Behind the Couch

A group of high school friends who were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate years before are targeted by a mysterious stalker at their senior prom. One of the first slasher films produced in the wake of the success of Halloween  (1978), Paul Lynch’s Prom Night strictly adheres to the now standard slasher blueprint, unfolding as a lean and moody potboiler. All the tropes, cliches and conventions are present and correct. Significant calendar date? Check. A group of hormonal teens for the body count? Check. A masked killer emerging to avenge a past misdeed? Check. Ineffectual authority figures? Check. A heroic final girl who will eventually defeat the killer? Check. Prom Night has it all, including Jamie Lee Curtis as its star! If there’s comfort in the familiar, then Prom Night is the goose down duvet of slasher films. The opening shot of an old, discarded mirror, reflecting the image of a creepy, abandoned building, conjures notions of the double, and ideas regardi...

Written by Monty Python’s Terry Jones and directed by Jim Henson, Labyrinth tells of fairy tale-obsessed Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), a young woman who must venture through the ‘dangers untold and hardships unnumbered’ of a nightmarish other-realm to rescue her baby stepbrother from Jareth (David Bowie), a cruel Goblin King. Along the way she befriends an array of misunderstood, misfit creatures who inhabit the labyrinth, and overcome attempts to thwart her journey by Jareth’s many meddling minions. The eighties produced a plethora of spectacular and oddly edgy fantasy films which, while aimed at younger audiences, possessed certain adult sensibilities and a curious darkness which would feed into their later cult status. Titles such as The Dark Crystal (1982), The Never-Ending Story (1984), Dragonslayer (1981), The Princess Bride (1987), Return to Oz (1985), Willow (1988) and Legend (1985), invited audiences to join valiant underdog protagonists on perilous quests to defeat evil ...