Behind the Couch

Armchair Thriller was a British television series, broadcast on ITV by Thames in 1978 and 1980. It was essentially a horror/supernatural orientated anthology series that specialised in adapting various spooky novels and stories. It consisted of two weekly 25 minute episodes, usually screened at 8pm on a Tuesday and Thursday evening. I’m too young to remember it, but a recent conversation with several ( ever so slightly) older friends alerted me to one particular episode of the series entitled Quiet as a Nun … Adapted from the 1977 novel of the same name by Antonia Fraser, Quiet as a Nun was a six part dramatisation revolving around Fraser's regular sleuth Jemima Shore, who revisits the convent where she was schooled following the mysterious death of one of the nuns. The nun, Sister Miriam, was a former friend of Jemima’s and she apparently starved herself to death in a ruined tower in the grounds of the convent. Jemima soon learns from the girls at the convent about a myste...

After his hiatus from the criminally underrated Halloween III: Season of the Witch , Michael Myers, at the behest of his fans – and greedy producers – returned to stalk the leafy streets of Haddonfield in Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers . See what they did there. With a whole new set of characters introduced, including Laurie Strode’s daughter and her adoptive family, it isn’t long before the blood begins to flow. For a film bogged down in its own lack of imagination, originality or flair, Halloween IV actually begins with so much promise. The opening titles play out over a simple collection of shots which, when viewed in succession, evoke such a bleak, eerie and overwhelmingly creepy atmosphere. The lack of music adds to the unease – all that exists on the soundtrack is a low howling wind that reeks of desolation and despair. Before long, the faintest strains of Alan Howarth’s deliciously dark and brooding synth score can gradually be heard; though at this stage, i...

Throughout his seminal masterpiece  Halloween,  John Carpenter manages to create moments of nail-biting tension, suggestive chills and an unnervingly creepy atmosphere punctuated with shrill jump-moments. The director has laced his groundbreaking slasher with creepy images and moments of spine-tingling dread. Most of the creepiness comes of course from the frequent glimpses of The Shape… The presence of The Shape, indeed even the mere threat of his presence is enough to render any previously cosy domestic space or autumnal leafy suburb, a now creepy, dangerous place, saturated with menace. Carpenter’s expert use of widescreen and his placing of The Shape just on the periphery of many shots - lurking in the shadows and corners - is more than enough to generate chills and the threat of violence and set hearts pounding… Indeed even when he appears to Laurie in broad daylight, his presence obviously doesn't belong in cosy suburbia - his eerie menace juxtaposed with familiar s...

The Friday the 13th franchise isn't exactly renowned for its subtlety. It is a series of movies essentially repeating a very familiar pattern: teens in secluded backwoods by Crystal Lake fall victim to hulking killer Jason Voorhees. After they’ve indulged in booze, drugs and premarital sex, naturally. It’s generally held that the higher the number of the sequel, the lesser the quality of the film. This has never stopped me from enjoying each instalment though. With a nice, dry Sauvignon blanc. In Part VII of the series, the filmmakers actually attempted to take the franchise in a s lightly new direction – as well as all the usual oblivious teens wandering around in the dark woods investigating strange noises and getting murderlised by Jason, a young woman with latent telekinetic powers is also thrown into the mix. It’s essentially Jason vs. Carrie and was intended to directly compete with the successful and more overtly supernatural A Nightmare on Elm Street Series – in fact T...

James, Donna and Maddy gather in Donna’s living room to sing a song . The three are united in their grief over their friend Laura Palmer’s death. Donna realises that James is falling for Maddy, Laura’s cousin, who also bears an uncanny resemblance to Laura. After the song, Donna leaves abruptly and James chases after her. Left alone in the living room, Maddy – who seems to share the same perceptive nature that Laura, and indeed several of the other townsfolk exhibited, and just seems able to sense when something is 'wrong' – feels a dark, creepy presence in the house. Suddenly she sees ‘Bob’ a filthy, lecherous man Laura wrote about in her diary, claiming he abused her and would eventually kill her, slowly appear in the room. He quietly skulks towards her from the other side of the room and we see it all from her point of view as she sits rooted to the spot with fear.   The sight of this dirty, carnal beast-man slowly advancing towards us and crawling over the couch with war...

David Lynch’s beautiful, nightmarish and deeply unsettling Lost Highway contains more than its fair share of intense and disturbing moments. The opening scenes alone are, in my opinion, amongst some of the most uneasy, upsetting and creepy moments of genre cinema. Lynch effortlessly creates such a feeling of anxiety in these opening scenes, and all without anything much really happening. Unhappily married couple Fred and Renee Madison (Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette) blankly wander around their dark and foreboding home. Fred appears to suspect Renee of being unfaithful and she does nothing to alleviate his suspicions. Videotapes containing footage of the outside of their house begin arriving. Eventually one of the tapes contains footage shot inside the house and reveals Fred murdering Renee. A bizarre encounter with a mysterious man at a party flings events further into overtly abstract territory. The mystery man tells Fred they've met before. Where? "At your house, reme...

Mario Bava’s anthology Black Sabbath consists of three quite different tales of horror. The Telephone - the story of a woman who may or may not be receiving sinister phone calls from an escaped lunatic; The Wurdalak – a creepy yarn involving vampirism, a doomed family and the recent return of their undead patriarch – played with diabolical glee by Boris Karloff; and finally, The Drop of Water – the supremely unsettling story of a nurse who steals a ring from the deathbed of a medium, only to suffer the ghastly consequences in the privacy of her own home. Each segment of Black Sabbath has its own unique tone and look, from the kitsch glamour of The Telephone to the high gothic atmospherics of The Wurdalak and the opulently stylised The Drop of Water . As a whole, the film is rather satisfactory and none of the segments outstay their welcome. What makes it all even more appealing is the introduction by none other than Boris Karloff himself, waxing lyrical on the mechanics of fe...

In the aftermath of St Patrick’s Day I thought it appropriate to feature what is perhaps one of the all time creepiest moments ever in a film about leprechauns. Produced by Disney and starring a young Sean Connery, Darby O’Gill & the Little People follows the exploits of amiable town drunk Darby O’Gill (Albert Sharpe) and his attempts to outwit the King of the Leprechauns in order to obtain his fabled gold. Well, his attempts were hilarious when I was about 7 or 8 and was too young to realise the underlying pathos of this lonely old social outcast’s situation: spinning tales of the supernatural and the fantastic to try and win his fellow villagers’ admiration and acceptance. Anyway, Darby works as a grounds keeper for an affluent family on the outskirts of the village. Because he spends most of his time in the pub, neglecting not only his work but also his daughter Katie (Janet Munro), his landlord understandably decides to hire Sean Connery to replace him. When Katie finds out...