While my tolerance for many other movie genres has waned over the years, I've never grown out of the thrill of watching horror films. And I hope I never do.
For Halloween week, I figured I'd share as many songs connected to horror films as I could find...
Barbarian is the best horror film I've seen in the last few years. It's one of those flicks where you think you know where it's going, and then... woah, wait a minute, WHAT just happened?
Another strong contender for best horror movie of the past decade is the Aussie movie Talk To Me. Terrific supporting role for Miranda Otto in this too...
One of the best British horror films of the last 20 years (actually, it's almost 20 years old... which just seems wrong) was The Descent. Great ending, though that was slightly undone by the unnecessary sequel...
I like films where the baddies wear creepy masks and you can't see their faces. The original Strangers movie was a pretty scary movie back in 2008, but like a lot of horror films, its impact has been diluted by too many unnecessary sequels...
I'll have more of these later in the week, but we'll close today with a movie that already featured in this week's Snapshots, when I included a song by The Mock Turtles... largely because they were harder to identify than Jarvis & Pulp would have been.
And while I think the original version of The Wicker Man is untouchable, I also have a soft spot for the gonzo 2006 remake starring Nicolas Cage. NOT THE BEES!
I refer you back to my opening comment: I also like a bad horror film.
Pulp's Wickerman is from their final, unjustly overlooked, album, We Love Life. Produced by Scott Walker, it's Jarvis at his best...
I had half a mind to feature Alison Krauss at the top of this post, until George said:
I'm sure some one will suggest Alison Moyet but it sure as hell won't be me.
After that, my mind was made up. After all, I have a lot of time for Alison Moyet, writer of one of the smuttiest pop songs ever to find its way into the pop charts (Prince excepted). Let's just say I don't think she's singing about the flu jab in this song.
As for Allison Krauss... well, I did find this nice little tribute.
John Medd was still stinging a bit from my Adamski rejection last week...
This is a bit like cricket: I can play the game but I'm not very good at it. This'll probably get me another ticking off (it's quite lonely here on the naughty step). Nearly all the Alisons I know/have known have usually being called Ally. It's not an unusual derivation; the spelling can change - Ally, Alley, Alli - but ask any Alison and she'll no doubt concur. So, I'm going for Alley Oop. I wrote about it once, hereabouts.
No ticking off, John. But no place in the Top Ten either as I think that's a bit of a stretch... and I'd end up having to find a place for Gasoline Alley and Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley too. Among others.
I am relieved that the only derivations of Alison allowed are Alyson and Allie, and that Alice is not, so no one can suggest Living Next Door To Alice by Smokie.
Now, just before we get onto this week's scrapings from the hard drive, here's a word from our own Alyson which will allow me to set a rule for future editions.
I'm thinking that the obvious second one to the obvious first one must surely be Alison's Starting To Happen by the Lemonheads, and what a great song.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
1. Elvis Costello - Alison
And who better to introduce our obvious number one than "Alyson" herself...?
One of my favourite songs of all-time - Alison by Elvis Costello. It was played constantly during my last year at school, a year which is up there as being was one of the best of my life to date. Still get teary when I listen to it as a couple of the really good friends from those days are no longer with us, and of course I reminisce about all the romances that didn't last the distance. A bittersweet (for me) but beautiful song. I think I've mentioned this around here before but I use my middle name for blogging purposes for fear of people in the real world finding what I write (about them). As a second layer of security/anonymity I changed the middle 'i' to to a 'y' which I now regret as a bit pretentious, like Fiona becoming Ffyona. Oh well, too late to change now but I think we would all agree with Elvis Costello that the true spelling should be Alison.
There have been a number of decent covers of this song, including...
Last Friday Night, Part Of Me wondered if anyone would get this week's Saturday Snapshots clues. Luckily, once the Fireworks kicked off yesterday morning, you made short work of them. Alyson and C were the early risers (Alyson even drafted in her London hosts to help) with two points each. Lynchie beat them by half a point, Charity Chic got another two and Chris was brave enough to admit to remembering Deep Blue Something. In the end, nobody guessed the song from #1, but that was probably my fault for not pointing out in the comments that nobody had got it. There were certainly plenty of guesses. Hopefully the explanation below will suffice.
