“Starve is a product of hate,” says Chris Pritchard, guitarist with Harrogate punk-metal bruisers Blood Youth and horror movie aficionado, of his band’s new album. “We’ve been letting this thing sit and fester and spread inside of us for two years.”
To capture that feeling, the band locked themselves away in a studio on a farm in the middle of nowhere for more than a month, immersing themselves in a non-stop diet of horror movies.
“We completely engulfed our lives in everything dark to be able to channel as much hate as we all had built up inside us, to be able to create this album,” says Pritchard. “We watched horror movies literally every single night for a month straight.”
We asked Pritchard to tell us the 10 most disturbing films he’s ever seen, during Blood Youth’s twisted studio marathon or elsewhere. Not surprisingly, he jumped at the chance…
Insidious (all of them)
The Insidious franchise is such an amazing line of movies which I love watching. They have such a spiritual/other realm life to them which I can’t get enough of, and have belief in to a degree myself. We watched these in the studio a lot, always a good time.
The Conjuring 1 & 2
Damn, these are fucking sick – probably my favourite horror/thriller movies ever. They’re so fucked up on such a mental level. And the second one is based on the famous Enfield Poltergeist case from the 70s, using real imagery and names from the event. I love paranormal history and I love how The Conjuring movies fade in and out of that.
The Hills Have Eyes
The remake of the original 70s version. It’s just straight fucked up. Watching this with the rest of the band in the studio, it obviously provoked some form of cover-up laughter to make up for how gross it actually is. But I get a horrible and dirty feeling watching it. It has so many horrendous scenes, from people being raped and dogs being killed to family members watching other family members getting burned alive. Definitely one of the most fucked up films I’ve seen.
The Evil Dead
I never actually saw this film before we watched it in the studio, so I was pretty excited about it being one of the most famous horror franchises. At times it did seem a bit corny, but I guess that’s what Evil Dead is great for. It is a sick movie though, and very bloody. For anyone who’s into gore or horror, it’s definitely a must watch.
Event Horizon
Horror in space. It’s sick. We watched this one a lot around the writing and recording of our first ever EP. And we even took a line from the movie and incorporated it into our song Big Smoke. It’s definitely grim in parts – mainly the huge alien rape/orgy thing that goes down. I’m a huge fan of the Dead Space games and this movie kind of made me realise where they must have got their plot and vision from.
A Serbian Film
Hands down just fucked up. There’s no reason this film should even still be around. There’s one scene – which I won’t spoil for anyone who hasn’t seen it – which haunts this movie to this day. Still I appreciate the artistic approach to the film’s plot though. But just no. We didn’t watch this in the studio - nobody wanted to.
Hereditary
This movie is fucked up, but in such a beautiful and artistic way. The cinematography is like no other horror film to me, and the score and sound is genius. I have a big obsession with movie scores and soundtracks – I even used some of the tension-building techniques a lot of composers use for parts on our new album. This movie uses a lot of what’s called a 'Shepherd Tone’, which is a tritone paradox pretty much creating a sonic illusion of a note that’s infinitely climbing or or dipping. It’s the revolving door of music, never ending, and it creates tension by being in the background of scenes one after the other just constantly climbing up and up - it’s a genius way to create tension. Listen to our album and see if you can find the Shepherd Tone.
Silent Hill
I love Silent Hill – the movie and the games. I just love how much the plot of the film revolves around a deep sense of hate. You have to look into a little deeper than normal to find, but I find a really spiritual connection to this meaning and what it means to me. I love it so much I even cut samples and noise effects from the film, fucked them all up with our producer and scattered them across the album as textures underneath the music. No matter what riff or song is being played, underneath it all is the sound of hate. I love that.
The Babadook
To be honest, this film wasn’t the best I’ve ever seen. The main quality was the pure filth around it. The whole vibe and feel to it just makes you feel dirty and gross. But one of the biggest things I took from this film, and something I hold a close connection to, is the metaphor behind it. It all comes down to depression and how it follows you everywhere, and can really affect those around you. After I watched it for the first time, I was kind of confused about the mission statement behind it. But later, when I found this out, it all made sense to me.
The Poughkeepsie Tapes
Last on the list, but definitely one of my favourites and one which I was fixated on as a teenager. It’s based around a series of murders that happen in Poughkeepsie by a killer called The Water Street Butcher. They find a collection of video tapes/snuff films made by the killer himself documenting his victim’s lives from the moment he met them, to their very last breath, and everything in-between, filmed from the perspective of the killer.
One of the things that stuck with me was that throughout all the murders, he had kept one girl alive. At the end of the movie they discover that she has been kept alive in a wooden box for a very long time, and has had a mask permanently glued over her face. She is deeply attached to the killer and somewhat in love with him through some weird form of Stockholm syndrome I guess.
It’s one of my favourite horror films because it’s so unheard of yet so good. It holds such a gruesome truth and reality behind it. I like to take a lot of the feelings and areas that these films put me in and use them to help write music and lyrics.
Blood Youth’s new album, Starve, is out now. They tour the UK from March 1
Blood Youth UK tour
Mar 01: Joiners, Southampton
Mar 02: The Key Club, Leeds
Mar 03: Audio, Glasgow
Mar 04: Think Tank, Newcastle
Mar 06: Star & Garter, Manchester
Mar 07: Mama Roux’s, Birmingham
Mar 08: Underworld, London
