Ten Must-See Movies

Quills (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

This isn't a top ten. I would find it very difficult to do that, as there are so many films that I, more or less, love equally. In fact, there are films missing from this that are certainly among my favourites, but I have covered them in my 10 favourite horror films list. So please see that for why I think "Psycho", "Jaws", "Nosferatu", "The Bride of Frankenstein" and "Silence of the Lambs" are masterpieces and would otherwise be on this list. There are no animated or children's films on here either, as I also think that "Watership Down", "The Secret of NIMH" and "Transformers: The Movie" probably need their place on a separate list.

Top Ten Best Movie Villains

Image via Wikipedia

This article was written out of total unashamed (or perhaps even shameless) self-indulgence. It is shamelessly low brow geeky and will probably never find its way into any self-respecting publication. However, when I first started writing paid online reviews this topic cropped up and I just couldn’t resist the urge to put my thoughts down. Villains are fascinating characters in fiction whether it is on the big screen, as the ones below are, or in literature. Without them we don’t get the contrast with the heroes. However, there is something much than that. The villain often speaks the words we dare not speak or presents us the line we dare not tread…

That Day Again

Friday the 13th did not even have a completed script when Sean S. Cunningham took out this advertisement in Variety magazine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cover of Friday the 13th Uncut [Blu-ray
So, we arrive on the day when superstition runs rife in the western world. 13 witches in a coven, Judas Iscariot, the treacherous member of JC’s gang, made the number of participants at The Last Supper 13, the Knights Templar were arrested on Friday 13th and so on. “The Thirteenth in the Series” is a great episode of the Alan Simpson and Ray Galton brilliant comedy show “Hancock’s Half Hour”, and is a wonderful satire of how the number 13 can set off a chain reaction of superstitious confirmation bias in a gullible individual followed by buying into any amount of New Age nonsense. In 1980 director Sean S. Cunningham had both horror and humour on his mind when he directed and produced the slasher film, “Friday the 13th”. The humour was designed to relax the audience and the horror came in the form of cheap shocks. It was a pretty bad film in so many ways. It was unoriginal and it kick-started a cynical franchise