Where did my love of film stem from?

I was born in southern England in the heat wave of 1976. Three months later in Tokyo, Japan, the first VCR, the Victor HR-3300 went on sale and home video was born. Fast forward ten years later and the VCR was a fairly common device in most households including mine.

My earliest film memories are of horror films. Horror films were more regularly screened on late night television back in the early to mid eighties than they are nowadays. My Dad would record these and play them back whilst my brother and I were occupied with more suitable activities. We were however paying more attention to these films than I think my Dad realised at the time.

A very hazy childhood memory - A bloodied young man stumbles down a staircase with a knife in his head. He is followed by a ghoulish figure who is then shot by a man at the bottom of the stairs.

The man at the bottom of the staircase is Peter Cushing. The film is The Ghoul directed by Freddie Francis in 1975. I had many other memories of horror film’s from this period, now after years of film viewing I can put titles to them all - Tower Of Evil (dir Jim O‘Connolly ‘72), And Now The Screaming Starts (dir Roy Ward Baker ‘73), Theatre Of Blood (dir Douglas Hickox ‘73), Dracula (dir Terence Fisher ‘58), Dracula A.D 1972 (dir Alan Gibson ‘72), Taste The Blood Of Dracula (dir Peter Sasdy ‘70), The Curse Of Frankenstein (dir Terence Fisher ‘57), Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell (dir Terence Fisher ‘74), The Fog (dir John Carpenter ‘80), Alien (dir Ridley Scott ‘79). I remember fleeing the lounge in tears at the sight of Quint’s graphic demise in Jaws. I remember seeing a season of fifties science fiction movies that included Invaders From Mars (dir William Cameron Menzies ‘53) and Forbidden Planet (dir Fred M Wilcox ‘56). All these films and images stayed with me. They laid the foundations for what was to be one of my life’s main passion’s. I believe they are responsible for making me the film enthusiast I am today.