Research: Nostalgic Questionnaire- Joe Cooper/ Thoughts.

Nostalgic Horror Questionnaire

Name: Joe Cooper

Age: 26

This Questionnaire is designed for research into a project relating to how TV affects childhood mentality into adulthood.

If you remember a show/film/moment in the media from your childhood that scared or traumatised you in some way, please describe it in the best way below-

I watched The Birds when I was fairly young, 8 or 9, and the moment that scared me stiff was when the protagonist’s mother discovers her neighbour, dead, and with his eyes pecked out. The complete lack of music, very gory image (for 1962) and jump cut to close up freaked me out.

How do you think it reflects on you now as an adult? Do you know the reason why it might have scared you at the age you were?

It’s the scene I think about most when I write tension-building scenes, and the film in general influenced my passion for writing horror, particularly as my guilty pleasure genre is animal attack films (The Birds and Jaws being the only two I can think of that are actually decent, the majority of them are entertainingly awful). It scared me when I was a kid because it’s such a masterfully constructed scene, and the lack of music (The Birds does not have a soundtrack at all) adds to the horror of the scene. The thought of being pecked to death by a flock of birds at the time looked like the most awful way to die, and may have given me a bit more respect for all birds as I didn’t want to piss them off.

How would you compare it with current children’s media in tone and style? Is it more or less tamer in comparison?

The Birds is not meant for children, and most of it is tame compared to modern horror films, but the scene that scared me still packs a punch. I watch very little children’s media now but I would bet that it is a lot tamer than it was when I was a kid and before then. I remember watching Are You Afraid of the Dark and Goosebumps(both of which are Canadian funnily enough) when I was in Primary School and scaring myself silly watching them, now all I see is candy coloured anthropomorphic animals helping each other out and everyone being happy.

What would you define as scary? Either in childhood or adulthood? Do they cross over?

Spiders have always scared me, only because of their appearance and movement. Ghosts began to freak me out more as I got older, I think because of the association with grief and heartbreak that as an adult you understand more than when you were a child (I don’t believe ghosts are real). I think more things scare me as an adult because you learn about real horrors in the world that you are mostly sheltered from growing up; mass murder, rape, cannibalism and other demented acts of violence and sadism will always scare me.

Thank you for participating, research will be taken into account. Thoughts: Yet again, this isn't exactly a good questionnaire to full define nostalgic childhood horror, but I do suppose looking at actual horror movies would be a good source of research. Maybe adding some form of gore if possible would be nice in post production.

In terms of this scene I would say that silence was key, so maybe having some proper silent moments with disturbing imagery is what is needed to get that creep factor.