Casting Back to the Start #4

I have never been one to do things conventionally. I always do it helter skelter, often circling the outside with only stabbings toward the centre as necessary, or paranoidally felt as necessary without any real external cause, until its time to plumb those depths. I certainly never followed any specific progression, thematically or chronologically. The same is true of when I watched horror movies. As I said last time I saw “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3” before I saw the first one.

In the 80's I saw the likes of “Xtro”, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3”--then 1 then 2 then the others in whatever order they came out in--and the “Poltergeist” movies, “Hellraiser” 1 and maybe 2, “Night of Living Dead”, “The Howling” and other less notables. In the 90's I saw “Carrie”, “Children of the Corn”, the “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” films in order--up to whatever the last ones were each that came out in that decade--also “Evil Dead” and it's sequels, “Dawn of the Dead” and “Day of the Dead”, “The Exorcist” and the three “Scanners” movies. It wasn't until the new millennium that I saw “Last House on the Left”, “Candyman”, “The Hills Have Eyes”, “Sleepaway Camp”, the “Leprechaun” movies, and a decent copy of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre that wasn't nothing but moving black screens and screaming for most of the second half.

So, what effect did this have on the way I approach things? I don't know. I can guess it means that sometimes I reinvent the wheel. It means I had to come up with the nastier stuff I've come up with all on my own, and to see later that I haven't pushed many boundaries too far. There's been a lot of vindication as far as that goes. “See my stuff isn't so bad when such and such was filmed years ago.“

Speaking of which, they sure used to get away with a lot in the seventies and early eighties that they couldn't nowadays. I honestly don't know they got away with some of the schtick they pulled. PCness and the current climate of censorship suck mightily. Yet at the same time it appears torture films have made a huge comeback, or maybe it's only a ruse or misdirection. They claim to have the sick goods but how many of them really do? I haven't gotten around to seeing “Saw” or its sequel, not to mention it only sounds middling worth it to see “Hostel” given once you've seen certain seminal films such grotesquerie seems pointless and redundant. Who knows, maybe eventually I'll see it.

Mood: hopeful.
Music: Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant) by Twisted Sister and Run for Cover by Quiet Riot.

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