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Scaring them straight
Nov. 1st, 2007 12:26 pmSome weeks are just difficult, and this is one of them. Here are some horrifying videos that you might recognize if you grew up in the UK at the same time I did.
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choc_a_block has been sitting dormant in my Friends list for ages. (The name comes from an old preschool TV programme with Fred Harris (or Chocabloke) about... a yellow machine with a weird bass voice, I think, but it's impossible to describe most programmes I watched growing up without sounding as if I've taken a decent quantity of hallucinogenic drugs, so this tangent is stopping here.) I was very pleased that someone finally posted something in it in celebration of Halloween yesterday, but rather horrified to find out what it was.
In the 1970s, the BBC saw fit to create a number of "public information films" to show to pupils to prevent them from doing anything too deadly. They did this by inciting severe trauma unequalled by any horror film that has ever been written, and showing them in schools well into the 80s. Each of them started out with a selection of happy but rather stupid children, who were then killed off in various ways throughout the film as a result of being unable to recognize the dangers of farm equipment, railways, crawling into ovens, holding lit fireworks, and so on. The one behind the link above is "Apaches", which was one I had never actually been shown even though we lived in an area that was surrounded by farmland. I've only watched bits of it, but it seems to be about as grim as I would expect.
The one that I do remember is Robbie, which was responsible for me being terrified of trains for a length of time that lasts pretty much up to "now". This was actually designed as a less graphic alternative to an earlier film called The Finishing Line involving a series of deadly sports-day style games played on a railway track, clearly written by someone with a mind rivalling the Jigsaw Killer. (NB. I have not watched the film behind that link, and if I were you I wouldn't either.) Anyway, Robbie was more traditional and straightforward, involving just crossing a railway line carelessly. There were numerous versions of it, and I'm certain that the one seen by the author of that Wikipedia article had been sanitized somehow, because I distinctly remember having to watch as an oncoming train approached and cut the titular character into about twelve bits.
Building Sites Bite is another one that sounds familiar but I can't actually remember watching, probably because I had my eyes closed throughout its duration. This video's token dimwit was called Ronald, and involved (not surprisingly) killing him off in a building site. Except it had a unique twist - after he died, other characters in the film would resurrect him each time and send him back to experience multiple deaths such as burning, burial, drowning, explosion, incineration, and a whole host of other things. A bit like Dante's eighth circle of hell. And all accompanied by a Knightmare "Life force draining, team" style heartbeat sound whenever it was recommended that people who wanted to keep their sanity should close their eyes.
And in the small amount of investigation I did into the minds behind these films, I found that one of the writers (the man responsible for "Apaches") also starred in a Doctor Who story called "The Reign of Terror". How appropriate.
The community
choc_a_block has been sitting dormant in my Friends list for ages. (The name comes from an old preschool TV programme with Fred Harris (or Chocabloke) about... a yellow machine with a weird bass voice, I think, but it's impossible to describe most programmes I watched growing up without sounding as if I've taken a decent quantity of hallucinogenic drugs, so this tangent is stopping here.) I was very pleased that someone finally posted something in it in celebration of Halloween yesterday, but rather horrified to find out what it was.In the 1970s, the BBC saw fit to create a number of "public information films" to show to pupils to prevent them from doing anything too deadly. They did this by inciting severe trauma unequalled by any horror film that has ever been written, and showing them in schools well into the 80s. Each of them started out with a selection of happy but rather stupid children, who were then killed off in various ways throughout the film as a result of being unable to recognize the dangers of farm equipment, railways, crawling into ovens, holding lit fireworks, and so on. The one behind the link above is "Apaches", which was one I had never actually been shown even though we lived in an area that was surrounded by farmland. I've only watched bits of it, but it seems to be about as grim as I would expect.
The one that I do remember is Robbie, which was responsible for me being terrified of trains for a length of time that lasts pretty much up to "now". This was actually designed as a less graphic alternative to an earlier film called The Finishing Line involving a series of deadly sports-day style games played on a railway track, clearly written by someone with a mind rivalling the Jigsaw Killer. (NB. I have not watched the film behind that link, and if I were you I wouldn't either.) Anyway, Robbie was more traditional and straightforward, involving just crossing a railway line carelessly. There were numerous versions of it, and I'm certain that the one seen by the author of that Wikipedia article had been sanitized somehow, because I distinctly remember having to watch as an oncoming train approached and cut the titular character into about twelve bits.
Building Sites Bite is another one that sounds familiar but I can't actually remember watching, probably because I had my eyes closed throughout its duration. This video's token dimwit was called Ronald, and involved (not surprisingly) killing him off in a building site. Except it had a unique twist - after he died, other characters in the film would resurrect him each time and send him back to experience multiple deaths such as burning, burial, drowning, explosion, incineration, and a whole host of other things. A bit like Dante's eighth circle of hell. And all accompanied by a Knightmare "Life force draining, team" style heartbeat sound whenever it was recommended that people who wanted to keep their sanity should close their eyes.
And in the small amount of investigation I did into the minds behind these films, I found that one of the writers (the man responsible for "Apaches") also starred in a Doctor Who story called "The Reign of Terror". How appropriate.
