Chocky

Halloween is approaching and if you like your horror, you’ll probably be wildly grabbing at the old DVD stack this weekend. But let’s face-it. Most horror these days is pretty shite. It usually involves a contrived set of events in a contrived environment without any lateral thinking on how to truly chill the viewer. Everything is in CGI and most of the original horror greats have been re-made at least once. There are some exceptions, but my recommendation for some late night viewing this weekend is something perhaps a little left-field.

When John Wyndham (Day of the Triffids, Village of the Damned and Midwich Cuckoos) wrote Chocky as a novel, it didn’t explicitly sit in the horror genre. With its themes of distressed childhood psychology, alien imaginary friends and shady government intervention, it seemed to fit into the science-fiction-thriller guise more happily.  Some twenty years after the book was written, ITV adapted the story for a children’s TV series (1984). As a child I watched this series, painfully aware that it was actually disturbing me as much as the main character, Matthew. A distressed young chap who happened the be the choice of an alien race to channel the voice of one of their scouts. He is frequently cast into family turmoil by the strange effects of his alien tag-along – a situation which is further complicated by a secret government agency who are keen to exploit his special communication abilities.

The ITV version was bleak and filled to the brim with dark references, cheap but chilling special effects, unsettling vocoded voices and most memorably, a sinister synth-ridden score. I was so freaked out by Chocky, that I once believed the story was happening to me when I had a eye infection for a while and could see a funny pattern in the corner of my eye.

Here’s a great fan page on chestnut.com with the title music and a series run-down. You can watch some of the Chocky series on youtube, but to be honest, you might want to grab this on DVD for a very vintage freak-out this weekend.