Madman in the Attic

My love of horror films was a bit like a sexual awakening. It’s hard to pin down the exact moment I became a horror lover, just as it’s hard to say the precise point at which I realised my sexuality. It was a love that developed gradually. Before I was ever allowed to watch a horror film, I pined for them. They were a forbidden fruit that I was desperate to taste. I remember dying to stay up late on Saturday nights to watch the horror double bill on BBC2, but my parents were strict about bed times. I managed to catch the odd glimpse on the black and white portable in my bedroom, but my clandestine viewing was usually discovered before I had a chance to enjoy more than a few minutes. Then, on Saturday 28 June 1980, I was allowed to stay up and watch the first of that evening's double bill (I had to look up the precise date on Wikipedia). The movie was   Night of the Demon  (1957) and it remains a firm favourite to this day. It was followed by   The Ghoul   fr...