The Ghost of Molly Brown

Exciting adventure! Thrilling chills! Chilling thrills! Will anyone be safe?!

My name is Calum Sanderson, and I’m a movie buff, and ingest movies often. Plus, I love popcorn.

From as early as I can remember, I have been sitting in front of a flickering screen. The movie theatre, no matter where it is located, has always been a home away from home; over time films themselves became a place to visit, no matter where I exist in reality; a place to visit when I felt down, need reassurance, or want to learn about the world – movies are a window into a different, alternate reality. A place you can visit time and again, characters you fall in love with, and watching films after a long drought of not watching a certain film, one’s anticipation to see his or her favourite characters again grows, like meeting family after a long time.

For me, film is a physcological thing. Films have a major part in my education, linked with literature such as Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Homer and other such classics. I learn things about the world, things about events, things about people as well as learning about other films.

My favourite films in this period of my life are horror films, but the horror films that have the most resonance with me are horror films, sometimes thrillers, that have emotional stories to ground the film thus heightening the horror, and in effect, making it more terrifying. This love for horror, as well as corny horror, may have come from my fanaticism for R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series of books as a child, which I still read every now and then.

The silver screen has had an amazing influence on me as well. The terrors from the deep, the horrors from outer space, the thrills from the science lab. Those corny black and white films we all know of, especially 50s monster films, are important to remember and hold a strong place in history, seeing as monsters were metaphors for invading countries, science creating them for the atomic war, etc. Duck and cover, indeed.

The reason horror films, and horror films with strong emotional stories, resonate with me so much, is that horror is close to reality, but not too close for comfort. Horror is an escape from reality, but horror exists so much within reality. Corny horror is the most far you can get in terms of escaping reality, but, as I previously said, the more grounded the reality, the more frightening the horror.

As a young boy, I was also influenced by adventurous tales into the unknown, viking voyages towards the deep, monsters from the deep. A lot of this adventure has grown into a deep love for Greek mythology, something that I continually read up on because it is amazing to read and imagine as one is reading it, so mythology, Greek especially, has a giant influence on me as well, and as of this writing, it would seem that my love of 50s b-movies, such as terror from the deep, emanates from my love for myth.

I am influenced by so many fantastic creative people involved in film such as Roger Corman, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Peter Jackson, John Carpenter, Richard Kelly, Gore Verbinski, M. Night Shyamalan, Darren Lynn Bousman, Frank Darabont, Rob Zombie, Tim Burton, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Guillermo del Toro, Baz Lurhmann, and Alfonso Cuaron.

I also listen to lots of music, but in a different way to most people. Lots of songs, I see visions of characters. Action scenes, romance scenes, emotionally harrowing scenes; music plays a strong part in every film, it was as if music was another character.

Another thing that I love about film is that more often than not, it is all about interpretation. One person may see Film X in a different way to another person, which implies psychological connotations for me, it shows what a person expects or is like.

In conclusion, film is a huge part of my life, and I cannot imagine a life, for me, without film, as it is an extension of reality, but not so much as to be too close for comfort, and thus it is perfect escapism, whether you choose to watch a comedy, horror film, thriller, drama, etc.