And it wasn't even Hallowe'en

The thing with horror films is sometimes the anticipation of being scared is worse than the actual horror - and then sometimes it pales into the background compared with the grossness on screen.
This is what happened with Black Xmas (and yes, that is what it's called; if it were down to me it would be Black Christmas).

It's only a 15 so I really wasn't expecting terror. If you've seen When A Stranger Calls you'll know the kind of thing I was expecting. High on anticipation, low on gore.

Instead, what I got was a freaky-looking serial killer gouging people's eyeballs out with his bare hands and dragging their twitching corpses along the floor by the sockets. Not a great thing to watch alone at night.

It wasn't an all-star cast, but I thought they filled the roles of the 'stalked sorority airheads' fairly well. In fact they weren't too airheady at all and it's not often you see some sensible suggestions in a horror film (he's in the house; we should leave the house - good plan!) The only member of the cast I'd seen before was Michelle Trachtenberg, whose previous work includes Dawn in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

So, if you're still itching for fear post-Hallowe'en then take a look at Black Xmas.

On the other hand, we have Straightheads, starring Gillian Anderson and Danny Dyer - which I thought would be the more frightening of the two films because I knew in advance it contained a rape. It took some time to pluck up the courage to rent it because I empathise far too much with the victims in any film. However, the reviews had been great and the trailer looked interesting.

As I said in the Echo, those scenes were, I thought, pretty tastefully done. Certainly it wasn't gratuitous, and the film poses and interesting moral dilemma. Because first of all you have to ask yourself if you would have the strength to come back from the attack Dyer and Anderson suffer in the first place. And then, can you really condemn them for the revenge they take? Have they sunk to the level of their attackers? What will happen to them after the attack they then carry out.

It leaves you a little shellshocked and questioning at the end.