Film! |

Film!

Film is one of my main interests. I am constantly growing a collection of my favourite films which, perhaps you already know, consists mostly of horror films. Why? How did this morbid fetish for scream-queens and latex monsters come to grow within my mind?

The first planted seeds were King Kong and Jurassic Park. These two were, as far as I can remember, the first non-cartoon films I saw that displayed blood and dying people. I remember upon watching them, I was not very shocked, compared to my brothers. I saw King Kong when I was 5 or 6; my brothers were deeply disturbed by it, but I felt a curiosity that was mixed with fear and “wow”. Some scenes were of course scary, like the one where King Kong first appears, and when he slays a giant snake by tearing it to bloody shreds.

Jurassic Park.

When I saw Jurassic Park; I think it was 1 or 2 years after King Kong; I was not as scared, but even more fascinated. Plus, I loved dinosaurs back then, and Jurassic Park is more censored when it comes to killing. Therefore, it immediately became my favourite film and at the same time I felt a hunger for suspense and chasing scenes. But dinosaur films was not very common back then, and my search for suspense took me into the world of action. I started watching movies starring Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sean Claude Van Damme and Wesley Snipes. By this time I was about 7 or 8, and the older I got the more violent movies I got to see. But it was one late night that changed me…

Alien.

When I was just about 7 or 8 years old, and refused to go to bed, I sneak-peeked through the keyhole to the living room where my father was watching Se7en. Oops. After seeing the tortured, mangled guy nailed to his bed, gurgling and coughing as he tried to scream from pain, I immediately went to bed. The image of his face haunted my dreams for many nights. It was from that night that I started to watch more thrillers, and even more violent action films.

The Thing.

I started to stay up late, waiting for good thrillers, action movies and horror flickers. My taste for blood and violence grew and I was mainly interested in action like Demolition Man and Total Recall, and sci-fi horrors like Alien and The Thing. Somewhere around the age of 10-11, Peter Jackson’s early splatter films like Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles came into my life and nearly pushed away all the action and thriller movies, giving way for Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead; zombie movies and monster films with excessive violence and gore.

Shawshank Redemption.

It was during this period, which stretched from age 10 to 15, that I watched the most films in my life. Almost every day and night there was something on TV, and if not, I went with brothers and friends to the local shops and hired some.I watched a big variety of films, some Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, John p, Wes Craven and so on. Slashers (Halloween, Friday the 13th, Terror on Elm Street, Scream, Candyman) were among the most frequently watched films, and later in this period came the supernatural sub-genre of horror, among these were The Exorcist, The Ring, The Grudge and House on Haunted Hill.

Altered States.

On this path I have continued, though during these recent years I have been more open to other genres and films I could not even stand watching in my younger years, mostly older, silent films and artistic films. Film has always been a great source of inspiration to me, especially when it comes to painting and writing. Among the most influencing films I have seen lies The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Altered States, Edward Scissorhands and The Call of Cthulhu.

I hope that you now have gotten a deeper insight in one of my greatest interests, film, and how I came to fall in love with the horror genre, as well as an understanding for my devotion to film. And by the way my film collection is growing still!