HORROR ANTHOLOGIES

How many movies is too many?

ANTHOLOGY HORRORS ARE a sneaky way of translating the short story format to the big screen. Tonight, I am about to feed myself with six of them. That’s 12 relentless hours of uncut darkness, and upwards of 30 stories, which would be taxing at the best of times, but fills me with fear today because I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep in a week and, due to an administrative error (ie faffing about), my marathon begins at the ungodly hour of 3pm. Well done, me. It’s gonna be a long night.

3:04PM DEAD OF NIGHT

This 1945 Ealing Studios compendium is the father of the format. Stories include a ghost boy kissing a teenager and a fellow who sees a parallel world through a mirror (“Did you buy it in a joke shop?” he asks his wife). I am not particularly terrified, although the climactic reveal of our hero stuck in an endless loop is moderately upsetting. Why, though, do oldendays posh people speak so loudly? They are all shouting, “HOW DO YOU DO?” at each other.

5:10 BLACK SABBATH

Mario Bava’s 1963 triple bill is light on plot but heavy on atmosphere, all screeching cats, wailing dogs and evil wind. (Weather wind. Not fart wind.) “What’s the matter, woman?” asks Boris Karloff’s vampire. “Can’t I fondle my own grandson?” Maybe not. The music is rather hysterical, and I find the original Italian score was replaced by one from American composer Les Baxter. I have investigated this Les Baxter — he also scored Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, How To Stuff A Wild Bikini and The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini. Now that’s a legacy.

7:24PM DR. TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS

Christopher Lee! Peter Cushing! Donald Sutherland! Roy bloody Castle! Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman! Hang on… what? Indeed, Radio 1’s finest finds himself up against a diabolical plant in this. Sutherland is married to a vampire. Castle comes undone after trifling with voodoo. His first line of dialogue is about being shat on by a bird. I’ve started drinking.

9:15PM CREEPSHOW

We’re getting self-aware now, with George A. Romero and Stephen King’s homage to the EC and DC horror comics of the 1950s. I grin and bear it as King, playing a dumb hick, turns into a tree, and Leslie Nielsen terrorises Ted Danson. It’s fun — Danson as a zombie fish-man is obviously fun — it’s just not the classic team-up you’d want from two titans. Like when Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder did ‘Just Good Friends’.

11:25PM V/H/S

This one is immediately nasty, straight in with a sexual assault. All of 2012 release V/H/S is horrible — every bit, I think, includes dismemberment — but the six found-footage shorts are executed creatively, and some of it is really great. For the first time in eight hours I am actually scared. I must say, it’s woken me up. It’s past midnight now, which is exactly the right time to watch this, alone and in the dark. Joe Swanberg’s alien ghosts gave me proper chills.

1:20AM GHOST STORIES

If V/H/S brought the horror anthology format into the 21st century, Ghost Stories is an affectionate tribute to its roots — writer/ directors Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson grew up on all this, and love it to bits. And in context, where this one excels is with its framing device, transcending its function, deeper and more disturbing than the stories within. And that’s that — it’s 3am and I must sleep. Lord knows how with all this muck in my head.

GHOST STORIES IS OUT ON 6 AUGUST ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DOWNLOAD