Who Can Kill A Child

The second (We Are What We Are being the first) of my articles as published in Golf Sale magazine (available from all good retailers. And if they don't sell it then they're obviously not a good retailer, eh). This one is about paedophobia. Which is not what you think it is. I would urge you to buy a copy, but in lieu of that, you can read it here.

This August, England erupted with madness. A nation of prepubescents suddenly decided to re-enact the plot of The Crazies using their own streets as a stage. No bag of Basmati rice was left unturned and suddenly the library was the only safe place to be. Panic on the streets of London, panic on the streets of Birmingham. Dublin, Dundee and Humberside seemed okay though. Sorry, that was both lazy and (given that Mr. Morrissey is hardly in vogue nowadays) in bad taste. But at least I didn't predict a riot, unlike half of facebook.

Watching the news, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd accidentally switched onto 28 Days Later or the Dawn Of The Dead remake, with various sources crying “Armageddon” and demanding that the military rock up and start shooting. There were a lot of people of diverse ethnic and social backgrounds, but one couldn't help but notice a lot of children and youngsters. 22% of the rioters weren't even old enough to drink. I suppose that would explain why Birmingham looters hoofed the window of a sweet shop in. A whopping 52.1% were aged 18 – 24 (thanks, The Telegraph, for turning this into 8 Out Of 10 Cats). Suddenly, a whole slew of movies proved themselves remarkably relevant and prescient. Hug these hoodies, Cameron.

Cinema has always enjoyed turning our children against us. It's a disturbing concept; your own children coming for you, bloody garden trowel in hand. And as anyone who has ever witnessed a child at play can attest, the young mind has a great potential for cruelty. When I was a child, I threw a Pepsi can at a swan's head. Just because.

Amongst the earliest kiddy horror flicks are The Bad Seed and Village of the Damned. Neither are particularly scary, certainly not nowadays, but the Village people presented us with classic blonde hair blue eyes movie imagery, and Bad Seed has its diminutive killer told that there are special pink electric chairs for little girls like her. Supernanny's naughty step, eat your heart out.

There's a little girl zombie in Night Of The Living Dead, who trowels her mother to death, and a little boy zombie in Pet Semetary. That little sod dispatches the great Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne) with a scalpel and an equally horrid cat. The idea is chilling, turning diseased child against devoted parent. Could you kill your own child come zombification? Not unless you go for Burial Ground: Nights Of Terror. The “child” in that film is played by a middle-aged dwarf and is infinitely more horrifying than any ruddy zombie.

The most famous bits of supernatural brat horror are classics like The Omen and The Exorcist. In both cases, it's the Devil's fault, with Damien being The Antichrist and Regan possessed by some sweary manner of entity. Both stand the test of time with genuinely unsettling scenes and potfuls of pea soup to pass around. Rosemary's Baby follows suit, with poor Rosemary giving birth to Satan's seed. Iffy eyes, apparently. It's easier, I suppose, to blame the Devil or Pacman or Child's Play for your horrible children than it is your own bad parenting.

Doing what it says on the tin is The Children, a gritty Brit flick in which holidaying adults find their toddlers suddenly turn against them. There's stomach churning violence involving a sledge, and surprisingly good acting from not only the children but a girl from Hollyoaks too. A virus might be responsible, but the film shows enough crap parenting and videogaming to cast doubt in our minds.

There's no sign of viruses, zombies or Satan in A Clockwork Orange, Eden Lake, Cherry Tree Lane or Ils, just horrible children. I would use Eden Lake to advertise condoms. It has Kelly Reilly and Michael Fassbender as a lovely young couple terrorised by a gang of truly horrible children – including a slimy Jack O' Connell and Thomas Turgoose. It emerges that the parents are as nasty as their children, and leaves you feeling sad and dirty inside. Ils is essentially the same, but more French and less cruel. Cherry Tree Lane takes the battle onto the adults' turf, being a home invasion movie in which the yobs steal Rachael Blake's duct tape, thieve her biscuits and critique her bourgeois DVD collection. They're waiting to give her son a kicking, only he takes ages to arrive. It's almost existential, like Waiting For Godot with hoodies. It's a thoroughly depressing movie, and makes me never want to answer my front door again.

F turns its hoodies into ninjas, silently dispatching the movie's ineffectual adults in increasingly violent and cruel ways. It's not very original or scary, although it does show how scared us Brits have become of our own young. I've seen all of these movies and more, but I find myself far more troubled by the likes of Kidulthood and those who would attempt to glamourise not speaking properly.

And you certainly don't want to go adopting anyone else's spawn, if Case 39 and Orphan are anything to go by. In the former, Rene Zellweger picks up a spooky child who ends up having Ian McShane murdered by animals. All she wants though, is to be loved, so I wound up sympathising with her. The latter is a thoroughly unpleasant movie in which the adoptee winds up being a thirty-year-old Russian crone. Both demonic daughters end up in the bottom of a lake, rejected by a mother they aggressively loved too much. Be they your own children or someone else's, cinema has taught us that children are horrible little fuckers who are not to be trusted.

The two most soul destroying books you'll ever read feature young children as villains. Mendal Johnson's Let's Go Play At The Adams' sees a gang of brats hold their babysitter hostage and keep her that way for the forseeable future. It's a visceral, miserable book. These children can't be reasoned with, and nor can those in Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door (subject to an equally depressing adaptation). The children are amoral and alien, with no thoughts other than childish destructiveness. Like they would wings off a fly, the children tear the victims of Adams' and Girl Next Door to shreds. Adams' Barbara hasn't a hope of escaping because she doesn't have that childish amorality. I'd recommend both books, especially if you enjoy crying and feeling sad.

In the worst case scenario, we'll end up with Children Of The Corn, where not even Linda Hamilton stands a chance against a society of ill-behaved little bastards. Who Could Kill A Child? Visit the Mediterranean and you'll find a small island where the kids have murdered their parents. Travel into space, and you'll find a planet populated only by children. This was one of the best episodes of Star Trek, with the crew of the Enterprise trapped on a planet full of hostile children. Captain Kirk saves the day by flirting his way out of trouble.

With their Sith hoodies, disgusting trainers and horrible taste in music, our kids have become the great 'other' – inspiration to horror writers and filmmakers everywhere. HP Lovecraft was scared of black people. We're terrified by our own offspring. The Daily Mail doesn't like either. Maybe it's because you're not allowed to punch your kids anymore. There's a feeling (mostly from The Daily Mail and those who read it) that since smacking and national service were aborted, children have grown out of control and become a completely different entity. Maybe that's true and maybe it's not. But all I know is, some of the most disturbing films I've seen have starred children.

To be fair, have you seen Justin Bieber? Children are far weirder than anything Cthulu. Never mind looting or rioting, I've seen Never Say Never.* Who could kill a child? Well, maybe that one...

* Statement made for comedic purposes. I have NEVER seen Never Say Never, and in this case I certainly can.

We Are What We Are: Danny Dyer, Pot Noodle and Modern British Horror.

The following was printed in Issue #1 of Golf Sale magazine, a punky, underground sort of thing that features articles on and interviews with promising British talent, including musicians, writers, artists and filmmakers. It's run by a very good friend of mine (Mister Impossible of Dan Impossible Must Be Destroyed!) and really is a jolly good read. It also features a column of my very own doing.

For Issue #1, I was tasked to write a brief thing on the state of modern British horror. I'd much rather you bought the magazine itself (it's only three quid, stingy tart) but you may find it reprinted below. You can buy Golf Sale here, comforted in the knowledge that you're supporting the independent presses. Look out for more of me in Issue #2. I've written an article about murdering children, and will be interviewing the director of a cool new budget horror movie. The tone here is a bit more 'Horror 101' than readers here might be used to, but it contains at least one joke and even a swear word. Do read on*, please:

As the end credits rolled over We Are What We Are, the Mexican cannibal movie, I took a moment to reflect. Then, I stepped away from the mirror and did some thinking about horror movies. Mainstream Hollywood horror is all fine and well, but I'll usually go global if I'm looking for something a little more challenging or original. That, and subtitles make me feel clever.

While Hollywood is producing mostly sparkling vampires, repetitive torture nonsense and childish remakes, there's never been a better time to be a fan of horror, globally. Some of the best I've ever seen is emerging from around the world. France has brought us the likes of the incredible Martyrs, the divisive Irreversible and overrated Switchblade Romance. That movie's Alexandre Aja went on to bring us two of America's few good remakes – The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha 3D. Japan, meanwhile, has Takashi Miike, whose oeuvre speaks for itself. There's also the likes of Grotesque, a silly torture movie that managed to get itself banned over here in the UK. Meanwhile, Korea produces some of my favourite movies, not limiting itself to torture like so many others seem to nowadays. Oldboy, The Host and The Chaser all come highly recommended. The less said about Ireland's Shrooms the better. It's the Jedward of horror movies (although its Isolation is reportedly a lot better). There's A Serbian Film that you might want to watch (or not, depending on your tolerance for, oh, baby rape) and Sweden's Let The Right One In is the best vampire movie of its century. Then what, I thought, has England brought to the table?

It was with no small amount of terror and disgust that I realised that the answer was Danny Dyer.

Pop into your local HMV (please, it needs the business) and you'll find the horror section populated with an overwhelming amount of Dyer movies. Only one of those movies is actually good. The only good things Dyer has ever done: Severance and that episode of Britain's Hardest Men where he gets repeatedly slapped in the chops. Severance is an above-average horror comedy at best. It succeeds in spite of Danny Dyer and in no way because of him. On the plus side, he gets a good kicking over the course of the movie. Doghouse, which also stars Dyer, initially promises quality. It has Stephen Graham and Noel Clarke, and is about a zombification virus which only affects women. Quickly one realises that Doghouse is quite the misogynist. Its big revelation is that Graham needs to 'man up' and 'kill anything in a dress'. Doghouse acknowledges the zombies as women (“zombirds”, yohoho), Danny Dyer uses the phrase “remote control women” and at that point I gave up. Doghouse is probably Jim Davidson's favourite movie of 2009.

Too much British cinema seems like it was written by a round table of Nuts readers. The nadir lies in gangster/vampire mashup Dead Cert, starring not only Dyer but some ex-Eastenders too. There are a ton of laddish Brit horror movies, and it shows no abating, with Cockneys vs Zombies being released soon.

This, thanks to Shaun Of The Dead, which helped revitalise British horror and unwittingly unleashed a horde of imitators. Never mind that Shaun was affectionate, genuinely funny and well-written; that it starred two slacker best mates was enough. What its imitators fail to recognise is that Shaun and Ed aren't supposed to be aspirational figures. Also, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are charismatic and likeable. Danny Dyer and Tamer Hassan are not. Ever. Nevertheless, Shaun Of The Dead is one of the finest zombie movies ever made.

Going on Shaun Of The Dead, you'd be forgiven in thinking that British cinema is all jocular fun with a Queen soundtrack. But more prescient are scenes of traumatic violence, bleakness and cruelty. If you've ever seen a Ken Loach movie, you'll know how depressing British drama can be. Our horror is no different. Much of it is inspired by social issues and newspaper headlines. One recurring theme is a fear of our own children; F, The Children, Cherry Tree Lane and Eden Lake all pit downtrodden adults against feral yobs. They're depressing movies, depicting adults as ineffectual and weak, and children as little Deliverance bastards. The fear of children, by the way, is called paedophobia, which doesn't mean what I thought it did.

Consistently producing good work is the director Neil Marshall. His Descent is in my top five horror movies of all time. In fact, three of my top five movies of all time are British, and that's not just a misguided sense of patriotism: The Descent is a wonderful movie.

Amongst my favourite other b(r)its of UK horror lies The Cottage, which mixes black comedy with the gore and violence of a backwoods slasher movie. It stars Andy Serkis and Reece Shearsmith as a pair of bungling brothers who kidnap a foul-mouthed gangster's daughter and then fall afoul of a disfigured psycho farmer. It's funny without being laddish and violent without pointlessness. All that, and no Danny Dyer. Get offa my land indeed.

Director Paul Andrew Williams started out with the incredibly miserable but critically acclaimed London To Brighton. Many said he was slumming it with The Cottage, which goes to show the sustained snobbery and prejudice against horror. I prefer The Cottage because, thanks, watching a gangster try to rape a thirteen year old hooker is too depressing even for me.

Williams' peers - the likes of Shane Meadows and Danny Boyle - aren't directors of horror per se, but their movies nevertheless tend to be some of the best and most inventive out there. Boyle reinvigorated the zombie genre with his 28 Days Later, but I find moments of horror in most of his pictures.

And then there's Shane Meadows, who directed my third favourite movie of all time; Dead Man's Shoes. It's an extremely downbeat and depressing piece, featuring a powerhouse performance from Paddy Considine's beard as an ex-army man seeking revenge against those who wronged his learning-difficulties brother. Some of it plays like a thriller, others like a slasher movie and others comedic. It's inherently British, its gangsters drinking tea and eating Pot Noodle. You don't get much more English than tea and Pot Noodle. Dead Man's Shoes is an utterly heartbreaking movie though; the Oldboy of British cinema.

What we do do, if you care to take a look at some of our finest films, is realism. Like queuing and cups of tea and Pot Noodle and Cliff Richard, whingeing is a very British thing. And that's what we've contributed to world horror cinema – whingeing, grit and unhappy endings. Oh no, hoodies have killed my boyfriend. Oh noes, there's a tooth in this pie. Well, let's have a cup of tea, shall we? f you dig a little beneath the surface, you'll find some true gems buried amongst all of the crap. We no longer have Hammer as we knew it, but we do have a generation of simultaneously funny, depressing, versatile directors to rival any Takashi Miike, John Carpenter or Alexandre Aja.

On behalf of England, though, I am truly sorry about Danny Dyer.

*And buy a copy of this magazine. Please.

State Of Emergency

This review comes straight from the frontline of the riots in Birmingham.

Despite Monday and last night's considerable looting and rioting shenanigans, today was business as usual for the shop where I work. Because it's mostly shit and mostly well-hidden, the rioter bastards left us and our windows alone. Almost disappointed. Our shop not good enough for you? To be fair, I work in a camping shop. I don't think those involved are interested in camping anywhere, except maybe on Call Of Duty.

An odd atmosphere aside, work today progressed much as it usually does; lengthy periods of boredom, a lunch break and some screwing about when I was supposed to be working. I did get to leave early though, due to all businesses in the city centre being terrified of a repeat of the rioting.

As it happens, there's supposed to be more rioting on the streets of Birmingham tonight. Yesterday, people trashed Hatman and the music store next to my favourite comic book shop. I'm writing this from the confines of the safest place in the city; the only place we can be sure won't get looted - Waterstone's. Joking aside, "we're staying open," the booksellers said, "if they steal some books, they might learn something."

Claims that they cut the head off've The Bullring Bull emerged as Bullshit.

Before I got to leave work, I was visited by a charming gentleman in unmatching tracksuits who approached the counter and asked if we sell balaclavas. I don't think he was planning on going skiing. We had plenty of balaclavas, but I told him no. Such is my good deed for the day. On the bus to Waterstone's, I overheard a gang of undesirables describing their frustration at the world. No-one understands us, innit. Their point would have been more well made were they not drinking Special Brew and writing a shopping list of things to steal when the rioting starts again.

Those interested in the riots can follow its progress here. It allegedly began because of the death of a maybe gangster man in London at the hands of the po-lice during a possible shootout. (it's since been claimed the police fired first). Tensions between the police and government vs our 'underclasses' have been brewing in the UK for a while now, so this isn't entirely surprising. It's lovely that the yoof of today are so politically-minded, but I can think of better ways to make a point than trashing the shit out of JJB Sports. Also, if you need a really big bag of Basmati rice for whatever reason, the stuff's cheap enough for you to not have to loot it. Especially at Tesco's.

I only started using twitter properly a few months ago (@JoelHarley) but apparently the rioters are using it in conjunction with their Blackberrys to organise it all. They might be from working-class backgrounds and council estates, but at least they can afford a decent mobile phone.

The only experience I have with looting or rioting is with State Of Emergency, an early Rockstar game which puts you right in the middle of an inner city riot, trying to cause as much trouble as possible. It was released to the usual amount of outrage on the Playstation 2 in 2002. It was amusingly violent and stupid, but ultimately the sort of game that one can only play for a maximum of twenty minutes before getting bored. Also, I'm kinda crappy at videogames, so I got stuck on the second level. I got bored and traded it in for something like Crash Bandicoot. I do remember enjoying things like the flamethrower and hurling benches at people. The graphics were pretty good too, and there was a Grand Theft Auto sensibility to the humour, if a bit more infantile.

Much like running grannies over probably isn't really as fun as it is on Carmageddon, rioting is much less fun in reality than State Of Emergency led me to believe. That said, I am on the receiving end. I don't think I'd fit in with my Converse and correct punctuation. How am I supposed to function as an alcoholic if all the pubs and off licences are shut? I'm beginning to think that I need to re-examine my relationship with videogames. This is worse than that one time I got murdered as a result of someone playing Manhunt.

The game is good. Real rioting, not so good.

Why I Hate The Dentist

I mentioned, not too long ago, my fear of the dentist. Not the movie (which is gross enough) but the dentist dentist. Well, I bit the bullet today and booked an appointment to see the dentist this Friday. I think going around biting bullets is probably one of the reasons my teeth are so shitty. That, and all the Crunk.

To say that I'm fucking terrified would be an understatement. I've not been in over ten years, and during those ten years I turned eighteen and was granted access to all the horrible horror movies what my eyes could watch. Already not a fan of the dentist, I've compounded the problem by (a) putting it off for so long and (b) watching a lot of movies in which people get their teeth pulled. But I'll doubtless continue watching such horrible things, in the same way as I watched Final Destination the night before I got on an airplane for the first time.

One of the first Horrible Dentist sequences I can remember seeing is Final Destination 2 (which I saw three times at the cinema). If my dentist has a fish mobile hanging above the chair, well, he can jog on if he thinks I'm sitting down. Never in the history of ever have I seen a movie which presents going to the dentist in a favourable light. Final Destination 2 was the first horrible dentist scene I can really remember, but far from the last. Hello The Dentist (perhaps the zenith of tooth torture cinema, although I've not seen the sequel), Marathon Man, Little Shop Of Horrors and Oldboy, amongst others. I even cringed at The Hangover. See, when I think of going to the dentist, I picture myself coming out looking like this:

So as I know what to expect on Friday, I decided to do a little light research. In the same way that googling your cold symptoms will leave you thinking that you have cancer, AIDS or some other degenerative bit of Death, merely typing 'teeth' into an image search will lead you to some of the most terrifying images this side of a Blue Waffle.

Similarly, if Wikipedia is to be believed, most dental procedures will end up with tooth extraction and things called a "root canal" and "planing". Well, I ask myself, if you're going to extract the bastards anyway, why don't I just keep eating sweets and drinking Crunk until they fall out of their own doing? The Internet; good for more than just pornography and facebook; great for scaring hypochondriacs shitless.

I'm probably going to die on Friday. If that happens, at least let's hope I'm murdered by a psychopath dentist and don't just choke on a stupid rubber fish. Or die chasing pigeons. If I do survive somehow, hey, I'll have conquered a fear. Or be left scarred, stoned and toothless. Either way, bastards better give me a lollipop.

Wish me luck.

Scary Trek 2: Why Star Trek Is Scary: The Final Frontiers

Big Momma's House IV: The Star Trek years

Yet more Scary Trek. Yes, I appreciate that a three-part article on Star Trek might be a bit self-indulgent but shut up. You (sort of) asked for it, alright?

We conclude with a look at Deep Space 9, Voyager and Enterprise. Anyone who's ever seen any of the above will realise why I'm lumping them in one post. Because they're all shit, largely. Deep Space 9 is set on a space station in the midst of a war between the Bajorans and the Cardassians. It fails as a Trek because, being on a space station, nobody actually Treks anywhere.

Kim Cardassian.

Voyager had the more interesting premise. The Starship Voyager is sucked into a wormhole or something and dumped light years out in space, deep in unexplored territories. Scary, right? Not really, it's like every other Star Trek, only with even more bad acting and a crew that bicker all the time. Enterprise, we don't really talk about, because it's the worst thing to have Trek in the title since Star Trek vs The X-Men. It's a prequel set on the first Enterprise, and features yet more bad acting and bickering.

Jeffrey Combs makes a few cameos through these series (most notably, Enterprise and Deep Space Nine), playing different characters. This bodes well, because Jeffrey Combs is Re-Animator, right? He's a scary chap. Well, no, because they choose to make him look like this:

Oh dear. Still, even buried beneath stupid blue makeup and head penises, Combs is good. Very good. As with previous series, good actors are hidden amongst the chaff ones. For every Tuvok there's a Robert Picardo. For every Sisko (surely the worst captain of any series?) an Armin Shimerman or that guy from off've True Blood.

But is there any scary amongst the Trek? Very occasionally. DS9 is too concerned with politics to even try, but it has its moments. Empok Nor does a visit to a sort-of haunted space station, whereupon the crew's pet Cardassian loses control of his faculties and tries to kill everyone. Well, he is played by Andrew J. Robinson, from off've Hellraiser (true story, trivia fans: Hellraiser 3's Terry Farrell plays a main character too). The Cardassians are sucky villains, but their history takes in lots of cruel experiments and several moments of grotesquerie that make DS9 vaguely worthwhile. For the most part though, it's a dull, self-important series in which everyone is boring and everyone talks about politics.

Voyager is known to many as the worst of the Trek series. I always had a soft spot for it myself. Darkling is my favourite episode. The ship's holographic doctor has himself a funny turn and tries to kill just a few of his crewmates. It's a fun little play on Jekyll & Hyde, and one of Voyager's more interesting episodes. There's also The Haunting Of Deck Twelve, in which sillly cook Neelix (him off've True Blood) tells ghost stories to the Borg children. Yes, they have Borg children. No, I'm not sure where they came from.

There might be scary episodes of Enterprise, but I never watched it much beyond the first series, due to it being hidden on television channels I don't have. The soft-rock bullshit theme tune is pretty scary though. Whatever happened to "these are the voyages...?" There's an episode with zombie Cardassians, and The Borg make a return (or a first entrance, even) but nothing to write home about. Unless you like writing home about how terrible things are.

In summary, and back to the original question, why is Star Trek scary? At its best, Star Trek plays on that fear of being far away from home, under attack from forces unknown. There are dangerous alien planets, salt-sucking shape shifters and William Shatner trying to rape things. Star Trek is scary both ironically and unironically. It may not have aged too well, but who can forget Deanna Troi being turned into a cake? Or Jeffrey Combs with blue penises stuck to his head? Star Trek probably isn't scary, not really, but I do so enjoy writing about it. Sorry about that.

NOT THE LEAST BECAUSE IT FEATURES AN ANDROID WHO WRITES POETRY ABOUT HIS CAT.

Scary Trek 2: Why Star Trek is Scary: The Next Generation

Why Star Trek is Scary:

Wherein the header picture says more than words ever could

Scary Trek continues. The Next Generation is set years after the Original Series. The Starship Enterprise is now Captained by Jean Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and everyone wears really crappy uniforms. The future has become an even nicer place than it was before, with androids and klingons manning the bridge, and blind people manning the engineering department. The Next Generation has its detractors because of how well everyone gets on: there's very little conflict between the main characters and most everyone seems a little bit wet. Even Captain Picard is quite cuddly.

But beyond that, The Next Generation has its moments of future-scariness. One of the movies even stars Tom Hardy. There's a main character played by Brent Spiner. Brent Spiner is creepy even when he's playing a good guy role. It's a good job the crew get terrorised on a regular basis, as this bit of schadenfreude helps distract from the fact that The Enterprise is now manned by a crew of dickheads. I never use the word douchebag, but for this man I'll make an exception:

I like bearded Riker because it hides some of the Smug

There really is no other word. Anyway, onto the scary. For the Next Generation of Scary Trek, Borg episodes are generally good. In the later seasons, The Borg would become a bit overused; the Star Trek equivalent of Freddy Krueger. But generally, when The Next Generation was at its best, The Borg weren't far behind. Q Who and The Best Of Both Worlds are probably the best Borg episodes, and, thanks to them, First Contact is hands-down the best Next Generation movie. The Borg, by the by, are a race of robo-aliens who travel the galaxies "assimilating" other races into their number. They even get to Captain Picard and give him a stupid name (and his name was already pretty stupid to begin with). Enter Locutus:

But the crew of the Enterprise aren't having none of this, and kidnap their Captain back, reversing his brainwash. Like that episode of The Simpsons where Homer joins a cult. The Borg would make several more appearances in the Star Tchrek universe, not the least in Voyager, where they got a sexy lady-Borg to join the crew. The last time they managed to be scary though, is in First Contact (where another sexy lady-Borg kidnaps android Data and tries to brainwash him too).

In Skin Of Evil, one of the main characters actually dies. Data's love interest, Tasha Yar is held captive by an evil black slime, who kills her stone dead. It's the first time one of the bridge crew is killed in a Star Trek series, and that really sets it apart from the rest. In an otherwise mediocre first season, Skin Of Evil is a highlight.

The Brain-rape episode, Violations, seriously scared Idiot Me as a child. It features Picard in a dodgy hairpiece and pornographic amounts of Riker's beard. The brain rape bit is returned to briefly in Nemesis, when Tom Hardy tries to have his wicked way with Troi. Five minutes in the Star Trek universe, and already he's trying to rape someone. This does not bode well for Batman.

An episode in which the crew are all brainwashed by an addictive computer game-type thing is pretty chilling if only because it leaves Wesley Fucking Crusher to save the day. Brainwashing is a common theme in The Next Generation. I lose count of the amount of times Data turns evil and starts trying to kill his crewmates. In Insurrection, he sings Gilbert and Sullivan, which is really fucking scary.

Other episodes of note are Schisms (crewmembers are abducted and experimented on) Conspiracy (an Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers thing) and my personal favourite, Realm Of Fear, which is a Lt. Barclay-heavy episode. Barclay is The A-Team's Murdock, and is therefore awesome. Realm Of Fear deals with Barclay's transporter phobia, and has weird transporter-worms and such. It feels like it should have a cameo from Freddy Krueger.

Ignore the fucking haunted house episode (Sub Rosa) though, because it's a Dr. Crusher-heavy episode. Crusher (Gates McFadden) attends her dear grandma's funeral and spends time in a haunted house. Even Idiot Child Me wasn't scared by Sub Rosa. Probably because McFadden is The Next Generation's worst actor by far, and her character's pretty dull too. Most disturbingly, and harder to ignore is the episode where Deanna Troi is turned into a cake:

And not even an erotic cake

Aside from such highlights, The Next Generation is pretty failsome in the scary department. Unless bad acting scares you. Ooh, feel the burn. Where The Original Series exploited a variety of monsters and aliens, TNG plays up the humour and is more reliant on recurring villains such as The Romulans, Q and The Klingons. Klingons would probably be scarier if their name didn't remind me so much of something which happens when I don't wipe my bottom properly. Still, there are a few highlights and Star Trek is so much a part of my childhood that I can't help but love it.

Next up, Deep Space 9, Voyager and Enterprise. Or the dark shit years, as I like to call them. Truly scary stuff.

Scary Trek 2: Why Star Trek Is Scary: The Original Series

Warning: This article contains Star Trek

Here at The Horror Review Hole, we like to cater for all audiences (provided those audiences are all me) and keep everyone happy. So when I saw the phrase 'why is Star Trek scary?' pop up in blogger's Search Keywords, what more invitation was needed? Even better, I'm going to resist the urge to say things like 'because of its fans'. Because that would be mean. But I'm a Trekkie, so I'm allowed to say things like that.

Star Trek takes place, as the name suggests, in space. The final frontier and all of that. Imagine yourself, far away from home. Stuck on a ship that keeps breaking down, constantly at threat from things with silly names like Romulans and Klingons and Ferengi. Double that thought if you happen to wear a red shirt. Triple it if your name's Tasha Yar. Whilst Star Trek is cheesy and naff and socially unacceptable, it's pretty damn scary too. Or it was, when I was ten, anyway.

The Original Series was probably the most disturbing, despite its crap special effects and penchant for melodramatics. Forget The Tribbles and the rubbish Klingons, The Man-Trap features a salt-sucking shapeshifter who seduces Doctor McCoy and tries to suck William Shatner off. Ahem. Even today, the Man Trap monster looks grotesque and a little bit scary. Watching The Man-Trap at such a young age probably explains why I'm so scared of women, and why I hide all my salt before I'll invite a girl round for sexytime.

Also good is The Enemy Within, in which Kirk is seperated into two entities (wimpy and evil or rapey and less rapey, as I like to call them) and is forced to literally fight himself. Wimpy Kirk is incpable of doing anything whilst Evil Kirk runs around in eyeliner, trying to rape everything. No, I'm not going to make a joke here that besmirches the name of Shatner. What is odd, however, is the episode's closing sentiment. Spock states that Evil Kirk, despite being evil and all, had his advantages. Never mind all that attempted rape eh, Spock? Just like a Vulcan.

Wolf In The Fold brings back Jack The Ripper for the 23rd Century. Everyone blames Scotty because, well, he's the only Scottish person on the Enterprise. Jack turns out to be an entity called Redjac who is defeated when they beam him out into the depths of space. Not all that scary an episode, although it is interesting to see how the 23rd Century spacemen cope with knives over their fancy-pants phaser guns. Blame the Scotsman, that's how they react.

Catspaw is the series' only foray into holiday specials. One Halloween, Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to a haunted planet and encounter a coven of witches, sort-of-zombies and a black cat. Kirk finds a skeleton and says "bones?" Geddit? Because that's McCoy's nickname. Arf arf. It's not a very good episode, nor a particularly scary one, but it has its moments.

The best horror moments in Star Trek tend to be incidental ones, organic to the plot. Miri finds a planet populated only by children. The feral children are pretty scary. The way Kirk grooms an underage girl is bloody terrifying. Star Trek is camp and silly and hasn't aged too well, but it chilled idiot me as a child, in the same way as Doctor Who's Daleks did my own father.

Lest I remind you Bill Shatner is the face of a certain Michael Myers

Even today, The Original Series manages to be a bit scary. No, I'm not talking about the reboot (although Zachary Quinto's Spock is horrifying). IDW comics have produced what is essentially Star Trek vs Zombies and called it Infestation. There are apparently robots and shit too, but the zombies are what I'm really interested in.

The whole thing more or less leading up to that joke. Still, I think I've been waiting my whole life to read Star Trek vs Zombies. As crossovers go, at least it makes more sense than Star Trek vs The X-Men. Yes, that actually exists. Next up on Scary Trek, Scary Trek: The Next Generation. Yes, there's more. Sorry.

Advertorial: Things I like about the Saw Franchise

(Spoiler: silly racist car death is not one of those things)

Saw: The Final Chapter is out on DVD next month. As I re-watched the movie in preparation, I realised that The Review Hole has been quite critical of the franchise over the years. To celebrate its (supposed) end, I proudly present a list for your consideration: Things I Hate Least Don't Hate Like About The Saw Franchise. Some spoilers abounds.

10. The First Three Movies. Otherwise known as the only good Saw movies. The first movie is very good (if Se7en-lite) and the sequel, I actually slightly prefer sometimes. The third stinks a bit, but it feels like a proper arc for the characters involved. If only they'd stopped there.

9. Monica Potter. I like Monica Potter. I liked her in Con Air. I liked her in that silly Morgan Freeman movie. I even liked her relegated to Damsel-In-Distress in Saw. Never mind Doctor Gordon and his plastic foot. Bring back Monica Potter.

8. Hoffman's killing spree. It says a lot for my feelings about Saw's torture guff overreliance that my favourite bit of The Final Chapter was when the torture stopped and crazy Hoffman went slasher movie mode. The final act in the police station is ridiculous but eminently watchable. Black leather gloves? How very Giallo. The most interesting thing Hoffman ever did.

7. The videogame. Haven't played the sequel yet, but Saw: The Videogame wasn't half as bad as I'd expected it to be. You play as Detective Tapp, trapped in an old lunatic asylum and forced to play Jigsaw's games. It's repetetive, overlong and occasionally monotonous, but worth a single playthrough at least.

6. Hoffman's Arrowmobile. That this ended up as nothing more than a dream sequence was one of The Final Chapter's biggest disappointments.

5. The Needle Pit. Actually one of the few traps to make me cringe. Sometimes the low-key traps work a lot better than the overblown stuff (The Final Chapter's Thunderbird incinerator? Really?)

4. Donnie Wahlberg. Yes, and I'm not joking either. Donnie Wahlberg's detective in Saw II is one of my favourite characters in the franchise. That he died in part IV caused great consternation in the Joel H house. Even if his death was one of the best moments in the franchise's history:

3. Ice Block Head Smash. Donnie Wahlberg gets his head smushed inbetween two massive blocks of ice. Enough said. Except for maybe 'ha ha'.

2. Pighead. Because I'm a sucker for slasher icons and people wearing pig head masks. And because the battle between yourself and Pighead in The Videogame is fairly awesome.

1. Danny Glover. I'll be honest. The other 9 bullet points in this list could have been Danny Glover, since I do heart me some Danny Glover. Even in those Orange cinema adverts and especially in Predator 2. Plus, he reportedly thinks Saw is stupid too.

Not too old for this shit? Read the Saw retrospective.

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells (like shitty kids' cologne)

What do you wager The Goddamn Batman smells like? My first guess would have been sweat, energy drinks and shark-repellent Bat spray. Turns out I'm wrong, if his Dark Knight eau de toilette (probably French for toilet water) is anything to go by. It's little wonder that Rachel Dawes wanted fuck all to do with him in The Dark Knight, since his choice of personal fragrance leaves much to be desired. If this is the sort of shit that Wayne Enterprises is putting out now, well I'm not surprised Dark Knight's biggest competitors are Eau De Fear Gas and Eau De Smilex. I found Dark Knight in this shop, packaged inbetween some Incredible Hulk bath towels and a Scooby Doo cologne:

Literally anything for 99p. This is truly the golden age of consumerism

The 99p Store(s). For ninety nine pennies you can own a squirty toilette spray with a comic book/cartoon character on it. Also of interest - 18 condoms, Indiana Jones colouring books, rusks, a cup of pick n' mix, cup a' soup, microwaveable burgers, crappy STD DVDs, even crappier softcore porn, shaving razors, tennis rackets for your Nintendo Wii, energy drinks, batteries, chewing gum, chapsticks and even tampons. With as little as £10, a man can feel like a billionaire in the 99p Store(s). Anyway, as both a massive nerd and a fan of smelling nice, you can imagine my delight at finding Dark Knight. I think this exact panel from The Widening Gyre went through my mind:

Yes, you too can stink like shitty Kevin Smith dialogue.

She is really saying that Batman gave her eleven orgasms. And yes, my mind assumed that wearing Dark Knight would give me the ability to satisfy women too. It doesn't exactly say that, but he bumf on the packaging reads that Dark Knight smells "like fruit" and contains cinnamon and water. Can't say I'd pictured Batman smelling at all fruity or of cinnamon and water, but hey, maybe that's why all the ladies like him. I was also a little disappointed by the lack of a real glass bottle inside. There's just a little plastic squirty bottle with a picture of Batman on it. Still, ever the optimist, I gave it a go.

Also vomit inducing: my face. Sorry about that

At first, Dark Knight is pleasantly sweet and fruity. Not at all bad. A bit like water and cinnamon. And then it kicks in and it is all bad and it doesn't let up. Dark Knight smells like sweet piss. Dark Knight made me smell like a paedophile. It made my shirt smell so bad that I had to walk around for 3 hours in -2 temperature wearing a t-shirt. Dark Knight smells - well, like you'd imagine how Chris O' Donnell's Robin might have smelled, or, at a push, like Adam West's boudoir. Dark Knight is Joel Schumacher's favourite cologne. Grant Morrisson was probably definitely high on the fumes of Dark Knight when he wrote Batman RIP and that time travel thing that I don't understand. It makes even less sense that they put the Christian Bale iteration of Batman on the bottle. If Christian Bale smelled like that shit, nobody would take him seriously, sound man or otherwise. Dark Knight is literally the second-worst thing I have ever stunk of. Just behind that one time in a nightclub when I vomited all over myself. It's not even suitable for children. If my child wore Dark Knight, I'd lock him in a fucking shed. Because I'm not done thinking up punchlines yet: Dark Knight makes comic book fanboys smell worse than they already do.

The true origin of The Joker: dropped into a vat of that shit.

If you really hate yourself, the Ozone layer and those around you that much, you can find Dark Knight in a 99p Store near you. Or on ebay. Or a post-Christmas dustbin.

Someone, I think, is telling porkies. No prize for spotting the lie in the below headline:

Actually, yes, there is a prize: a bottle of Dark Knight Eau De Toilette. Because I certainly don't want mine. Anyway, in summary, Dark Knight stinks. It stinks not just literally, but also figuratively and meta-figuratively (no, I'm not sure if that's a thing either). Good luck with giving anyone eleven orgasms whilst wearing that arsewash. I can't even get my cat to come near me, let alone a bloody Catwoman.