the heebie jeebies

 

"What do you think is the scariest horror movie of all time?" wondered my cousin Yankee Joe apropos the scariest horror movie of all time.

"I don't really approve of horror movies," I mused cautiously.

"Why not?"

"The hack and slash ones may generate the behaviours they depict. The more subtle evocations of evil may give evil power over people. Generally speaking, as my dear old Dad put it many aeons ago when I was scaring myself witless with the Friday Night Horror on the BBC, I don't think those things help anyone's faith."

"How about Poltergeist?" insisted the unquiet American.

"I would have said that's more an effects movie than a horror. I think it was directed by Tobe Hooper who made the 1970s exploitation flick The Hills Have Eyes. But Steven Spielberg was involved as producer and some say he directed most of Poltergeist and merely had Tobe Hooper there as a sort of affectation. I have a hunch that the little girl who played one of the main roles met an early death in real life as did the girl who played her older sister."

"Well," said Joe, "I read a survey this week that said The Shining was the scariest film of all time."

"It's an eerie thing, I'll give you that," I said. "It's hasn't got a conventional narrative. But there's something about it. A little bit too close to the bone. I think it's one of those ones where I'd be wondering how the director Stanley Kubrick and the writer Stephen King knew so much about evil. I saw it when I was younger and was tremendously disappointed because I had been enthusiastic about Stephen King's writing and had hoped for a good old fashioned entertainment hunkered down in my seat rooting for the forces of good. Nowadays I wouldn't touch it with a forty foot barge pole."

"So you really think a horror movie can have a negative affect on people?" said Joe.

"I do," said I. " You know the horror actor Christopher Lee, star of The Devil Rides Out and sundry others that I wouldn't touch with a forty foot barge pole, was asked at a press conference in Dublin whether he had engaged in occult practices. Word of mouth was that he had. This was shortly before his death. The journalists and the audience were fawning on him and made a great laugh out of the question. But Christopher Lee answered it very seriously. He said that anyone who gets involved in black magic not only risks losing their sanity but their immortal soul."

"Would you watch any horror movie?"

"I choose not to feed my fears. But if John Carpenter's Halloween came on television I'd be saying to God: I'd really love to watch this, it would be a complete nostalgia trip enjoying Carpenter's story telling, his music, the actors' playing, and memories of my younger self being fascinated by the whole thing but I wouldn't watch it for a million pounds. Partly because of the sexualisation of murder as entertainment which is the moral flaw in all hack and slash films. But with Carpenter's the film is more than just graphic exploitation fare. It's not really scary. But there's enough faintly suggested evocations of something supernatural in it to make it more genuinely scary than the more recent gore fests which have been inspired by it."

"How about the Exorcist?"

"Wouldn't watch it if you paid me. I read the book when I was a kid and slept with the light on for twenty years."

"So you've no personal nominee for the scariest movie of all time?"

"On principle no.. But the first of the Omen films was an eerie piece of work. That''s worth an honorable mention. No hang on. I know what I'd nominate as the most scary film of all time. It's another Stephen King one. Salem's Lot. The two part version they made in 1979. Directed by ye aforementioned Tobe Hooper. It's a horror but it's entertainment driven and has some heart. David Soul was in it and Bonnie Bedelia  and the whole cast are excellent. James Mason and the kid particularly. I'd challenge anyone to watch that and not look over their shoulder once or twice. On the other hand I saw David Soul giving a presentation on it recently, and I couldn't escape the feeling that he had been somehow damaged by taking part in the production."