, establishing himself as one of the most notable horror auteurs of recent decades. We all know the film was central to the video nasties debacle in the UK, remaining banned until 2003 and only certified for sale in the UK as uncut in 2008. I don’t want to focus on the things we already know. There are times when the things around a film are remembered and talked about more than the film itself. I think this is the case with Last House on the Left. While indeed most of the video nasties would have sunk into obscurity if not for the controversy attached to them, Last House on the Left deserves attention, appraisal and, for me, plaudits. I think it’s too readily lumped together with pure exploitation flicks that may well be fun, but have a lot less to say and a lot less skill in their making. So, let me tell you why I love The Last House on the Left.

I won’t try to convince anyone that the film is perfect. I am probably a lot more tolerant of the film’s comedy cop duo, but even I will say that it would be a superior film if the ‘Ada’s chickens’ sequence was dropped. Regardless, even in its crudeness and its naivety, it is powerful. It’s easy to forget, I think, that this was Craven’s debut film as director. Given that this project began as a hardcore exploitation-by-numbers piece, at the request of the film’s financiers, it is all the more impressive that the resultant film is so enduringly powerful. There are undeniably tonal issues with the film – I like the contrast between the girls’ kidnap and Mari’s oblivious parents, for example, but the shifts between parallel scenes are indeed heavy-handed and at times jarring. However, I do believe that they are demonstrative of technical inexperience rather than lack of purpose. Those shifts in tone are there for a reason. The cops aren’t there to be comic relief, as such, they’re there to say something, even if inexperience muddies the message somewhat.

What is that message? It’s certainly not my place to ascribe One True Meaning to a film, but there are clear influences behind the violence of Last House, and what that violence is passing comment upon. Absolutely a product of its time, Last House is the result of counter-cultures, war and upheaval. As violence was broadcast daily into the homes of millions from the conflict in Vietnam, and as it spilled on to American streets through clashes of cultures, beliefs, and generations, its depiction in mainstream film became increasingly, obviously, sanitised, safe and unreal. As Craven has stated, Last House does not “play by the rules that had been established for handling violence” (Szulkin, 15). If films from the previous year had already rocked the boat with regard to the cinematic depiction of violence, then Last House went further. A Clockwork Orange is shocking but it is detached, abstract and stylised violence at its core. Straw Dogs portrays violence in a balletic, choreographed way, albeit more subtly than in Kubrick’s film. Utterly conversely, Last House does not offer stylisation, or choreography, or distance. Violence happens and we see it all. A single knife wound does not kill a person, and a fist fight doesn’t end after a couple of punches. Last House grabs you by the neck and rubs your face in violence, tells you it’s real, it exists, and it’s horrible.

I won’t be the first to write of the clear Vietnam commentary that exists in Last House – it suffuses David A. Szulkin’s excellent making-of book, and is fantastically theorised and reasoned by Adam Lowenstein in his book Shocking Representation. Lowenstein notes that not only does the film wear its anti-Vietnam sentiments plainly on its sleeve, but that it equally notes the failure of the flower power movement. Mari and Phyllis are hippies going to see a band called Bloodlust, after all. Most interesting of Lowenstein’s arguments, for me, is his claim that the aesthetic of Last House reflects that of war photography. In particular he notes the striking resemblance between the image of Phyllis used on the original publicity of the film and that of the famous image of Mary Vecchio taken at the Kent State Massacre. As such, Lowenstein notes the use of the frightened, teenaged female body as representative of the film’s reflection of a feminised, vulnerable nation.

Granted, Lowenstein is writing in a specific, academic way. This reflection of Vietnam trauma is clearly visible throughout the film, not only in its aesthetic. Although more direct references to the war were cut from the film in pre-production stages, for me the character of Dr. John Collingwood, the family patriarch, very clearly represents a character deeply militarised, if not directly or specifically associated with Vietnam. Early in the film, as Mari justifies her lack of bra and transparent top, he shouts at her: “Tits? What’s this tits business? It’s like I’m back in the barracks!” Though Mari’s response turns this into a figuring of her father as a dry, medical man (“Okay, mammary glands,” she mocks), Dr. Collingwood’s simple line of dialogue is revealing. He does not want to be back in the barracks. The language of the barracks does not belong in his home nor in the mouth of his daughter. However, that is the position he finds himself in and it’s a position he’s essentially helpless to do anything about. He does not want to be the ‘tits’ man, he wants to respectable, decent Dr. Collingwood. However, this military legacy returns at the film’s close. He silently rigs his home full of traps designed to incapacitate Krug. A wonderful moment occurs on the soundtrack as brief drum rolls undercut the by now familiar music. We see Dr. Collingwood become a tactician, making use of his environment to trap his enemy. He becomes both military man and guerrilla warrior, while Krug, the original guerrilla, finds himself in the position of strength. Facing Krug with fists alone and Dr. Collingwood is helpless, but given tactics and lethal weaponry, he’s unstoppable – the commands of authority, the consistently incompetent police, don’t even make him hesitate in eviscerating Krug at the film’s climax. Is this a subtle comment on military atrocities that took place in Vietnam? Not necessarily, but it certainly could be.

As I mentioned, though, it’s not only military or institutional violence that’s criticised here. The alternatives are equally as futile. In their final confrontation, Krug tells Dr. Collingwood that Mari “was a lot tougher than you, doc.” If Mari represents the flower power generation, and that she was tougher than her father, she still ultimately fails and dies. The military institution and hippy counter-culture are not the only failed ideologies in the film, though. Krug himself represents an aimless underclass of some sort, swaying from anarchist to beatnik, and is – significantly – allowed to air his views despite being the film’s primary, heinous villain.

For me, personally, Sadie represents the most interesting and complex ideological cypher in the film. At several points she attempts to express herself in feminist terms, failing miserably at getting them right – “chauvinist dog!” and “Sigmund Frood” notable examples. These moments are played for laughs in the film, and they are funny, down to some wonderful line-delivery by Jeramie Rain. These moments, though, are more than a few jokes at the expense of a would-be feminist. The character of Sadie isn’t a feminist, naturally, but for me there is significance to the fact that she tries to be – that she wants to be. Her jokes don’t work unless we already know what a ‘puh-hallus’ is, or its significance to Frood’s theories. Sadie is allowed to recognise that she needs “a couple more chicks round here” but she can’t do anything about it, as she’s not ‘her own woman’ as she claims. Sadie is significant as a misuse, or a misappropriation of feminism, either through a lack of education or a lack of support around her. It’s notable that Junior repeatedly states “she’s right, Krug,” but is so controlled by his father that his objections are useless. There’s a brief, brief moment at the film’s end when, confronted by Mari’s parents, Sadie turns on Krug. Junior has done the same, only to be so overwhelmed by his father that he shoots himself. Sadie, in essence, escapes. Although it is again, brief, she turns away from Krug’s control. Yes, she faces her punishment at the hands of Mrs. Collingwood, but for me her brief freedom is significant. It is also in this moment of betrayal that Krug looks his most distraught. Not when he’s talking his son into killing himself, not when he has just raped and murdered two girls, but rather when ‘his woman’ finally turns on him. Subtleties like this are easy to miss in the film, and I’m sure many would dismiss them as coincidental rather than intentional. However, I fully believe that moments like this are down to the talent of Craven and his cast.

Indeed, this talent underscores the film’s notability for me. I can go on about what the film’ is trying to ‘say’ until the little-cows-looking-for-some-grass come home, but film isn’t all about ideology and messages, of course. Even with its flaws, Last House boasts some superb stylistic and narrative moments. The dinner sequence, for example, where Krug and co. feign bland normality to fit in with the Collingwoods, takes place against a completely black backdrop. It’s the film’s most abstract moment, and it deftly underlines the complete artificiality of not only that particular moment, but of forced middle-class domesticity as a whole. Another wonderfully weird moment in the film comes in the form of Weasel’s dental nightmare, which is more than just an effectively cringe-inducing sequence. It provides fantastic foreshadowing for Weasel’s demise at the hands – or rather the teeth – of Mrs. Collingwood. It’s always struck me that the acting is criticised in the film, given as there are some truly fantastic performances. Yes, they’re amateur performances in many instances, but that works within the film’s style and indeed its intent. Bizarrely there are some ‘nice’ moments in the film which boast the actors’ talents – one of my favourite scenes is that between Sadie and Junior early on in the film, as Sadie takes a bath and asks Junior if he’s glad his dad is “finally out of the clink.” It’s a quiet, narratively unnecessary moment, but it’s one of my favourites due to just how bizarrely normal it is.

It’s impossible to talk about the performances in the film without paying homage to the wonderful David Hess. Terrifying throughout, Hess is at his most intense during the ‘blow your brains out’ scene as he remorselessly coaxes his son into shooting himself. Likewise, it’s impossible to talk about David Hess without paying due respect to the film’s soundtrack. A mad combination of comedic songs about criminals (Water Music), abstract sleaze (Phyllis Spills Her Guts), and gorgeous folk songs (Daddy Put Your Coat of Many Colours On) there is something quite special about Hess’ music for the film.

Unlike the film it’s inspired by, there’s no redemptive happy ending to Last House. Unlike the films it spawned, there’s no satisfaction in vengeful carnage. It doesn’t tell us that revenge is good, or forgivable, or conclusive. If there is one thing that bothers me about the film, it’s the lack of acknowledgement, sympathy or vengeance for Phyllis. Phyllis suffers at the hands of Krug and co before Mari, she comforts Mari through her ordeal, and she dies trying to help Mari escape. And yet her death is not remembered, nor avenged. Mari’s parents have already shown their disapproval of Phyllis at the very start of the film, and not once is there an indication that they spend a single second wondering what might have happened to Mari’s friend, and nor does Krug ever mention her. Given how downright heroic Phyllis has been, I find it quite upsetting, and yet, in-keeping with the film’s utterly bleak conclusion, that Phyllis is forgotten almost as soon as she dies. The Collingwoods have taken their vengeance but gained no closure, but somewhere Phyllis’ parents are wondering where is, and with such incompetent police around, will her body be found? Any witnesses to the crimes committed against her are dead – victim and criminals alike. While discussing this point, our own Keri made a wonderful observation that brings me right back to the reflections of Vietnam found in the film. The average age of an American soldier in the conflict was 19. If the deaths of Mari and Phyllis – both 17 – can be criticised as pointless or exploitative, then it’s a harsh and wonderful comment on the countless deaths of drafted teenagers in Vietnam. This view also brings meaning to the fact that the film seems to forget about Phyllis. Not all of those young soldiers were recovered, or mourned, or brought home, no matter how heroic they may have been. Surpassing the broad politics of the conflict itself, Last House on the Left ultimately takes a very human stance on the pointless slaughter of teens (abroad and at home) and the pure horror of violence.

Many might think that speculating so much about a fictional character in a film such as this is pointless or foolish. It’s only a movie…or is it? For me, there’s nothing ‘only’ about the movies, especially not ones as powerful as Last House on the Left. For a film to have started life as a cynical, money-grabbing venture to endure four decades of criticism and censure and to emerge as a powerful testament of its era, and for it to remain as impressive as it does is a huge achievement. I count Last House as not only one of my favourite horror films or genre films, but as one of my favourite films full stop. Happy fortieth, Krug and co.

by Ben Bussey

I should forewarn you that what follows will not be a standard retrospective. You see, today marks 25 years since The Monster Squad was first released to cinemas, and while I’ve no doubt that doesn’t mean too much to a lot of people, let me see if I can give some indication of what it means to me.

Follow me on Twitter and you won’t see a picture of me. You’ll see the victorious grin of Van Helsing, thumb held up high as he drags Dracula to Limbo. Visit my profile page, and you’ll note my backdrop is The Monster Squad’s British VHS sleeve. Likewise, friend me on Facebook and again it isn’t my face you’ll see, but that of Rudy, sunglasses on and cigarette in his lips, and for my cover photo you’ll see the scene at the top of this page: the midnight riverbank assembly of Wolfman, Gillman, Mummy and Dracula right before they resurrect the Frankenstein monster. On top of that, you may notice my FB address is facebook.com/kickhiminthenards. My first ever article published online, back at good old B Through Z? yep – it was on The Monster Squad. It was even in part the subject of my MA dissertation.

Yes, I love The Monster Squad. And not in some hipster ironic way. I truly, madly, deeply love every second of this silly little 1987 kiddie horror movie. For better or worse, it made me the person I am today. So if you need someone to blame, direct your hatemail to Fred Dekker.

So, how to adequately express this love? How to sum up just how great I think the film is, and just how great its personal impact on me has been? I don’t think I can within the confines of a single article. Why, I could write a book. In fact… I’m in the process of doing just that. A slow, faintly torturous process, but a process nonetheless. 

For the time being, though, I don’t think I can sum it up much better than I did five years ago on – God, was it that long ago – my Myspace blog. What follows is an abridged version of a blog post I made in July 2007, just prior to the film’s 20th anniversary and its release on DVD from Lionsgate. Once again, I warn that this is not a basic review, so anyone with an aversion to long-winded, overly personal, syrupy, touchy-feely emotional content may want to look away now. What can I say; I’m just a sensitive, sentimental kinda guy. Hence I write for a site called Brutal As Hell.

(…) Two big things happened to me when I was nine years old. I found out there was no Father Christmas; and I saw The Monster Squad.

Okay – event number one. (I’m fuzzy on the chronology; this may have happened second. But let’s assume it didn’t, for the sake of convenience. And to support my upcoming argument. Teeheehee.)

Now, I’m curious about this. Am I right in thinking that nine is quite a late age to learn the truth about Santa? A lot of people I speak to seem to have either been aware, or figured it out on their own by then. Not me. I was a dedicated believer. I don’t know what it was, but I was adamant that Santa Claus absolutely had to be real. Now, I never harboured any delusions that there was an Easter Bunny. (Over there, that’s just a guy in a suit!) With the Tooth Fairy, initial belief gave way to a comfortable realisation that it was my parents. But Father Christmas… he was just too big, too significant to be a lie. And not just because he made a movie with Dudley Moore and John Lithgow.(…) So when the fateful day came that my mother sat me down and gently told me the truth… it was a strange moment. I didn’t cry. I didn’t get angry. I just kind of went… “Oh.”

I went “Oh” because on some level I had always known. I went “Oh” because I knew that as much as I had been deceived by my parents, and all the other grown ups in the world, I knew that I had also been deceiving myself.

(…) Onto event number two: The Monster Squad.

As a kid, I hated horror. Tick me off on the list of people born into the eighties who hid behind the sofa during the Thriller video. Anytime one of the Jaws movies came on TV, I ran screaming. (Not such a bad thing with the sequels…) Sure, I loved Ghostbusters and Gremlins, but – like Steve – they didn’t count. (…) Why anyone would voluntarily sit down to read or watch something with the specific intention of getting scared, I could not for the life of me fathom. So sitting down one Saturday night with my brother and cousin to watch a film they’d picked out at Pharaoh’s Video that evening – a film that featured a werewolf, a mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Frankenstein monster, and Count Dracula – it was a pretty big step for me.

And you know what? I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

The living skeleton attacking Van Helsing, in the wake of the whirlpool mouth of Limbo; Dracula dissolving to bat form, and escaping the plane (in broad daylight, mind you!); the sudden flash of Dracula’s skull in the lightning; the monsters congregating at the misty lake to resurrect Frankenstein; Wolfman’s exploded remnants whooshing back together; Dracula, electricity flickering over his shoulders, beating his way through cop after cop without breaking a sweat, taking out Scary German Guy with a thunderbolt from his palm, and picking up Phoebe by her cheeks: “Give me the amulet you bitch!” (Seriously, has Dracula ever had as much bad-ass power as he does in this film?)

All these moments and more flashed before me like a dream – and in an instant, I got it. I understood why people watched horror movies. Monsters were cool! And being scared – sure, Monster Squad isn’t all that scary, but still – I suddenly realised how alive it made me feel. How being afraid and being excited weren’t really all that far removed. Thinking about it, it was probably that same year that I plucked up the guts to go on ghost trains and rollercoasters for the first time.

Over the next couple of years, I saw The Monster Squad every opportunity I had; eventually I got my own ex-rental VHS copy, which I still own, and I watched it over and over – at least once a month, probably until I was fifteen. Watching it again a few weeks ago, for the first time in a while, I still found myself mouthing along to pretty much every line of dialogue, and every beat of music. (Though I still can’t quite make out all the lyrics of ‘Rock Until You Drop’…)

So – what, you may ask, did those two utterly commonplace childhood events have to do with one another? Why do I feel the need to go into detail on both of them in this manner? Because when I learned there was no Father Christmas, I stopped believing. And, as feeble an example as it may seem, when I stopped believing, I got my first little taste of despair. That’s where horror movies came in.

My mother didn’t encourage my new-found interest in horror movies. Sure, she and Dad would buy me books – all the Shelley, Stoker and Stevenson classics – but they wouldn’t let me rent any Nightmare On Elm Streets or Friday the 13ths. All those nasty things that Mum in particular had shielded me from in my earlier years, I was suddenly anxious to see, and I don’t think she was too happy about it. She didn’t want me having nightmares.

It was she, of course, that broke the news about Santa.

This was my revenge. This was my rebellion. This was my punk!

Maybe I couldn’t rent the tapes I wanted, but, unlike my mother, I knew how to work the timer on the video. ITV still showed Hammer movies most Saturday nights; I taped them all. Every so often I’d even get some more recent ones: Lost Boys, Fright Night. Then, most importantly, I made friends with a kid called Paul, whose parents let him watch absolutely anything… soon enough I was up to my eyeballs in Critters, Freddy Krueger, and George A. Romero.

And yeah, there were a few nightmares along the way.

Just to make it clear – I love my Mum! I’ve got a kid of my own now; I understand how powerful the instinct is to protect your child, how desperate the desire to shield them from any pain and distress. But we all know how it goes. There comes that moment when you’re growing up when the parents become the enemy. They’re trying to keep you down; they don’t want you to grow up. And, as my parents have told me since, in a way that really is true! God, when I try to imagine my little baby boy growing up, reaching puberty, going beyond my control… it’s a bloody scary thought. I don’t want him to be at risk. I don’t want him to suffer. Above all – I don’t want him to not need me anymore. But that day is going to come, whether I like it or not.

Remember that scene in The Crow? Michael Wincott’s holding his snow globe with a graveyard scene inside, remembering his father giving it to him and telling him, “Childhood’s over the moment you know you’re gonna die.”

Every once in a while, we start debating the significance of horror. The 70s, as anyone who’s seen the marvellous documentary American Nightmare can tell you, were all about ‘Nam, Watergate, and the assassinations of King, Malcolm and the Kennedys. Today? Well, it’s obviously 9-11 and the War on Terror, right? Sure, but…

Here’s what I think. Remember what I said, about how the non-existence of Santa was my first taste of despair? Horror will always be appropriate, always of popular interest, as long as there is cause for despair. And we all have cause for despair, and always will. Because we’re all going to die.

The motivational speaking of Mr Benjamin Bussey, ladies and gentlemen; coming to your town soon. Book now.

The Monster Squad started it all for me. It established my enduring love for classic supernatural horror in particular. It made me doodle spiders with human heads when I was supposed to be paying attention at school. And you know what? It holds up as a movie. It grips you from the opening scroll, and doesn’t let go. It’s funny and it’s thrilling; and today, when blockbusters seem to be getting more and more overblown, and moviemakers are so anxious about protecting the young that shotguns are digitally altered into walkie-talkies, it’s so refreshing to see a film clocking in at not even 80 minutes, where kids swear like sailors and are placed in genuine peril.

So when I got my e-mail from Amazon.com this morning, informing me that my copy of the brand-new Monster Squad DVD had been shipped… I got excited.

And, as you’ve probably guessed, more than a little reflective.

***

Five years on, my feelings haven’t changed, and rest assured, I have plenty left to say on the subject. Now, back to my place for some pie.

by Stephanie Scaife

Caution: spoilers ahead…

1987. Regan is President, the Cold War continues, Thatcher is re-elected Prime Minister, the first ever episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation airs on television… and on 31st July Joel Schumacher’s teen vampire flick The Lost Boys was unleashed on US audiences. 25 years later and it has found mass cult appeal, thanks in part to being one of Warners’ best selling VHS tapes ever released and that for my generation it offered something new – vampires as young, beautiful, immortal rock stars, not pasty old loners holed up in castles or creeping around foggy cemeteries.

I’m almost certain that I’ve told this story before, but way back in the late 80’s when my mum bought a VHS player the first two videos she bought were Blade Runner and The Lost Boys, and for the longest while they were the only videos that we had, resulting in them being watched ad nauseam, and for me as an adolescent The Lost Boys had a profound effect. As we’re seeing today, the allure of the teenage vampire can be very popular with young girls; I’m just glad that for my generation this included sex, violence, rock ‘n’ roll and some pretty fucking awesome 80’s hairstyles. Not sparkly, chaste, vegetarian vampires…

I really wish that I could say it was the rather awesome Kiefer Sutherland as David, the leader of the vamp gang, that piqued my interest, but sadly no; I was 8 years old and I was in love with the two Coreys. This was in the days before the internet, and it’s not like I could start an appreciation Tumblr or write slash fiction; instead I had scrap books, and I’d spend hours cutting out pictures from teen heart-throb magazines and hand-writing fan letters whilst listening to the soundtrack on vinyl. Not to mention sitting though such gems as License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream as a consequence of my obsession, in-between repeat viewings of The Lost Boys, which I think I must’ve seen over 50 times in my life and could probably recite the entire script backwards. To me this almost seems rather quaint now in a world where you can gather every piece of information about your idol online and millions can be made from publishing your poorly written fan fiction.

As it happens The Lost Boys wasn’t intended to resemble anything like the finished product. Instead it was originally about 8-9 year old vampires in a more literal rift on the Peter Pan reference of the title. What Schumacher did was envision the film with teenagers with the aim of making it cool and sexy, and certainly not the kids film that the studio had wanted. He took a massive risk making such an of-the-moment-film, full of unknown actors that blended the near impossible to pull off combination of horror and comedy. But against all odds he managed to succeed, not least because of the fantastic cast, a great soundtrack and cinematography by the legendary Michael Chapman (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull). The Lost Boys is knowingly kitsch and it almost takes itself too seriously, but I think it pulls it off by being scary enough, sexy enough and cool enough to appeal to a vast audience, and I think that it still stands up today, although that may just be my nostalgia talking. It may also be my poor taste that thinks although it’s very certainly the 80’s it still looks great and any hipster on the streets of Williamsburg would probably kill for Sam’s wardrobe.

Following on from The Hunger (1983) and Fright Night (1985), The Lost Boys continued to up the ante in making vampires contemporary. Vampires have never been the stereotypical movie monster, although they are traditionally male they are often times handsome and alluring, not like Frankenstein’s Monster, The Mummy or The Wolfman. But whereas Dracula or other similar gothic incantations saw themselves holed up in faraway castles, these contemporary vampires were far more sociable, not to mention oozing in sex. In The Lost Boys, David (Kiefer Sutherland) and the rest of his family are portrayed as mysterious, a thing apart from normal life and so hip and cool that everyone around them yearns to be like them; including Michael (Jason Patric) who is immediately taken with the only female member, Star (Jami Gertz).

Michael is part of another, altogether more typical dysfunctional family consisting of his teenage brother Sam (Corey Feldman), his recently divorced mom (Dianne Wiest) and his eccentric taxidermist Grandpa (Barnard Hughes). They have recently relocated to Santa Carla, CA – or “the murder capital of the world” as it’s known in the film – from Phoenix, AZ. Santa Carla is a Boardwalk town full of misfits, transients and punk rockers – a world away from the landlocked Phoenix, enabling for classic fish-out-of-water narrative devices, especially in regards to Sam who is portrayed as a sort of fashion victim more comfortable hanging out at the mall than on the beach, and Michael who tries desperately to impress Star by saying he wants to get his ear pierced. However, each brother goes in a distinctly different direction in their bid to become accepted in their new surroundings.

Sam meets up with the Frog brothers, Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan (Jamison Newlander), two kids who run a comic store on the Boardwalk, that are self-proclaimed vampire hunters. Schumacher had asked Feldman and Newlander to study Stallone and Chuck Norris movies and to become that kind of 80’s action commando-type character and to also take themselves very seriously indeed, which effectively adds a great amount of humour to their roles. The Frog brothers give Sam horror comics to read, which they seem to take as gospel and use as self defence manuals, and although initially humouring them Sam quickly gets sucked in, especially as he starts to see vampiric traits from the comics appear in his brother Michael.

Michael on the other hand is quick to ingratiate himself with David and the others, initially due to his attraction to Star, and later as he is seduced by the danger and mystery of this gang of teenagers seemingly unhindered by responsibility and any sort of adult supervision. In one of the most infamous scenes in the film David tricks Michael into believing that he’s eating maggots and worms instead of Chinese take-out so as to easily coax him into drinking blood, hence turning Michael into a half-vampire, only to become a fully fledged vampire upon committing his first kill.

During the 1980’s with the increased press coverage and growing fear surrounding the official recognition of HIV and AIDS, the vampire story started to take on a whole new meaning. Vampires after all are all about sex and blood and the popularity of certain film genres, horror in particular, has a tendency over the years to reflect the socio-economic climate of the time – from the cold war politics and racism of the 1960’s in Night of the Living Dead, to the 1970’s backlash against the Vietnam war in Last House on the Left, to the vampire films of the 1980’s like The Lost Boys and Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark where we see young, sexually active people being afflicted with vampirism transmitted through penetration both sexual and as a means to consume blood. So after being tricked into consuming David’s blood and consummating his relationship with Star, things start to go all sorts of weird for Michael. He sleeps all day, wears sunglasses indoors, he smells bad, so wait… is he a creature of the night or is he just a teenage boy?

Meanwhile, oblivious to all of this, their mom Lucy has found herself a job at a local video store and is dating the manager Max, who just so happens to be the mild mannered middle-aged head vampire! In another of my favourite scenes (that also offers somewhat of a plot hole) Max comes over for dinner and Sam along with the Frog brothers try and catch him out by spiking his food with garlic and seeing if he glows in the dark, however we learn that by inviting a vampire into your home it renders you powerless against them. Although, as we’d seen earlier in the film Michael fails to cast a reflection in his own home but Max on the other hand clearly has a reflection in the mirror Sam plants in front of him. Perhaps being the head vampire gives you extra inexplicable powers, or perhaps by now I should’ve learned to stop questioning horror films.

Once the cat is out of the bag the final third of the film turns to fairly standard genre fare as our protagonists battle against the vampires, and although the events that transpire are more than a little predictable there are a few memorable death scenes that remain unparalleled even today – my little 8 year-old mind was pretty much blown as we see “death by stereo,” toilets exploding with blood and Kiefer Sutherland impaled on a mound of taxidermy deer antlers. Even today you’d struggle to find such imaginative ways of vampire disposal and I think that is one of the many reasons why The Lost Boys still stands up today. Yes it’s cheesy and yes it’s very clearly set in the 80’s but it’s still a funny, scary, sexy movie that will continue to inspire both fascination and nostalgia, depending on your age, for years to come. Something that not many recent vampire films could lay claims to. Let’s just not mention the 2 straight to video sequels.

It takes a certain kind of film to inspire the sort of following that The Lost Boys has, and even now all of its primary cast are associated with this above anything else that they’ve done in their careers. Perhaps that’s not too much of a stretch with Jami Gertz, but when you look at actors like Kiefer Sutherland it definitely says something about the power of the film; that this is the one he continuously gets quoted back to him and is constantly flagged as a favourite amongst his fans. I think ultimately The Lost Boys was a combination of being in the right place at the right time to capture the imaginations of a disenfranchised generation looking for some escapism and its longevity is proof that although it’s hardly Citizen Kane (and in fact it’s not even as good as the lesser known Near Dark which came out later that year), there is something very special about The Lost Boys. In another 25 years time I’m sure I’ll still be watching it at least once a year and quoting lines back with my friends, so just remember: “They’re only noodles, Michael.”