The Witching's Sour

Often derided as a lesser art form or discarded as mere childish fantasy, the horror story is perhaps one of the longest standing genres, from tall tales of some all-powerful unseen being setting fire to bushes and misguiding humans, through Hansel and Gretel to the latest remake of a sequel of a spin-off franchise.

Gasp! In terror! As the lone female goes into the dark cellar looking for her cat.
Shriek! As one teenager after another is torn limb from limb.
Munch! Your popcorn! As the ground level POV camera creeps towards the teenagers smoking spliffs in the park.
Faint! As the very fabric of your physical world is rent asunder.
Despair! As yet another meaningless and unimaginative teen slasher flick with stabs of comedy cuts into the cinemas.

Whether through blood-curdling jump-out-your seat shocks or slow simmering unease, horror films have always served as a way of confronting and experiencing emotions that in our day-to-day lives we would do all in our power to avoid. To actually live through Tobe Hooper's 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' would be to go insane. Likewise, to actually experience the metaphysical shifts of David Lynch's 'Lost Highway' would be to lose all faith in logic. One is no less of a horror movie than the other, and yet we walk away from these films safe, even if a little shaken.

Theories abound about why we would put ourselves through a traumatic experience such as 'Uzumaki' or 'The Beyond', most of which fall short. We do not watch these films for any kind of release; they generate fear rather than alleviate it. We do not watch these films out of a curiosity of demonic history or explanations - some of the most effective terror, such as 'Alien', are so precisely because of the lack of explanations. Whatever their roots or reasons, the horror genre allows directors, writers and special effects teams free reign, without the constraints of logic or pleasantness, and is therefore, in effect, the most liberated art form.

But this seems to have ceased to be the case. The recent resurgence of big hype-machine horror movies has come with a radical "dumbing down" - even the revered J-horror having fallen prey to formula. To spend Halloween at the cinemas is to sit through films and sequences you've already seen a hundred times. 'Saw III', 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning' and 'The Grudge 2' are all released for Halloween.

The only film that is not a sequel or a remake or a remake of a sequel is Bernard Rose's misguided and pretentious film-within-a-film, 'Snuff Movie'. Premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2005, it drew almost universal derision - in fact I'm I'm surprised it has found a release. It's a shame Jan Svankmajer's Edgar Allen Poe/Marquis de Sade hybrid, 'Sileni', has not found its way over in time for All Hallows Eve, although do look out for a special screening of Lon Chaney's 'Phantom of the Opera' at the Usher Hall, complete with live musical accompaniment.

But being too old to go trick-or-treating, Halloween does need to be spent in the dark, and while these films might not be original or challenging, in the right mood, on the right night, they will do the trick.