Once upon a time, during my first week of life as a fresher, I was introduced to a film that would remain lodged in my memory for the rest of eternity.

A lot has been said about the desensitisation of audiences to gore and horror. In the last decade, our preoccupation with our own desensitisation has been escalated, thanks to a series of ‘gorenography’ films; horror flicks that spend most of their time showing us grisly, disgusting deaths, maiming, and quite often some of the most startlingly repulsive images we’re ever likely to see.

You’re running through a deep, dark wasteland, pursued by an unspeakable terror. You can’t get away fast enough, and for some reason your every move is punctuated by gothic choral music. But then a thought occurs, and you stop. Why are you running?

So it’s Halloween and you and your flatmates sit down to enjoy a couple of scary movies. But Which do you choose? Well definitely not Land of the Dead with its dull plotline and zombies that appear to have escaped from the local care home; nor Blade with its ridiculous action sequences, and lack of style no matter how hard it tries.

Of all the film scenes throughout history, nothing has ever matched the simplistic chill of Jurassic Park: A single coffee cup, shot up close as it ripples with the heavy footsteps of the approaching T-Rex. Why does this single image continue to instill so much dread in the general public? Because monsters are big. Really big.

We all love monsters, vampires, zombies, and so on and they’re fun (if you like to laugh at the improbable) but the truly memorable characters from horror movies, the ones that send a shiver down every viewer’s spines are the humans.

Vampires. These bloodsucking creatures have been the villains and sometimes the heroes, of films from the dawn of cinema; their power to both scare and enthral us remaining to this day.

Donald Duck – The original exhibitionist – I have never seen this dude wearing pants, yet he feels the need to wear half a sailor costume. A Little too kinky for kids if you ask me.

The original Terminator is a popular sci-fi action thriller and its sequel, T2-Judgement Day, showed that sequels don’t have to be worse than the original film, and that action movies can actually have a decent plot in addition to all the explosions and guns.

The regional premier is on Tuesday 12th April at 7pm in Manchester Odeon Filmworks (in the Printworks in town), and will be followed by a Q&A with Director James Wan, and Writer/Actor Leigh Whannell, the dark minds behind the phenomenally successful SAW franchise.

Scuba vs SCB, Dark Sky, Pangaea, Instra:mental, XXXY Sankeys 11th March 2011 4 stars

The intimate atmosphere in Academy 3 was the perfect setting for the first appearance of intriguing new sound and beat makers, The Naked and Famous. This New Zealand-originated rock band have fused the ferocious talents of Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers to create a five-piece band with a style similar to that of MGMT, yet they differentiate with vocals to rival that of Paramore’s Hayley Williams.

Their new album, The King Is Dead, went to number one in America and tonight’s show is part of their biggest UK tour to date, but the strongest indication of The Decemberists having ‘made it’ surely comes in the form of a pre-recorded message, played before the band take the stage, from the mayor of their hometown of Portland, Sam Adams.

Build a Rocket Boys! is Elbow’s fifth album and follow up from their 2008 Mercury award-winning The Seldom Seen Kid. The Brit-Rockers still pedal their guitar-orientated brand of melancholy, but this time have swapped cynicism for nostalgia.

With their latest effort, this all-female trio from Brooklyn seek to surpass their ordinary, hastily executed kitsch in pursuit of a more exploratory sound. Emerging from the noise-pop scene of New York that has manufactured the equally derivative Crystal Stilts, the Vivian Girls have reveled in their unpolished and hurried style, stubbornly sticking to their uncompromising, primitive clatter. In Share the Joy these achingly hip darlings of Pitchfork, in some ways succeed in going beyond their familiar C86 like jangles.

Ten is the new album from the Manchester Aid to Kosovo organisation, with all proceeds going to community projects and the construction of the Manchester Peace Park in Kosovo. Marking the tenth anniversary of their first compilation, Cohesion, this second release is an assortment of gems from Manchester’s alternative and indie music scene; compiled by The Travelling Band’s Jo Dudderidge.

Ke$ha has been one of the rising stars of 2010, most notable for her “sing-talk” method and catchy songs, but being seen as a “metalhead”, it seems almost unspeakable that I enjoy listening to her music. The lyrics may make very little sense whatsoever, yet Ke$ha contributes a large amount to the writing of her songs, as opposed to many other pop stars who rely on professional song-writers to compose their hits.

Returning to Academy 1 in support of their seventh album, the wonderfully-titled Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, post-rock veterans Mogwai deliver a stirring, two-hour set that spans their entire career. They showcase a whole host of tracks from the new record, opening with the chirpy and upbeat ‘White Noise’, with ‘Mexican Grand Prix’, ‘I’m Lionel Richie’ and new single ‘Rano Pano’ also aired, the latter brilliantly blending grinding guitars with subtle synths. This is a band capable of conveying an incredibly wide range of emotion in their music, which is all the more remarkable when you consider that the vast majority of it is purely instrumental.

In the corner, across from the fountain, sits Peter Proma

Fourteen lines rotate like a weather vane