What was YOUR childhood memory of horror?
11 July 2024 · 1 min read
When I was a kid, there was a TV show called ‘Salem’s Lot’ that became a huge hit across the country, and within my group of friends too.
If you are of an age, you will recall this too I am sure.
I remember watching it, maybe every Friday night or possibly the three episodes over a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night. We’d all gather and sneak across the gardens behind our houses in the middle of the night to watch it in each other’s living rooms after our parents had gone to bed. It was definitely some questionable Gen X behaviour, but it’s a memory that has stuck with me vividly.
I recall sharing stories in the playground after Jaws had been on TV the night before, and of course back then, you had to watch it live. You couldn’t blink, you couldn’t go to the loo. You had to watch it live, otherwise you would miss it.
Magic.
As homage to the great horror movie villains and monsters, the top shelf in my bedroom was crammed with all 12 models from the Aurora horror, glow-in-the-dark series that I meticulously built, painted and loved to bits.
Horror has left a strong impression on many people from my generation, whether it was Salem’s Lot, the BBC double bills on Saturday nights, Hammer House of Horror, Tales of the Unexpected or those glow in the dark models. And don’t even get me started on the horrifying public information films!
These memories are the inspiration and roots of Twisted50, and I’m excited that we can continue the great tradition of gothic horror in the UK.
Written by
Chris JonesPassionate about all things film, I have spent my life watching movies, making movies and helping others make their movies too. Most recently I have been directing Splinter Unit on 'Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning', parts 1 and 2 for Paramount. I also executive-produced 'The Enfield Poltergeist' for Apple TV+. Deeper into my past, my early major projects include action thriller 'The Runner', serial killer thriller 'White Angel' and paranormal horror 'Urban Ghost Story'. I co-created and authored The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook series, published by Bloomsbury. There are now eight books in the series. More recently I have run a series of London-based festivals, kicking off with the London Screenwriters Festival which attracts over 1,000 professional screenwriters from around the globe annually. I also set up and run TEDxEaling, an annual TEDx conference on storytelling and human communication. In 2009, I made the multi-award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted 'Gone Fishing', the whole process being heavily documented on my blog. In 2014 I completed my fourth feature film, the crowd-created 50 Kisses which entered the Guinness Book Of Records for most screenwriters on a feature film. Following this success, I founded Create50 to continue the idea of crowd-created projects. Twisted50, our first book, was published on Halloween 2016 and immediately toppled Stephen King from the top spot on Amazon. Five books have followed in the Twisted50 series and we are working on the sixth now. During the summer of 2016 I trained to become a master Firewalk instructor and now regularly take people across the hot coals for charity. Late 2017 I directed the short film 'Seeing Him' which collected a ton of awards too. Over the following years I continued to make award-winning shorts, such as Meet The Nativity and Never Too Late. In the summer of 2022 I premiered Impact 50, the second feature-length movie from Create50. This time I directed the segment at the start of the film, with Olivia Williams as the President, and written by Joe Eszterhas. In the summer of 2022, I also joined the Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 productions as Splinter Unit director. At Halloween 2023, the Apple TV+ show that I co-executive-produced, 'The Enfield Poltergeist', premiered. I run regular filmmaking workshops for filmmakers both online and in person. Some people ask how I began making films? Like most filmmakers of my generation, it was with a Super 8mm camera, summertime and school friends, usually after watching a behind-the-scenes TV programme on a Hollywood movie like Star Wars. My first film was a zombie horror called Necronomicon, heavily influenced by John Carpenter's The Fog. And I was hooked for life. Contact me at Ealing Film Studios, Ealing Green, London, W5 5EP, UK
