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But it was always...ah, let's see...an amused interest rather than real, burning passion. The latter has always been reserved for the Golden Age classics. Nothing's changed on that score, but these days I daresay I've begun to maintain something more than amused interest in the 80s. I see how well they hold up, how very entertaining many of them are. Far moreso than Hammer...or even, heaven forgive me, Universal...at its worst. I think some reevaluation of this era is in order; it truly is an epoch with its own heroes and villains, trends and traditions. Ones that have garnered relatively little scholarly examination.

.'. Earl Roesel .'.


Well, it's interesting, the dawn of VHS brought some forbidden 80's fruit that I was too young to consume in theaters, ( I was around 13 when Friday The 13th, Zombie, Phantasm, and Halloween premiered), so with about a 3-year delay I started a rapid consumption of films I was still too young to attend. Boy was I let down, not so much by the afore mentioned titles, but by the endless knock-offs riding their coat-tails. It seemed week after week I was blowing $5 to rent yet one more formulaic stalk-and slash piece of crap, and I like the genre itself burned out in a hurry.

I got much more satisfaction from Euro-chillers trying top pass themselves off a slasher-pics like Blood-Spattered Bride, Blood & Black Lace, Seven Doors to Death (AKA The Beyond), and my adolescent pent-up sexual lust for blood alone gave way to a fascination with the more perversely exotic Euro-fare, and artsy hybrids like Dressed To Kill, The Hunger, & Company of Wolves.

Prior to all this I regarded the "classics" as almost sacred for being old, being first, and the films who's stills filled the books at my local library that I'd pour over endlessly. I was fortunate enough to have Super 8 projector age of 12, and bought films like Trip To The Moon, Caligari, and Nosferatu which I worshiped as rare and powerful artifacts.