Picturenose

Poor revision
It’s always the way with horror, isn’t it? How quickly do you reveal your monster? How do you keep the scares coming once the audience knows what it’s dealing with?

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Many of you will know that I am an unashamed Batman fan, and always have been. I was quite happy - eager, even, that my eldest son (who’s 10) should come to see it with me. For me, it’s the same thing as the Dads who drag their children of two years or so to see Nohope United every Saturday when the poor buggers have no idea what’s going on. I at least waited until I thought was mentally mature enough to get something out of the experience.

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Today’s news starts with something I found quite surprising. In this Associated Press piece on backstage.com, the late Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker in the upcoming The Dark Knight (2008) is compared (favourably) to one Mr J Nicholson’s turn in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). They even go so far as to suggest he may even be nominated posthumously for an Oscar for his efforts. Regular readers will know what a huge fan of the new Batman I am - but I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to be that good a performance. True, he was shaping up to be a very fine actor indeed and his death was a loss to cinema - but a comic-book creation? I think that’d be a first (unless of course you, the reader, know different).

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Wholly terrifying

In terms of that cold heart-thump, the scare that’s so sought after by strange people such as myself but so rarely found, David Fincher’s Se7en (1995) is probably as good as it got during the past decade or so, at least in the US, while Fabrice du Welz’s Belgian horror show, Calvaire (2004) kept up the European end.

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Terror vision

This is an astonishingly grim picture - quite simply, it redefines horror. Rarely (all too rarely) is a director courageous enough to transcend the clichés and clunkers associated with the genre, to remain true to his vision and offer audiences an opportunity to discover what a fear film can do, when it’s done right. The last example was Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - a tour de force which, despite its title and reputation, was actually short on blood and guts but very long on atmosphere, sweaty claustrophobia and ‘Oh-my-God-make-it-stop’ terror. Make no mistake - at this level, the horror film is simply out to get you. And Calvaire, which was the first feature from young Belgian director Fabrice du Welz makes Massacre look like a rural idyll.

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A thing of darkness…

With a storyline that still leaves audiences asking questions, John Carpenter’s terror and suspense tour de force, The Thing (1982), is undeniably one of the landmark horror films of the 20th century.

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