Ian Nathan introduced this episode with the view that it was "The look of horror that was all important". He started with 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street which somehow "dialled down on social engagement". Neil Norman said that horror always had an audience. We go back to 1968 for George Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead. These films were so cheap to make and it didn't matter if they went straight to video. Neil Norman told us that they were not under control of the big studios. You only need a small budget.
But like previous episodes in this series, there was no coherent structure, so it was really all over the place. It was only Neil Norman who gave some interesting points to the proceedings. His remarks about these filmmakers not being under the control of the big studios was one. Katherine Bigelow's The Howling from 1981 named all the characters from previous werewolf movies. She also directed Near Dark in 1987 that involved vampires in a neo-Western.
We were then told that many of the techniques used in these low budget horror films worked their way into mainstream cinema. Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder from 1990 is a crossover into the mainstream. We then see a clip from John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, but nobody knew what it was all about. But still a lot of independent film makers would make these movies as we reach the stalker films of the 1980's such as the already noted A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. And all those sequels that just keep on coming.
But two new original movies get a final mention and they are two of my favourites, The Host from 2006 and 2019's Parasite both from South Korea. More my cup of tea than the endless slasher films.
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