the most terrifying moments of my life ... in film

recently after a huge twin peaks renaissance (now all available on dvd, finally thank god) i was reminded of the most terrifying character the cinema has ever dreamed up. bob.
when twin peaks was first aired in australia i would stay up late watching it with mum, she would go to bed half way through leaving me all alone at the end of the house to watch some of the most cruel and horrific television ever made. and i loved every minute of it. i think the only thing that allowed me to sleep afterwards was the singapore girl appearing in the ads at the end of each episode. i think it was around the era when she was travelling around london in a black cab.
twin peaks started my life long david lynch obsession. above anyone he is probably my all time hero of the arts, even above bjork. but more of that in another blog.

so, back to bob and his hideous image. one so cruel and out of any human control and so subtly used as a true vision of terror. even this weekend i hated to look in the mirror, in fear that i would see bob's face looking back. bob got me thinking about some other monsters that have given me the heebee geebees in the past, so in no particular order here are five of them

01 the wheelers from return to oz



even mum was shit scared when she took my brother and i to see return to oz. she thought it was the worst, most horrific thing she had ever seen. i think it was all in the wheelers laugh, i remember their wheels rolling and horrific cackles coming from groups of them. and their arms were so long. yuck

02 jaws 3



unfortunately i saw it on vid, and missed the amazing 3D cinema experience. do you think it will ever be re-released? i would sit on the couch with my eyes covered asking my bros to tell me when the coast was clear (ha) and the action was out of the water. he always lied. from then on every time i was in our pool i wasconvinced a james bond style trap door would open and jaws would be let into our pool. crazy. i bet it looks terrible now

03 freddy in the water bed from nightmare on elm street 4 i think



when this was on tv, we turned it around and watched it on the balcony of our house in sleeping bags. it made it like 10 times more horrific. wow what a series of films. i have never ever sat or slept on a water bed, and probably now never will

04 the skeksis from the dark crystal



hideous. evil. this film is full of so much beauty that the evil feels 100 times worse than it probably is. the skeksis wore really great robes, and had good cutlery too. it's hard to imagine one of them alive, so the terror, probably for me, comes in what they must feel like. HIDEOUS. and the way they crumble when they die

05 mad max



possibly the most bleak real vision of the near future. lots of things didn't help with this one. i was far too young the first time i saw it, and also was familiar with lots of the places it was filmed. there is not a glimmer of hope anywhere in this film, truly harrowing. a absolute brilliant vision. all of the mad max films are great even when it gets all return-of-the-jedi-tina-turner-saxaphoney (possibly the best film tie in song ever). this poster is amazing too, it makes it look more like that unreal stallone film cobra than what it actually is

few moments in cinema now can conjure this true terror i felt with the above films when i first saw them. i am not sure if i have been desensitised or if they are just crap now. each time a new horror appears i hope for that feeling of the original hills have eyes, even the last scene of blair witch ...and especially another bob.

come on scare me !