Giger and features no end of Freudian symbolism. Its gnarled Gothic setting, shot almost entirely in the studio, looks like the creation of H.R. This wonderfully surreal movie stole away my innocence and ushered me through adolescence. Other kids my age were terrified by night terrors whereas, to Keeper, they offered unparalleled enchantment. Consequently I began to suffer lurid phantasms although suffer may not be the most accurate way of describing my receipt of such visions. Jordan’s film, based on Angela Carter’s werewolf anthology The Bloody Chamber, struck a chord instantly and encouraged my young mind to vacate its comfort zone and probe the darker recesses not yet scrutinized.

It was around the time of my own sexual awakening and also a particularly sweet spot for my knack of distorting the boundaries of my own imaginings. I was twelve when I first watched Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves, which was the precise age of its main protagonist Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson). “Little girls, this seems to say / Never stop upon your way / Never trust a stranger friend / No-one knows how it will end / As you’re pretty, so be wise / Wolves may lurk in every guise / Now as then, ’tis simple truth / Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth” My vivid imagination has always been my most treasured asset and these parables fueled my intrigue to such a degree that my sleeping hours became densely populated with all manner of wonderful, mythical creatures. The brothers popularized many German and Scandinavian mythologies during their lifetime and these have become cherished folk-lore over the past two centuries, bedtime stories for young whippersnappers who have drunk their milk and eaten their cookies.

In particular the works of Jacob and Wilheim Grimm from the early nineteenth century allowed my over-active imagination to soar. Fairy tales always fascinated me as a child.

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