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Spooks and

HIGH FIVE

JAYE RICHARDS, the newly elected chairperson of Pride Scotland, chooses her five most inspirational people.

1 Flo Harper She showed me how to look at the stars and she is my partner.

spoofs

2 Nelson Mandela He had the courage and the strength to forgive after everything that was done to

him.

3 Matthew Richards My son. He

is autistic. he is mentally

handicapped. but he still loves life.

4 Julia Grant She had the bottle

to go out there and do it.

5 Margaret Thatcher She created an environment where

everybody was able to achieve the

best they could for themselves.

ROSINA BONSU, dancen choreographer

and artistic director of Glasgow’s . Dance House "ii chooses her five favourite choreographers.

1 Jiri Kylién Movement. movement. movement.

2 Chad Naharin Sublime. emotional. musical.

3 Christopher Bruce Seeing

Cruel Garden was a highlight: fresh.

challenging work.

4 Gregory Nash Funny. poignant. personal work.

5 Pina Bausch Indi\./idua|. unique.

inspiring and still forging ahead.

The Blair Witch Project: terrifying or hysterical?

Isn’t it time we put the horror movie out of its misery? Words: Laura Jane MacBeth

uch like one of its knife-wielding

protagonists. the horror genre has

refused to die. in spite of its mtlrderotls treatment. Stabbed with knives. skewered with coat hangers or run over repeatedly. it has hung on resolutely. staggering forward with the grim determination of the walking dead. no matter how many times it is ripped oll‘. strung out or spool'ed. But is it time to put it out ol’ its misery“?

'l‘lte slasher movie has been resurrected more than most. listablished by cult movies such as lla/lmreen and Nightmare On li/m Street. by the lllltl-Xlls it had been exltausted

by a slew ol‘ interior shlock~ . w.t h ltot'l'ot‘s that specialised in I c

spools of spoofs) in Scary Movie and its obligatory sequel. Scream‘s ghost-faced killer became a joint- smoking. beer-swilling. comic character. Hardly chilling and. as it tttrned out. hardly funny either. The psychos are still being churned out. but public interest has been killed oll‘.

With the late 90s catne a new contender for the horror crown. Waning enthusiasm for the slasher t‘ormula provoked interest in low-budget horrors The Blair llitr'lt I’m/eel and more recently. (fr/ran Ghost Story. Of the former. critics were divided between the 'genuinely terrifying~ and the ‘get that hysterical woman out of my l‘ace‘. but the shoestring movie piqued interest with its docu- horror approach and net-based hype. But again. like Laurie in Hal/mreen. Blair Hire/1 could not escape its late. predictably spawning a second-rate sequel and substandard copies such as this year‘s joyless public-school trauma.

grotesque cllccts. shock The/lulu

tactics and risible killers. But l‘ollowing his initial l‘oray into

\‘v'es (’raven breathed lil‘e into

the genre with his ironic sideswipc Scream. ’l'he

sleeper hit balanced screams

ol’ l‘ear with those of laughter and cleverly deconstructed the genre it was a part ol‘.

But while Scream renewed interest in horror. it lcl‘t it with its insides showing. The numerous sequels that lollowctl either drowned in second- hand irony or l'ollowed the l‘ormulaic plots of pre- Sr-ream shockers. Seeing nubile teen scream queens decapitated had a limited appeal when removed lrom the parodic lilmscape. while the lilms were too glossy to emulate the gritty. horror lilms that made up their ‘serious' cultural reference point. And with their speedy spoofing (making

D l l l N Lines Of Continuity asqox. 8::“123 ::‘ A".

8 THE LIST “i 2': N

Heather

Nicholas

escape Its fate: the sell—relercntial with New a .\'i'e/Hmare. horror—meister

Recent attempts to rejuvenate the psycho/slasher genre seem just as hackneyed. In .lee/rers ('ree/n'rx. what begins as an effective horror- cum-road tnovie descends into unbelievable. ill- explained l‘antasy with an ending too contrived to be scary. Joy Ride. another on-the-road all‘air. mixes Scream with CB radios and an improbable plot. These spins on old stories lack any real foundation of lear. tempering the cathartic process with cheap tricks and weak linales. Perhaps this is why Hal/mi'een director John (‘arpenter has shil‘ted the setting of horror. ol‘t‘ering Ghosts ()‘f‘flrlars to outer space. .~\t least there he won't be fenced in by the white-picket cliches he helped to invent.

Disagree? react@list.co.uk

Gordon

Ex Ge"

it's good to Sit-{,-

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