During the Christmas and New Year celebrations I've caught the odd horror and ghost story where I could, in between the sherries and advocaats.
These offerings were inspired by the Christmas edition of the Radio Times, which we buy every December and have done for years, a true tradition.
The ghost stories of the great Victorian spook master M.R. James were high on my list of TV and radio likes.
I've already a full collection of the old BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas on DVD but any chance to see them again is always welcome, as well as the modern radio renditions by MR James' superfan Mark Gatiss.
Stories I saw and heard were The Ice House, The Stalls of Barchester, the Rats, A Warning to the Curious, The Mezzotint and Casting the Runes, the inspiration for the 1950's shocker Night of the Demon.
I missed Whistle and I'll come to You, the John Hurt version; Number 13 and The Ash Tree.
Other grim pickings I caught were Frankenstein, Vincent Price's Fish, a radio play set in Australia, the film 13 Ghosts, the William Castle black and white original and the movie Pulse.
Pulse is an interesting flick from 1984 starring Cliff de Young, who you may recall as Leitman in FX: Murder By Illusion. Pulse is about a malevolent electricity plaguing a family home, transforming household gadgets into lethal things such as a boiling shower and a raging heater. It reminded me of the movie Poltergeist with its constant deadly onslaughts into a normal American nuclear family.
Initially I mistook Pulse for another old eco-horror, Impulse, a 1984 US flick about the effects of a toxic waste leak on a small town's residents. It starred Tim Matheson, who I know as Otter from National Lampoons Animal House. You may know his voice as that of Johnny Quest in the 1960's cartoon.
Alistair Sim's Scrooge passed me by this Christmas too, which I can hopefully put right this week.
What have you watched this holiday readers?
I saw that the old BBC 'Ghost Stories For Christmas' were on , but pretty well missed all of them.
ReplyDeleteI did watch a lot of Blaze's 'UF-HO-HO-HO !' season of UFO documentaries. Mostly nonsense, but a few interesting tales.
Many are still on BBC iPlayer Mish. I really enjoyed the Frankenstein two-part radio play as well. That's on iPlayer. Never read Mary Shelley's book and it was great to hear it.
DeleteFinally getting back to watching my large boxed set of the surviving episodes of The Avengers (most of Series 1 is missing). Currently on Series 3, the last with Cathy Gale, then it will be on to Emma Peel.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy Paul. Diana Rigg was born not too far from Moonbase - in Doncaster July 1938, a year before the start of World War Two!
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