Behind the Couch

Happy 20th Birthday, Scream ! I can't believe you've grown up so fast. I know it’s now 2017 and you turned 20 last year, but you weren’t released in the UK until 1997 so technically it was twenty years ago this year that I saw you. Technicalities aside, I couldn’t let the occasion go by without writing a little something about you on here. I remember my dad taking me to see you at the cinema because you were rated 18 and I was only 16. I wanted so badly to see you though. I was shocked and intrigued by your teaser campaign on TV, and you starred some people who were in things I loved as a 16-year-old ( Friends ! Party of Five ! Boys on the Side !). You were my first experience of watching a horror film in a cinema with a real live cinema audience and I can still remember the excitement and anticipation. I was equal parts irked and enthralled when the audience reacted to you in such a vocal way. They screamed a lot . I thought you were the greatest thing ever, although my d...

RIP Wes Craven (1939-2015) Filmmaker Wes Craven, best known for intelligent and provocative horror titles such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream and The Last House on the Left , has died at the age of 76. He had been diagnosed with brain cancer and passed away at his home in LA, leaving behind his wife Iya Labunka, and his two children Jonathan and Jessica. Craven’s impact on the landscape of shock cinema came early in his career with searingly gritty and subversive titles such as The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes . These films presented levels of violence and graphic realism in ways rarely seen before. What became clear though was that despite the brutality of his work, Wes Craven’s films were intelligent and strangely philosophical; he frequently addressed themes such as familial strife, generational conflict, class, race, teenage angst, dreams and man-made monsters. While at college he studied literature and psychology before moving on to earn a Master...

The People Under the Stairs is an atmospheric and tightly coiled horror film with themes that remain relevant, and a dark sense of unease that is still incredibly palpable, unravelling as a compendium of recurring themes and motifs that run throughout much of Wes Craven’s work; race, class, familial strife, generational conflict and the idea of man-made monsters all swirl together in an unhinged and feverishly claustrophobic tale. With its myriad allusions to the likes of “Hansel and Gretel”, the film unfurls as a nightmarish urban fairy tale complete with mutilated innocents imprisoned by wicked parental figures... To read my full review, and for a chance to win a copy of the film on Blu-ray, head over to Exquisite Terror . While you’re there, why not pick up an issue or two of Exquisite Terror the periodical . 

1987 Dir. Chuck Russell Demonic child-killer Freddy Krueger returns to haunt the dreams of the teenagers of Springwood, this time turning his murderous attention to the residents of a psychiatric hospital. What he doesn’t count on though is the return of Nancy Thompson, the first teenager to ever defeat him, who teaches the youngsters how to hone their dream powers to try and destroy him. “Sleep. Those little slices of death, how I loathe them.”* While a big success at the box office, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 was panned by critics and fans of the original. Head of New Line Bob Shaye wanted to try and bring Freddy Krueger back for another outing. Once again he approached Wes Craven, writer and director of the original film , who declined to helm the project as he was working on Deadly Blessing . However, Craven saw this as an opportunity to have some creative input to an ongoing series which he believed had already veered into lacklustre quality, and he submitted a treatme...

1984 Dir. Wes Craven When a group of high school friends begin to die while they sleep, level-headed Nancy soon discovers that she and her friends are being stalked in their dreams by the vengeful, now demonic, child killer their vigilante parents murdered years ago. Can she stay awake long enough to put a stop to his bloody killing spree and save her own skin? One, Two, Freddy’s coming for you… A Nightmare on Elm Street really needs no introduction. Wes Craven’s ground-breaking slasher was released at a time when cinemas were saturated in body-count movies featuring teenagers being stalked and murdered in isolated locations by vengeful (and morally conservative) bogeymen. Despite sticking to the by-then conventional narrative structure of the slasher movie, Craven injected new life into it by deploying a supernatural twist and delving into the most primal fears known to mankind. The director effortlessly preys on childhood fears of the ‘bogeyman’ and scores a major coup by ...

Casey Becker : What's your favourite scary movie? Phone Voice : Guess. Casey Becker : Um, Nightmare on Elm Street ? Phone Voice : Is that the one where the guy had knives for fingers? Casey Becker : Yeah, Freddy Krueger. Phone Voice : Freddy, that's right. I liked that movie. It was scary. Casey Becker : Yeah, the first one was, but the rest sucked. Last October I revisited the Halloween series in the lead up to All Hallow’s Eve, and the year before that I found myself back at Camp Crystal Lake as I delved head first into the Friday the 13th films. This year I thought I’d try and keep up the tradition of a month long marathon exploring an Eighties slasher series and have decided to watch all seven A Nightmare on Elm Street films (including Freddy vs. Jason and the 2010 remake). These things just have to be done sometimes. A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the most successful series in horror history, and love it or loathe it, there’s no denying the impact t...

1981 Dir. Wes Craven Wes Craven burst onto the horror scene in the 1970s with his distinctive brand of thought-provoking, gritty, survivalist horror titles Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes (both of which have been remade, with the former's 'reimagination' due in cinemas any day now). Before the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984, Craven directed a number of films including the made-for-TV Linda Blair-starring witch-flick Summer of Fear,  and an adaptation of DC Comic’s Swamp Thing. In between these two films, Craven directed Deadly Blessing , a barmy yet haunting tale of fanaticism, obsession and fear. Among others, it starred Sharon Stone in one of her earliest roles. When her husband dies in a suspicious slow-motion tractor accident, Martha (Maren Jensen) is visited by her two friends from the city. They are unsettled that Martha lives right next to an austere religious community of Hittites ('They make the Amish look like swingers...