Happy Halloween!

Some of you know that I occasionally write stuff about movies. The fantastic Den of Geek is one of the lucky recipients of my work, and you can read my latest offering (of 25 spooky movies) here.

I hope y'all appreciate how many scary films I had to watch in order to write the list; I now pee my pants if I hear a floorboard creaking in the next room, and if I see a kid with long straggly hair, I'm OUTTA here. Which reminds me... apparently this makes a prank which really will make grown adults scream....

Doesn't anyone think it's kind of odd that something spooky should so closely resemble a movie stereotype? I wondered the same thing watching Derren Brown: Apocalypse. In a nutshell, some poor sod has been deemed to "take life for granted" by his sanctimonious family as well as the TV hypnotist. So with mind-bending cruelty, they *apparently* set him up to believe that a huge meteor shower was due (with the possibililty of this introducing  a "virus" from space). Apparently confident that his only news source would be a particular website, they hacked into his phone and computer, and later planted passengers on a train carrying fake newspapers. (Really? You wouldn't be worried he was going to buy a paper himself? Or use google?)

Admittedly, they were fiendishly clever – employing XFM newsreaders to record fake stories which would then be playing on a radio in a cafe that their victim (Steven) went into. The culmination of the elaborate hoax came when Steven was on a minibus and the "asteroids" started hitting the ground. Derren Brown sneaks up, hypnotises him in 2 seconds, and the next thing he knows, he's re-enacting the opening scenes of 28 Days Later. (Or if we're going to be fair to John Wyndham, scenes from his 1951 novel, Day of the Triffids.)

I can't help thinking that anyone in Steven's position would say "Wait, I've seen this, It's zombies, right?" However, many people (well, teenage boys) believe that a zombie apocalypse could be upon as at any time, so maybe it would seem like the most natural thing in the world.)

Naturally, there are cries that the guy is a stooge, it's all a set-up and we're the ones who are being fooled. Derren Brown strenuously denies it. (But then, can you trust a man who happily admits to victimising a stranger with a faux apocalypse? I think not.)

As with  Keeping up with the Kardashians, my overriding thought was "Thank GOD my family isn't like that." I also couldn't help thinking that being hypnotised into believing you're in life-threatening danger could one day be the latest stunt for thrill seekers. Just as long as somebody hides all the machetes...