By Glenn Triggs
BRAVEHEART (1995)
I was no older than 17 when I watched the first 20 minutes of Braveheart on VHS (in 4:3 mind you – pan and scan) and found it incredibly boring. It wasn’t till a few months later that I caught the last 10 minutes on Foxtel (or was it Optus Vision back then?) and it caught me by surprise when I started crying uncontrollably in those final two sequences. I thought I really need to watch the whole thing. Braveheart inspired me to do a lot of things – and making films was one of them. James Horner’s score is the best soundtrack I’ve ever heard in my life – coming second to Titanic! I think I own six different version of Braveheart (mainly due to special features) on DVD/Blu Ray.
CUBE (1997)
I worked at Blockbuster for five years and had the chance to watch an implausible amount of movies on VHS. My record was five films in a day – my vision went flickery for a short while after that. Cube was just another sci-fi film in the pile. As soon as it ended, I jumped up – rewound the tape and watched it again – then again. I loved it. Perfect sci-fi should have no answers at the end! I’m a sucker for movies where after I watch them I think to myself I could make that (1 location, bunch of actors) – all you needed was one great idea – and Cube was a very clever idea.
JURASSIC PARK (1993)
Hoyts Cinemas at Forest Hill Chase had a giant T-Rex near the candy bar. Seeing this when I arrived to watch Jurassic Park almost took me over the edge with excitement. The film blew my mind. And to this day still stands up as the best dinosaur movie (with only 14 minutes of dinosaur footage in the entire movie).
These were the days when waiting to see something in the movie while watching the movie was half the fun. Seeing great CGI for the first time and having that tickle in your brain! My 10-year-old-self thinking special effects are only going to get better from here on in! Well, any day now…
It was a thrilling cinematic ride! Jurassic Park is a film I know I’ve watched four times in a row – literally as the credits rolled (and that weird hair on the gate flickers on the sunset) rewind, watch again, and again and again!
HALLOWEEN (1978)
We rented a bunch of horror VHS tapes and John Carpenter’s Halloween was second on the list for the night. I was captivated, mesmerised and totally transported from my quiet suburban house at night – to a quiet suburban house at night… with John Carpenter on the keys.
It went immediately under Cube on the list of ‘hey, I could make a film like that’. I had absolutely no idea that Halloween had this huge cult following at the time – but I knew it was something special. A masterpiece of horror and suspense. And I thought the sequel was pretty awesome too, a great continuation of the same night he came home. But that third one… mmm.
Glenn Triggs’ new film, The Comet Kids, is out later this year. Check out our extended interview with him here, and the trailer here.