My most memorable movie viewing experiences #6...

Graduate and Beyond:

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005):
When – Summer 2005
Where – Home Video
Why – It was sunny outside, it was the middle of the day, and I was watching the flick on my computer on a relatively small screen – and yet despite the setting, Marshall’s ‘chicks with picks’ claustrophobic horror managed to creep me out and cause me to jump on several occasions. Even with further viewings on DVD it still manages to chill, which in the world of modern horror movies really a special achievement.


The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007):
When – 2008
Where – Home Video
Why – The titular sequence in Dominik’s luxurious western haunted me for days and days afterwards, but more than that, the entire film was a sumptuously shot slow-burn film with a superb soundtrack. A viewing just recently on DVD recaptured that same impression and I just absolutely loved it.


Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999):
When – January 2009
Where – Home Video
Why – I’d never watched Kubrick’s final film when it originally came out – at a time when I was busily devouring numerous titles from his back catalogue (repeatedly, in some cases) and indeed it took me a decade to finally get around to seeing this after getting the Director’s Series Stanley Kubrick 10-disc DVD box set. Kubrick’s films had long since become a once-in-a-blue-moon event, so it was nice to have this one that I still hadn’t seen – his final film no less – to devour and re-experience the uniqueness of Kubrick’s visions. It’s not perfect, and not his best, but the sense of occasion and the passionate attention to detail was something to behold in itself.


United 93 (Paul Greengrass, 2006):
When – Summer 2006
Where – Home Video
Why – Greengrass’ frenetic re-telling of the tragic fate which befell the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11th 2001 was a perfectly paced and horrifying affair. The tension and impending tragedy of the situation ratchets up with expert timing, until the final sequence in which the passengers storm the hijackers and attempt to regain control of the plane was nothing short of totally-and-physically arresting. Those last minutes of the film, right before the devastating cut-to-black was beyond an edge-of-my-seat experience, so much so that when the passengers first attacked the hijackers I literally leapt out of my chair, fist thrashing into the air, and exclaimed “get those bastards!” (or something to that effect). I can’t think of any film that I have ever seen that has had such a profound and physical effect upon me. Astonishing.


Martyrs (Pascal Laugier, 2008):
When – 2009
Where – Home Video
Why – It’s not a particularly common thing for a horror movie to properly creep me out – not just give me a shock jump – but to genuinely get inside my head and stay there like a nasty infestation. So decisive was the effect of watching this somewhat ‘existential torture’ horror flick, that I had trouble getting to sleep that night, and it remained lurking around in my mind for some time afterwards. Now and then a film will come along that will really get inside your head and trouble you and Martyrs was such a film.

My most memorable movie viewing experiences #5...

Uni Years:

The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941):
When – Autumn 2002
Where – Campus Screening Room
Why – My three years doing my degree in Film & Television Studies was a time when my eyes were opened to a whole host of films that I would have never watched beforehand, and one of the big new things for me was in the first semester of the first year on the Key Issues In Film Studies course when we had a print screening of the Bogart version of The Maltese Falcon. My mid-semester essay was to do with the style of the film, and I became a Bogart fan – consuming Casablanca (one of my all time favourite films, along with The Maltese Falcon), Key Largo, and The Big Sleep in quick succession in the following weeks – and as a result of this tale of Sam Spade, the 1940s has become one of my favourite periods of cinematic history.


Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998):
When – Mid-2000s
Where – Off-Campus Bedroom
Why – While I’d already seen the movie a handful of times since not long after its original release, it was during the Lucas & Spielberg course that I came to do an essay on the opening Omaha Beach sequence – a shot-by-shot breakdown in fact, and when you consider how many shots there are in that first 25 minute sequence, it was an arduous task. Every few seconds I’d be pausing the DVD – sat there in my cramped 6ft by 8ft bedroom – and writing down exactly what was happening on screen and how it would fit into my analysis. I’ve rarely studied a sequence in that much detail, and as a result producing that essay has stuck in my mind ever since.


E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982):
When – Mid-2000s
Where – Campus Screening Room
Why – Again during the Lucas & Spielberg course, one of the weeks focussed on E.T. – a film that I’d enjoyed as a kid, but for some reason had come to really quite dislike during my teenage years … I’m not entirely sure why, but I was so switched-off to the movie for some reason. Quite to my surprise then, was when we watched the movie together as a class, and I got totally invested in it. What’s more, it actually choked me up, and as a result my opinion of the movie (which had become bitter for no discernable reason) performed a total 180.


La Jetee (Chris Marker, 1962):
When – Mid-2000s
Where – Campus Screening Room
Why – During the Photography & The Arts course, on which I did an in-depth analysis of the visual language of Antonioni’s Blow-Up, a film which really struck me was La Jetee – the film which went on to inspire Twelve Monkeys. The music, the static visuals in their high contrast black and white brilliance, the dark and weird sci-fi plot – it all left a lasting impression.


Saw (James Wan, 2004):
When – 2004
Where – Off-Campus Bedroom
Why – It’s easy to forget now, as a result of annual sequels of diminishing quality, clarity and box office draw, that the original Saw was a grotesquely dark and brilliant indie horror flick that came like a bolt out of the blue. It was truly chilling in its approach to truly chilling subject matter; its violence was stunningly graphic (and not at all expected or old hat as what the sequels produced), and the big reveal at the end literally left my jaw slung low with shock – in fact that entire reveal, brilliant industrial score included (which still sends shivers down my spine to this day), haunted my mind for quite some time afterwards.


Duel (Steven Spielberg, 1971):
When – Mid-2000s
Where – Campus Seminar Room
Why – Less of a viewing of the movie, and more a group presentation of a theory regarding one particular sequence. Once again on the Lucas & Spielberg course, my group and I had drawn the latter’s stunningly gripping debut chase movie, and we proceeded to – jokingly – argue that the entire movie was an allegory for male rape. We argued (with the rest of the class in on the joke, but not the lecturer, whose Modus Operandi for reading movies consistently skewed towards more Freudian territory) that the great big brute of a truck was raping the effeminate little red car and that it was all to do with sexual dominance in the male species.

Now, there is an argument that can be made for such a reading, or part of such a reading – and we were half-serious about it – but it was this deliberate, joking escalation of the theory into perverse territory that has become one of my fondest memories of film school. In fact the lecturer rather liked our theory!


Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess, 2004):
When – Spring 2005
Where – Off-Campus Living Room
Why – During the spring semester of our final year at university, tensions and divisions were beginning to present themselves within our group of four in our off-campus house. Personally I found the final six months of university to be quite a stressful time for various reasons, and after a few blow-outs amongst the group, we needed something to regain the sense of fun and unity that had summed up the first two years of our time at uni.

That movie was Napoleon Dynamite and it was introduced to us all by one housemate who was quite taken with it. We sat down to watch it – a background tension in the air – and within twenty minutes we were all laughing uproariously at the quirky indie-com. The movie became the last big thing that we as a house were all about, and we watched it many times – practically quoting the script verbatim as it would play, and not even when we were watching it, just during a normal day. It was such a thing of the moment, for me at least, that I’ve not yet re-watched the movie since – only the odd moment here or there when it’s been on television – however, when I do, I’m sure it’ll take me vividly right back to those final weeks of university when everything got back on track in the house and we all got that sense of fun back.

My most memorable movie viewing experiences #4...

Formative Years - Part Two:

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Tony Randel, 1988):
When – Late 1990s/Early 2000s
Where – Television
Why – Having seen the first movie on a grubby dubbed copy, I recorded the second some time later from the TV, and proceeded to begin watching it whilst eating my lunch. The reason this viewing is memorable is that when it got to the scene where a mental patient believes her skin is scrawling with maggots – and we see her arms from her perspective to be doing just that – I actually had to turn it off in order to continue eating. That’s the only time – so far – that that has happened.


Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974):
When – Early 2000s
Where – Television
Why – One shot specifically, on my first viewing of the early slasher flick, wigged me out – namely the wide open eye staring through the gap in the door without the person on the other side knowing. One time when I was a kid I saw a movie on TV – a ghost story type affair – and at one point a man was pushed down a flight of stars and died when he struck the bottom, and they cut to an extreme close up of his wide open eyes. It freaked me out as a kid, and that discomfort with wide open eyes has stuck with me – so that particularly shot in Black Christmas gave me the creeps big style.


Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991):
When – Late 1990s
Where – Television/Home Video
Why – I first saw it on the BBC (and it was cut for violence and language), and I foolishly taped over my VHS recording of that broadcast, and no sooner had I done so than I wanted to see it again. It never showed on TV again and eventually, after a long time of waiting, I got it on video and was surprised to see that it was unlike the movie I was used to – namely it was uncut. Finding T2 on video became a mini mission at the time, like some sort of elusive Holy Grail, so when I finally got my mits on it again it was like a big old slice of victory cake.


A Nightmare on Elm Street 1 & 3 (Wes Craven, 1984 & Chuck Russell, 1987):
When – Late 1990s
Where – Home Video
Why – Before I was allowed to watch full-on horror movies at home (I remember being disallowed from watching the first movie when it showed on Channel 4), I got to see the first and third movie over at a friend’s house one night, and it was an illicit thrill to be watching this horror movie I’d heard so much about in the dark. Sneaking around watching horror movies you weren’t allowed to occur for a finite time, and it was a time that certainly made a lasting impression.

Although it wasn’t always horror movies – indeed one of the best examples of a forbidden movie fruit for a good while was the at-the-time-controversial Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction – the former for its tabloid-baiting violence, and the latter for its tabloid-baiting drug use. Whether it was watched on television, or dubbed from a friend’s dub, watching certain movies at a certain point in my life was a secretive thing – movies perceived to be too violent, or too scary, or a bad influence – but it’s just the sort of thing that young teenage boys do. You get bragging rights, and you ascend to the ‘seen it’ club for that flick, and it’s a style of movie watching that so epitomises being a teenager.


The Fog (John Carpenter, 1980):
When – Late 1990s/Early-and-Late 2000s
Where – Home Video
Why – On a school art trip to London, in the time we were afforded afterwards to go hunting around the capital, we stopped in at the huge HMV and – at the age of 14 – bought this 15 rated John Carpenter horror flick. It’s kind of daft and lame now, but at the time it was a thrill to ‘trick the system’ and pass for a year older than I was. However I didn’t much care for the movie on my first watch – I found it slow and far from explicit – but then I rediscovered it several years later and I thought it was genuinely creepy, and a fantastically tense ghost-story-style tale.


The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez, 1999):
When – 1999/2000
Where – Video Rental
Why – At the time the Internet wasn’t in widespread use, and I certainly hadn’t had much experience of the web, so word of a movie such as this was spread person-to-person. Was it real? Many people believed so, although I was only half-convinced … if it really was real, and people had really died, how would they be allowed to release it in cinemas and home video, and create a line of merchandise for it? Regardless, that final sequence proved to be the scariest part of the flick for me. It’s long since been absorbed by the popular culture, but at the time there was a special air about this indie shocker.


Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1976):
When – 1999
Where – Home Video
Why – On holiday in Edinburgh in the summer of 1999, we stopped into HMV and three videos were bought for me (being that I was underage, not that the wise till jockey cared – indeed he commended my taste) – those videos were Graveyard Shift, Evil Ed, and David Lynch’s bizarre debut. I’d never seen a Lynch movie before and its sheer power (in terms of the weird and the disturbing) freaked me out too much. As a result I was only able to watch the movie in portions of 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes – with long gaps in between – it probably took me a good several weeks/few months to see the entire movie, and I’ve not seen it since … but I have been meaning to. Did it leave an impression? You bet it did.


The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982):
When – Mid 1990s and beyond
Where – Television
Why – I was about 10 years old when I first saw John Carpenter’s sci-horror-gore-fest, and initially it fascinated me for the special make up effects. However, as time has gone by and I’ve grown up, the themes of isolation and paranoia have really captured my imagination and built up into a genuine mild fear of the movie. It has become an intimidating flick – just like the equally superior Se7en – that is one of my all-time favourites, but one that sits on the shelf daring me to watch it. When I finally do watch it from time-to-time it’s never quite as horrifying as my mind has led me to believe since my last viewing, but nevertheless, the expertly crafted sense of isolation and paranoia linger aggressively for days afterwards.

My most memorable movie viewing experiences #3...

Formative Years – Part One:

The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, 1981):
When – 1998
Where – Home Video
Why – After school one day we stopped in at the local post office, and for the previous few weeks they had had a bargain bin for videos, £5 a pop. I’d already nabbed a number from there, but having just that week heard about Sam Raimi’s gruesome horror from friends (who summed it up somewhat dismissively as “pencil stabbing and oozing mashed potato”), I knew that it was in fact going to be something special.

Still decidedly too young to buy it for myself, my Mum and the shop girl joked about how neither of them would watch it in a million years as it was bought for me, and then away home. Initially it was a bit slow, but as soon as the gore starting flying my jaw hit the floor – so as you can imagine, the final act promptly inspired me to flip my lid. At the time it was the goriest film I’d ever seen, and at that point in time the BBFC hadn’t entered its post-Ferman age, so this copy was the rather butchered version borne out of the ‘Video Nasty’ era (this being named “the #1 nasty”) – but still, it became an all-time favourite, and an inspiration.


The George A. Romero Undead Saga (George A. Romero, 1968, 1978, 1985, 2005, 2007, 2009):
When – 1998, 1999, 2005, 2007, 2010
Where – Home Video/Multiplex Cinema
Why – in May 1997 I bought a copy of SFX magazine during a school trip because in the corner of the front cover I saw the name “George A. Romero”, a name which I’d heard was synonymous with the zombie genre – a genre that had recently become of interest to me, despite having never really seen any zombie movies before. That article, in connection with the release of the Cannes Cut (distributed incorrectly as the “Director’s Cut”) on home video by BMG, made me ravenous about seeing Dawn of the Dead. Initially however, it eluded me, for what seemed like forever.

However, in a local Woolworths I came across a copy of Day of the Dead (a couple of fascinated images from which appeared in the aforementioned SFX article) for £5.99 – so I snatched it up (or rather, it was bought for me, as I was still an early teen at this point) and hurried home to check it out. Having only recently been awed by the gory delights of The Evil Dead, I was soon astounded by the Tom Savini’s make-up effects. It blew my mind.

Fast forward a bit and we have Night of the Living Dead, and Dawn of the Dead. The former was a good flick from the get-go (a friend and I even did a soft toy spoof version, a la The Adam & Joe Show), but it was the latter that stunned me silent. I remember putting the video on, sitting down, and then 2 hours and 20 minutes later I was left, still on the edge of my seat, jaw literally agape, as the sound of the clock bell echoed into nothingness. It became, and remains, my all-time number one favourite movie.

Fast forward again to the release of Land of the Dead – my first Romero flick in the cinema, and a zombie one to-boot. I watched it with a fellow Romero fan, and an audience who was likewise in-tune with what was happening on-screen … except for the trio who clearly couldn’t get in to see Guy Ritchie’s new film (Revolver), who promptly fled once the innards really started to fly.

A couple of years later and there I was, the only time I’ve been to the cinema alone, seeing Diary of the Dead. It was me, a couple, and one other guy who sodded off part-way in (maybe he worked there, I don’t know). The lens dipped whilst the projectionist was away, and while I said that I loved it, deep down I was disappointed by it. My relationship with Diary has been all over the place ever since.

Finally we come to Survival – not a memorable viewing, but I enjoyed finally getting to see it, even if it was direct-to-DVD here in the UK. It’s not perfect, but I dig it.


The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974):
When - 1999
Where – Home Video
Why – 1999 was a decisive time in my formative years, as the British Board of Film Classification entered a new era when James Ferman left, and a whole slew of previously banned films were finally released and went straight onto the home video market. In this instance a friend had rented it, dubbed it, and then I dubbed his dub – so I had this third generation copy (or you could argue fourth generation what with the original video having to be sourced en mass, however that’s done) and I remember eating dinner whilst watching the flick – the picture and audio were fudgy, being a dub-of-a-dub, but it only served to make the experience of first seeing this notorious video nasty all the more illicitly thrilling.


Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980):
When - Late 1990s/Early 2000s
Where – Home Video/Television
Why – Similar to Chainsaw Massacre, my first copy of Friday 13th was a dub-of-a-dub, and so the fudgy visuals and audio again served the illicit thrill of watching this landmark slasher flick. Furthermore, a few years later, a group of us all sat down to watch it at a house party – and one of the girls was terrified of horror films – so on more than one occasion, including the famous final jump, the more devious-minded of us would sneak up behind her and scare the bejesus out of her.

The rest of the flicks I would see in a somewhat scattered pattern on home video and television, and as close as I can figure it the order went something like this – 1,2,3,4,8,9,6,7,10,5 … although I can’t remember exactly.


A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971):
When – 1999/2000
Where – Home Video
Why – Of all the films from my formative years, Kubrick’s balletic tale of ultra violence was one of the most influential – and it was certainly the most influential of my final year of High School. It was one of the most iconic of the video nasties era – and it hadn’t even been banned (it was removed in the UK by Kubrick himself after so-called copycat incidents occurred) – so with the combination of a change of leadership at the BBFC, and the death of Kubrick himself, his self-imposed ban was lifted.

I saw the movie, read the book and listened to the soundtrack repeatedly. It was so influential in fact that the exam project for my GCSE 2D Art was directly inspired by it utilising a mixture of adapted images from it, and images referencing it.


The Fly II (Chris Walas, 1989):
When – 1993/1994
Where – Television
Why – At age 9 I began to watch horror movies, albeit ones that were as much science fiction as they were horror, and the sequel to David Cronenberg’s ultimate body horror remake was one of those introductory movies. Certain scenes gave me a jump – such as the mangled, grotesque dog lunging out of the darkness – and certain scenes gave me reason to repeatedly rewind and review (frame by frame) to examine how the special effect worked – such as the guard who gets crushed by an elevator.

What was more memorable though was my Dad, quite rightly, making sure that the difference between reality and fiction was concrete – speaking of the guy crushed by an elevator, I remember him saying something along the lines of ‘if that character was real he’d have a wife and kids, and someone would have to tell them he was dead’ – I kind of chuckle about it now, but it was a subtle way to just re-affirm that a movie is just a movie, and horrific things happen in the real world that actually have to be dealt with.


Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979):
When – 1993/1994
Where – Television
Why – Along with The Fly 2, this was one of the first horror movies (also part sci-fi) that I ever watched, at the tender age of 9. At the time I found it a bit dull, I must confess, what with the long takes creeping around the Nostromo, and the subtle use of the titular xenomorph itself – however it implanted itself into my mind, and I now consider it a true classic.


Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978):
When – Mid-to-Late 1990s
Where – Television
Why – While I’d already started to watch adult oriented movies like Alien, The Fly 2, and the Terminator movies, I hadn’t gotten into (or, really, been allowed to get into) proper horror movies – and in this case, Carpenter’s seminal slasher. I remember watching this one weekend morning with the door closed, the sound turned down really low and with my finger hovering nervously over the ‘STOP’ button.

Similar to Alien, at the time I considered it a bit dull and light on the violence, but also like Alien I quickly came to view it as a true classic. However, it was the illicit thrill of watching this taboo horror flick that really stuck in my mind.

My most memorable movie viewing experiences #2...

Childhood Favourites:

Ghostbusters 1 & 2 (Ivan Reitman, 1984, 1989):
When – Late 1980s/1990/Early 2000s
Where – Television/Home Video
Why – Ghostbusters was my entire world in my earliest years. The movies, particularly the first, the spin-off cartoon The Real Ghostbusters, and a whole array of toys (including the Proton Pack, which was a must-have kids toy for Christmas – my Dad successfully acquired one for me FYI) … suffice to say, bustin' ghosts was a big deal.

I just thought the Ghostbusters were the coolest guys on the planet, and I would repeatedly watch the show and the movies. Then when I moved into my teenage years I got wrapped up in a whole bunch of other movies and it wasn’t until my second or third year at university that I rediscovered the two flicks on DVD and it was a fantastic re-introduction to what was still a childhood favourite in my mind.

This time however, at the age of 20/21, I suddenly understood all the adult jokes and comedy, and it was like watching a whole new movie, but at the same time as watching one which I knew so well it was like it was in my bones. Sound effects, musical cues, lines of dialogue, the pacing of the editing etc – so ingrained in my memory from repeated childhood viewings. What’s more it was my first chance to see the flicks in their original aspect ratio – as a child I had no understanding of the horror that is Pan & Scan, and in the VHS era everything was Pan & Scanned.


Back to the Future trilogy (Robert Zemeckis, 1985, 1989, 1990):
When – Late 1980s/Early 1990s/Early 2000s/2010
Where – Television/Home Video/Cinema
Why – Like the Ghostbusters, I thought Marty McFly was one of the coolest guys on the planet – but throw in a time travelling DeLorean (I was, like most boys, fascinated with cars) and a tip-top script and they had my attention. I was only a year old when the first movie came out, so it wasn’t until it was shown on television/home video that I got to see it. Then the back-to-back sequels came out, but I can’t remember if I saw the second one on video or at the cinema. However, one of my earliest cinema-going memories was seeing the third film on the big screen.

Similar to Ghostbusters, a number of years went by without seeing any of them, and so I rediscovered them on the 3-disc DVD box set several years ago. Yet again it was like no time had passed, and thanks to multiple childhood viewings, the dialogue, sound effects, music, and everything in-between was as fresh in my memory as it had been a good fifteen years prior.

Finally, with the 25th anniversary of the first movie, I got to see the original flick on the big screen - and even though I'd seen it dozens of times, it was a superb experience, which I wrote about at-length here: http://deadshed.blogspot.com/2010/10/back-to-future-25th-anniversary.html


Short Circuit 1 & 2 (John Badham, Kenneth Johnson, 1986, 1988):
When – Late 1980s/Early 1990s/Early 2000s
Where – Television/Home Video
Why – As far as I was concerned as a kid, Johnny Five was alive, and being a small boy I was fascinated by robots. Looking back on the films today, as the Nostalgia Critic has done, there are some questionable elements to the films, but I guess it was a more innocent time - and as a kid, nothing about the flick was questionable.

Yet again, fast forward to my second or third year at university and I rediscovered both films on DVD, and once again my memory of them was so strong that I could anticipate the sound effects, music cues, pace of the editing and so on. My love of these two movies came flooding back, from the sense of wonder of the first film, to the final act of the second movie which packs two memorable punches - Five's attack, and Five's capturing of the bad guy. What's more I got to see them in their original aspect ratio at long last, which is particularly important for the first film, which has been dreadfully Pan & Scanned in the past (a recent showing on Channel 5 was quite possibly the most horrendous Pan & Scan job I've ever seen).


Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993):
When – 1993/2010
Where – Multiplex Cinema
Why – In the summer of 1993 the movie to see was Jurassic Park. I went crazy for this movie, looking forward to the weekend matinee showing with such anticipation it was like an early Christmas. Then there we all were, in the darkened cinema, watching dinosaurs come to life – at the time the CGI was like nothing we’d seen before and was truly a marvel to behold – but aside from the fantastic effects (both CG and practical), it was Spielberg doing what he does best. The pacing is ideal and the action sequences are tense and impressive, but even more than that the characters were interesting.

That summer was all about Jurassic Park; it was without a doubt a phenomenon. I read the kid’s version of the book, the comic book run, got the making-of book, and went nuts for it on video. Then, yet again, I didn’t see it for many years until 2010 when I rediscovered it on Sky Movies. The movie was still fresh, still tense, still exciting, and the assured pacing remained impressive – more-so now that I’m of an age (and film education background) that I can seriously appreciate just how good the movie is and how it holds up so well. It’s amazing to think that come 2013 it’ll be twenty years old.


Batteries Not Included (Matthew Robbins, 1987):
When – Late 1980s
Where – Television/Home Video
Why – like with Short Circuit, I was fascinated by robots (in this case robot space aliens that recycle scrap metal and feed on electricity), but it was also the spectacle of this crumbling old apartment building that really captured my imagination. However, the sequence that truly fascinated me was, perhaps oddly, when the building burns down. It was a thrilling experience to see that, and – weirdly – it became a little bit of a obsession with me. I would draw versions of that sequence over and over in my drawing books as a kid, not that I was some kind of arsonist-in-waiting, but it was the spectacle of that sequence that really grabbed my attention.

Looking back I think that that sequence, among other favourite moments from the movies listed here, that helped plant the seed in my mind that filmmaking was what I wanted to do in life – something that I wouldn’t finally realise and figure out until I was 18.


The Money Pit (Richard Benjamin, 1986):
When – Late 1980s
Where – Television/Home Video
Why – I think the unrequited Architect in me was drawn most to this movie (the same part of me which is drawn to Channel 4’s Grand Designs), and I became fascinated with this crumbling old mansion (particularly the collapse of the staircase). It’s funny how certain things can grab you as a child, and this was one of those cases – I wasn’t fussed about the plot (I'd frequently fast forward to the point where they'd arrive at the house), I was just interested in Tom Hanks’ trials and tribulations with this unmitigated disaster of a fixer-upper.

It's still a fond favourite of mine, even if it was a bit of an 80's rip-off of Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (H.C. Potter, 1948), and it always manages to transport me back to the TV room in the first house I lived at ... so more of a personal favourite than a critical favourite, but so what, eh?

My most memorable movie viewing experiences #1...

Best Silver Screen Experiences:

Dog Soldiers (Neil Marshall, 2002):
When – Summer 2002
Where – The Savoy Theatre, a small independent theatre.
Why – not only was it a thoroughly enjoyable werewolf flick, and Neil Marshall’s debut, but it spooked us so much that on the way home we were all creeped out by what could be out there in the darkness of the woods and fields all around us.

Sunshine (Danny Boyle, 2007):
When – Spring 2007
Where – Cineworld Multiplex
Why – Danny Boyle’s sci-fi actioner was so well shot, edited and scored that I felt truly moved by the whole experience of seeing it. Rarely have I literally been gripped to my seat when watching a movie, my heart-beating faster and faster during certain tense sequences (such as mending the sun shield). The flick’s physical impact upon me as a viewer was what really cemented Sunshine in my mind as a great cinema experience.

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008):
When – July 2008
Where – Cineworld Multiplex
Why – I’d rather enjoyed Batman Begins, but Nolan’s all-conquering sequel was the event of 2008. A friend and I went along to a morning showing, and while he preferred Iron Man, I got totally swept up in it all. The time flew by for me, so involved was I in the twists and turns of the tale, but the moment that really stuck in my mind was when during one sequence an entire articulated truck does a front flip into the air and, several rows behind us, a young boy screamed out “WOW!” with genuine awe and wonder. It summed up what I thought of the movie, and it made me smile just hearing such an enthused reaction.

The Pit and the Pendulum (Roger Corman, 1961):
When – November 2006
Where – The Cube Microplex, Bristol
Why – in 2006 I went to the Bristol Bloodbath Film Festival (my short film VHS was being shown as part of a series of indie shorts), and the first film on the schedule was this Roger Corman flick. I’d never seen it, nor many Vincent Price roles, before and I really quite enjoyed it. However, what made this a memorable screening was the print itself – here we are sat in a half-remodelled independent theatre somewhere in the depths of Bristol, and the print is rough, gritty and raw. It broke down entirely two or three times, the reel got jammed, and even when running just fine it was full of damage. It was still certainly watchable, but this particular viewing just had so much character and charm, and it reminded me of some of the screenings we’d have at Univeristy of restored prints. It felt like a real grindhouse experience.

Boy Meets Girl (Ray Brady, 1994):
When – November 2006
Where – The Cube Microplex, Bristol
Why – again at the 2006 Bristol Bloodbath Film Festival, this was the third film on the schedule the day that I attended (which, if I remember correctly, was Saturday the 26th). Even with short breaks between films, it was this third one in a row – one with its own history of controversy and moral panic around it, and one which is undeniably brutal on the viewer – that really drained me. I began to feel like I was experiencing the Ludovico Technique, and was really quite glad when we had a break afterwards. It’s a good movie, and a tough movie, but it was even tougher in the circumstances in which I viewed it.

Drag Me To Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009):
When – 31st May 2009
Where – Cineworld Multiplex
Why – so often on documentaries and featurettes about classic horror films have I heard statements along the lines of “the audience just went nuts, everybody was screaming!”, and I was beginning to wonder if this was just filmmaker hyperbole. Fast forward to the lads and I viewing Sam Raimi's return to the horror genre, and what became quite possibly my all-time favourite cinema-going experience as the entire audience bucked and weaved in their seats as the tension and shocks worked their full fun-house magic upon them (and us). The audience was all in it together, chuckling at isolated mutterings of tense desperation, and laughing at themselves after a good scare. As I’d said before, I'd thought that these sort of audience reactions were essentially hyperbole by filmmakers on retrospective documentaries, but with this film I experienced exactly that kind of atmosphere for myself – and it was fantastic.

Avatar 3D (James Cameron, 2009):
When – 20th December 2009
Where – Cineworld Multiplex
Why – say what you like about James Cameron’s block busting eco-flick event-of-the-year about 10ft tall blue alien cats, I rather enjoyed it, and what’s more I enjoyed the spectacle of the event itself. I’d never seen a movie in 3D before, let alone this new fangled “it actually works” 3D, and so – with the theatre packed with people – we all got thoroughly stuck into the visual wonder of the 3D effect, and the fully realised world of Cameron’s Pandora. 3D is still an imperfect gimmick, but for the duration we were all transported to Pandora.

GoldenEye (Martin Campbell, 1995):
When – November 1995
Where – The Savoy Theatre
Why – I’ve never really gotten into the James Bond movies before Pierce Brosnan’s debut as the gadget-carrying, heavy drinking, shag machine secret agent, but I’ve seen all of them after (and including) GoldenEye. I went to see it with my Dad at the same small independent theatre where I saw Dog Soldiers (and several other flicks), but at the time it had recently re-opened. The décor was unfinished and the heating wasn’t working, but there I was as an 11 year-old, just me and my Dad, enjoying the hell out of it.

The Matrix (The Wachowski Brothers, 1999):
When – June 1999
Where – The Savoy Theatre
Why – once again at the same small independent theatre, now in my mid-teens, and just me and my Dad, sat on the stiff seats with my jaw on the floor as I witnessed the movie event of that year. We were both blown away. It was just awesome, 'nuff said.