These are the words of Wes Craven, director of the 1984 movie A Nightmare on Elm Street. Some would say he is one of the initiators of the horror/slasher genre that spurned a flurry of unnecessary sequels and myriad clones. Others would say that he helped implement a level of excellence on the teen horror flick that was only ever reached again recently.

Horror films are designed to invoke our worst hidden fears and to draw out our human insecurities that lie deep within. Horror effectively focuses on the strange and forbidden side of life that alarms us. They deal with our most basic instincts of fear and survival: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our fear of the unknown, of death and our loss of identity.

Psycho paved the way for Night of the Living Dead which in turn influenced The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which culminated in the "slasher" films finest hour - John Carpenters Halloween. Without Halloween we would never have a movie like Scream with its self-referential dialogue and its many "why-didn't-I-think-of-that" moments. Scream scriptwriter Kevin Williamson describes Halloween as "my Citizen Kane". Just think, without Halloween we would never even know the rules of horror movies as told to us in Scream. Without Halloween the world would have been denied the artistic genius that Williamson provides us with his movies. Halloween was the movie that introduced Kevin Willliamson to the horror genre and it showed him how to scare people, which with Wes Cravens help, he does very well indeed.

Carpenter made groundbreaking use of Panaglide (a version of Steadicam) so we see the vantagepoint from the killers eyes, creating a masterful level of paranoia and insecurity. Other times we see through the characters eyes as they are in danger. Almost all the scenes are filmed with a constant slow-moving camera shot making the audience believe that disaster lies around every corner and in every shadow.

What gives Halloween such historical importance and makes it essential for anyone interested in horror films in the fact that it has been copied so many times. Some may curse Halloween for what followed with the blatant rip-off that was the Friday the 13th series. But no one can doubt that is one hell of a well-thought-out film. It manipulated not only the characters but the audience also. It has a never-ending sense of morbidity and the stal

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