scarred
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 63
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Post by scarred on Apr 10, 2017 14:56:36 GMT
Hi, I'm one of the writers of the book. Many thanks to those of you who've bought it and I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed writing it. If any of you have particular suggestions for the 80s book let me know! Would love to help, but the problem is, if you were a 'seventies kid, short of becoming a teacher, parent or Jimmy Saville, you were unlikely to have any business hanging around in school playgrounds the following decade, so you may need an entire new raft of contributors for Scarred For Life: Vol 2. I'm guessing in place of the previous decade's Skinhead & NEL horrors, copies of the critically maligned Hamlyn slashers and the second wave of 'When Animals attack!' atrocities may have exchanged hands behind the bogshed, though perhaps '80 kids had already progressed to swapping video nasties over paperbacks? Haha. As the afterword in the book says, we're approaching the Eighties from the point of view of being teenagers with a bit more awareness of the world around us and the first tentative steps into dating. So it utterly sucks that we always seemed on the brink of nuclear annihilation and AIDS reared its ugly head. Plus with bleak job prospects we're going to be looking at the glut of dole dramas. Think of the Seventies as being Grange Hill and the Eighties as being the Tucker's Luck.
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Post by rawlinson on Apr 10, 2017 23:21:37 GMT
Speaking as a child of the 80s (Born in 79), one of the defining horror influences was actually through the ubiquity of video rental shops. The cardboard stands, posters and video box art, not to mention the free magazines they'd give out with pictures of films to come, really helped sell the slasher film series that made up so much of the decade. The level of advertising around them combined with how easy it was to actually get copies of dodgy quality videos meant they became iconic for myself and all my friends who liked horror. When it comes to British work, I can't be the only child to have been terrified by When the Wind Blows? Also, no doubt these will already be covered (Haven't reached the comics section in vol 1 yet so not sure if there's a reference), but the Scream comics were so important.
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scarred
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 63
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Post by scarred on Apr 10, 2017 23:51:43 GMT
Speaking as a child of the 80s (Born in 79), one of the defining horror influences was actually through the ubiquity of video rental shops. The cardboard stands, posters and video box art, not to mention the free magazines they'd give out with pictures of films to come, really helped sell the slasher film series that made up so much of the decade. The level of advertising around them combined with how easy it was to actually get copies of dodgy quality videos meant they became iconic for myself and all my friends who liked horror. When it comes to British work, I can't be the only child to have been terrified by When the Wind Blows? Also, no doubt these will already be covered (Haven't reached the comics section in vol 1 yet so not sure if there's a reference), but the Scream comics were so important. The dodgy video thing is important and Ste (Brotherstone) has a great anecdote about tracking down a mail order horror video guy to the street next to his. For me (I'm Dave) my Eighties video watching was less horror based but often inspired by the video rental shop guy having a large depository of tapes of dubious legality (OK, pirate videos) under the counter. If you rented enough videos you somehow ended up on the trusted list and got access to the good stuff eg Return of the Jedi when it was still in the cinema. My fondest memories of Return of the Jedi are the almost surgical precision with which I had to alter the tracking on my dodgy VHS copy. When the wind blows is definitely in 80s volume.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 11, 2017 20:38:08 GMT
As the afterword in the book says, we're approaching the Eighties from the point of view of being teenagers with a bit more awareness of the world around us and the first tentative steps into dating. So it utterly sucks that we always seemed on the brink of nuclear annihilation and AIDS reared its ugly head. Plus with bleak job prospects we're going to be looking at the glut of dole dramas. Thanks so much for the reminder. Had to stick my head in Smash Hits 1980-82 stash to cheer myself up.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 11, 2017 23:49:06 GMT
These might do you. Eighties Gold - The Hamlyn 'Nasties' & Friends. Some established horror authors didn't like them very much ....
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scarred
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 63
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Post by scarred on Apr 12, 2017 7:18:28 GMT
They look absolutely fantastic, thank you.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 12, 2017 8:57:34 GMT
They look absolutely fantastic, thank you. You are very welcome Dave. Wouldn't know if they shared the same playground popularity of the previous decade's NEL's (Shaun Hutson's early novels may have) - perhaps friend Rawlinson can help? The Hamlyn's proliferated through to around 1985. Several are fuelled by *cough* very real ecological concerns (John Halkin's magnificent Slither, Squelch, and Slime loose-trilogy: the entire 'when insects attack' output of Richard Lewis, etc. etc.). Inevitably, the full-on cover imagery sometimes promises more by way of ultra-violence and bad sex than the contents deliver, but you've bought them by then so job done. Many grown ups (including members of the horror literati) disliked the chainsaw & slime sub-genre as a hideous blot on a noble tradition or some such drivel, so that obviously goes in their favour. Anyway, if you fancy further examples, just give us a shout. Are Steve & yourself considering a Vol III or are you putting a ceiling on it at 1989?
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scarred
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 63
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Post by scarred on Apr 12, 2017 9:33:04 GMT
Sorry, weird to read Ste called Steve, nobody that I know ever calls him Steve! The plan is to stop at 1989 since, in the 1990s, we weren't really at the mercy of popular culture in the same way as when we were children when, at least in my case, the entire world was that spot on the carpet in front of the fire and that 24 inch tv screen in the corner of the room. Going forward we've discussed (briefly) the idea of a series of books called "Scarred by...." with a greater focus on one particular thing. And as for further examples, the more the merrier.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 12, 2017 9:52:08 GMT
Ste it is then (please give him my regards). Must admit, I far prefer the prospect of Scarred For specials over a 90's volume. Will try sort some more likely Hamlyn & Co candidates this evening. In meantime, Mary Danby's Nightmares anthologies (1983-1985) are worth considering. As with all the best supernatural/ horror stories "for children" these set out to scare the living daylights out of their target audience rather than talk down to them like they're mentally subnormal.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Apr 12, 2017 14:07:18 GMT
The main 80s horror I'd love to revisit is a short film shown on Channel 4 titled 'The Gourmet', written by Kazuo Ishiguro and starring Charles Gray as a jaded, wealthy gastronome who has sampled every delicacy on earth and now seeks something not quite so earthly. I saw it once in around 1986 and it has never been repeated, released on video or dvd, or cropped up online anywhere. In fact most online searches find other people also wondering how they can see it again. The script was published in an edition of 'Granta', but the film itself seems to have slipped into limbo somewhere along the lines.
I'm sure most of these will have been considered already, but other 80s subjects worth a look would be the BBC's 'scary Jackanory' series 'Spinechillers' and 'Classic Ghost Stories', and possibly weird channel 4 sitcom 'They Came From Somewhere Else', featuring aliens, puking robots, a Donald Sutherland look-alike and 'Don't Look Now' references. Oh, and disturning drama series like 'Brond' (Stratford Johns, John Hannah, James Cosmo) and 'Dead Head' (Denis Lawson, Lindsay Duncan), 'The Mad Death', 'The Nightmare Man', and the BBC's brilliant 'Day of the Triffids'.
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scarred
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 63
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Post by scarred on Apr 12, 2017 15:37:18 GMT
The main 80s horror I'd love to revisit is a short film shown on Channel 4 titled 'The Gourmet', written by Kazuo Ishiguro and starring Charles Gray as a jaded, wealthy gastronome who has sampled every delicacy on earth and now seeks something not quite so earthly. I saw it once in around 1986 and it has never been repeated, released on video or dvd, or cropped up online anywhere. In fact most online searches find other people also wondering how they can see it again. The script was published in an edition of 'Granta', but the film itself seems to have slipped into limbo somewhere along the lines. I'm sure most of these will have been considered already, but other 80s subjects worth a look would be the BBC's 'scary Jackanory' series 'Spinechillers' and 'Classic Ghost Stories', and possibly weird channel 4 sitcom 'They Came From Somewhere Else', featuring aliens, puking robots, a Donald Sutherland look-alike and 'Don't Look Now' references. Oh, and disturning drama series like 'Brond' (Stratford Johns, John Hannah, James Cosmo) and 'Dead Head' (Denis Lawson, Lindsay Duncan), 'The Mad Death', 'The Nightmare Man', and the BBC's brilliant 'Day of the Triffids'. The last four are definitely in (at this point). I'll look in to the other stuff you mentioned. Some great ideas there so it's much appreciated.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 12, 2017 17:25:46 GMT
The main 80s horror I'd love to revisit is a short film shown on Channel 4 titled 'The Gourmet', written by Kazuo Ishiguro and starring Charles Gray as a jaded, wealthy gastronome who has sampled every delicacy on earth and now seeks something not quite so earthly. And Charles Gray brushed off his Mocatta moves for What Dreams May Come (1985), a fab Black Magic episode of Bergerac.
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Post by rawlinson on Apr 12, 2017 17:43:35 GMT
By the time I was old enough to start reading horror paperbacks it was the 90s so it was mostly the likes of King, Richard Laymon, etc that were getting passed around. Anything that had lots of explicit sex or violence did the rounds. A lot of older writers too. The Devil Rides Out went around so many people it started falling apart. I remember some of the Michael Slade books being really popular too. But I think by that point the videos had really taken hold. The video nasty ban had happened when I was around 5, I think. So by the early 90s, with all of those films still officially banned, we were tracking down the likes of Cannibal Holocaust, The Exorcist, Straw Dogs, etc. Interestingly both Straw Dogs and The Exorcist had been aired on one of the European t.v. stations that used to be picked up at the end of the Sky channels. The Exorcist was English language but with subs while Straw Dogs was dubbed. So I saw it in Spanish (At least memory says Spanish) years before I was able to see it in English. The whole videoshop experience is something I think has been a truly sad loss. It's true that it's easier to find pretty much everything these days, but the thrill of discovery is lost. Two not particularly great films (Slaughter High and Chopping Mall) are early defining horror experiences for me simply based on me begging to see them after seeing the boxes on the video shelves. I wrote an article on the rental shop experience for a website a few years back and can't find the damn thing anywhere now. It's a shame that the cut off point for vol 2 will be 1990, largely because one of the truly generation defining horror moments for me came in 92 thanks to Ghost Watch. I really hope the Scream comics make it in though. I still remember getting issue one (84, I think) and the free pair of vampire fangs. Might have been my first exposure to horror.
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scarred
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 63
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Post by scarred on Apr 12, 2017 19:13:56 GMT
It's a shame that the cut off point for vol 2 will be 1990, largely because one of the truly generation defining horror moments for me came in 92 thanks to Ghost Watch. In a kind of a cheat we will be talking about Ghost Watch as the coda to the 80s because that was pretty much the moment at which they said "never again" to the kind of shows that they'd have made without blinking an eyelid in the previous twenty years.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 12, 2017 19:35:56 GMT
I remember some of the Michael Slade books being really popular too. But I think by that point the videos had really taken hold. Michael Slade! I remember an advertising campaign for Headhunter on the London Underground, cover art and all. Ghoul was issued with a hologram cover. It was like something out of a science fiction film I tell you! Other essential nature in revolt novels.
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