THE PIT AND THE PENDULOUS

Oh, put them away, Ingrid...

Always on the lookout for conspiracy, I see that my local Tesco, in a bid to get shot of their unsold pumpkins, had cut all their locally grown turnips in half. They were out of apples too, which can mean only one thing. Halloween.

I read somewhere that the Halloween business has grown tenfold in the UK in the last five years. Either this proves the power of marketing or the punters really want to buy the toxic iced cakes in Greggs, the ones with wee plastic spiders. Is there really an appetite for all things scary? Well, after googling the words Scottish Horror Film, I came across a site that deserves a mention -

lbhfs.proboards18.com/index.cgi

This is the home of the Low Budget Horror Film Society. I say good luck to them. Making films is akin to having the blood drained from your body drip by drip anyway, so why not make a horror? There are academic types who’ll argue that in troubled times – of war, economic depression, low social morale – the horror genre always enjoys a resurgence.

From Murnau to Wes Craven, we can’t get enough of the stuff. On any given week down the multiplex, you’ll always find a few horrors on the list. For instance, playing this week at Cineworld Renfrew Street you’ll find The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Grudge 2 and Saw III, all sequels and all coining it in. You’ll also find A Good Year, but we’re talking horror here, not horrible.

You’d think here in Scotland, we’d be knocking these out. After all, we’ve got the locations, from skanky suburban nightmare (say, Sighthill) to dark closes and creepy castles. We’ve also got some of the ugliest mugs – think of the saving on prosthetics. Sadly what we don’t have is a film agency that takes the genre seriously. This is in spite of the fact that horror can be made on monkey nuts, like Blair Witch, that you can get away with not having ‘stars’ in your cast and that like comedy, horror is one of the highest grossing genres on the planet.

What’s stopping us?

Maybe it’s just plain snobbery. A lot of filmmakers turn up their noses at the idea of making horrors because you can’t win awards with them. But when times get rough and when the mortgage is in arrears even quoted directors like Marc Evans and Danny Boyle can find it in themselves to make them, justifying it with statements about the psychological needs of the characters. Hell, the punters just enjoy a good fright.

On that score, horror films make the best date movies. Even when they’re not scared, girls can use them as an excuse to grab a tight hold of the boy’s bits. And when you’re sitting in the dark, we all know how much neck biting goes on. If you don't believe me, check the number of people wearing polo necks tomorrow to hide the nooky badges. Which is no bad thing. Me, I can’t think of a better way to spend a wet Tuesday night in Paisley. And at least when you’re out at the pictures, you can avoid all those wee muggers in bin bags turning up at your door looking for money with menaces.