My brother told me about Legend Extra so I retuned our telly and there it was. Channel 69! Where had it been?
Last night I enjoyed the Witches - mentioned here before as it uses Sindy as a prop - and the start of Torture Garden (I had to go to bed).
Tonight it's Odd Thomas - don't know that one - and Tuesday it's Crack in the World. Oh yes! What a film. With the silky voiced Dana Andrews and the couple from Day of the Triffids, it's a terrific flick from the halcyon days of glorious disasters. It features a missile, which is very TV21 too!
Malicious monkey business starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy). A troubled, yet expert, guide is called in to lead a rescue when a plane crashes on a Mexican island populated by mutant baboons.
Catastrophic creature feature. A scientific experiment goes horribly wrong, leading to a clash between a giant ape and an enormous Gila monster - with the future of mankind in question.
Tentacled terror with James Van Der Beek. A scientist studying a drop in the fish population discovers the locals are disappearing as well - and there's something terrifying in the water.
Eerie horror anthology with Donald Pleasence. A psychiatrist recounts four disturbing cases to a colleague, from a boy with an imaginary tiger to a cannibal luau organised by a literary agent.
Horror comedy with Michael Gough. A disillusioned singer is persuaded to take a break at a health farm, but soon discovers that his fellow guests all have identical scars on their foreheads.
Lots of goodies on the UK's Talking Pictures TV this weekend' Anything you fancy? I fancy the fabulous Gorgo, the amazing Man with X Ray Eyes and the genius that is The Night of the Demon, perhaps the greatest monster movie of all time.
Fri 11 Nov
17:50 The Ghost & Mrs Muir 1947. Drama. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Starring Rex Harrison, Gene Tierney and George Sanders. Mrs Muir discovers that her holiday cottage is haunted by a previous owner.
20:00 The Outer Limits The Duplicate Man. 1964. Stars Ron Randell, Constance Towers & Mike Lane. A scientist smuggles a dangerous creature to Earth, but it escapes. Afraid, he creates a clone of himself to hunt it down.
21:05 976-Evil 1989. Comedy Horror. Directed by Robert Englund. Stars Stephen Geoffreys, Patrick O'Bryan & Sandy Dennis. A seemingly harmless telephone service grants a teenager with supernatural powers.
23:00 Night of the Demon (AKA Curse of the Demon) 1957. Horror. Director: Jacques Tourneur. Stars Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins & Niall MacGinnis. A professor arrives in London and investigates a devil worshipper.
Sat 12 Nov
01:00 Phantom Ship 1935. Mystery. Directed by Denison Clift. Stars Bela Lugosi, Shirley Grey & Arthur Margetson. During a terrible storm, the crew of a ship realise a murderer is among them, killing them one by one.
07:15 Gorgo 1961. Sci-Fi. An undersea earthquake causes some sea-monsters to surface. Gorgo is captured and taken to be displayed in London, but Gorgo's mother is looking for her baby. Starring Bill Travers.
10:35 Green Hornet Strikes Again Shattering Doom. 1941. Stars Warren Hull. Two reporters are sent to the border where they uncover a group of smugglers. The Green Hornet forces them to reveal the warehouse with explosive results!
12:00 The Man with X-Ray Eyes 1963. Sci-fi. Director: Roger Corman. Stars Ray Milland, Diana Van der Vils & Harold J. Stone. A doctor discovers the formula for x-ray vision, unaware of the disastrous consequences of the power.
14:55 Man In The Moon 1960. Comedy. Directed by Basil Dearden and starring Kenneth More, Shirley Anne Field and Michael Hordern. Scientists are looking for the perfect man to send to the moon.
Perhaps the strangest programme on over the weekend is this episode of Special Unit 2 at 7am Sunday on Legend: The Waste: A creature which forms out of the fat of liposuction patients kills a doctor and escapes into the city's water system! Yuk!
I'm still in sick bay and attempting daytime TV rather than going directly to You Tube.
I'm watching 2012: Ice Age on Horror at the mo and I despite a lively attempt at movie making I just can't cope with the blurriness and muted silvers and greys of modern cheapo horror films.
What do they do? Smear the whole reel in vaseline and chuck the colour palette in the bin? The use of a million teenagers doesn't make up for it!
I understand that these films will be cheap for channels like Horror to buy, who tend towards a teen audience, but boy oh boy are they rubbish compared to classic B movies and Hammer horrors.
Yes, I'm an old crusty approaching 60, a baby boomer brought up on Universal monsters and Amicus anthologies, but please, show some decent stuff Horror Channel and not just once every full moon!
What do you think readers? Shall I be quiet and take another haliborange?
On the UK Horror Channel today, some classic Sci-Fi TV for a lockdown Easter: 2pm The Giant Claw 3.30pm The Incredible Shrinking Man 5.10pm 20 Million Miles to Earth 6.50pm Journey to the Far Side of the Sun/ Doppelganger [Gerry Anderson!] 10.45pm Fright Night [Roddy McDowell] What will you be watching?
Besides the usual observations about John Carpenter's distinctive musical score and superb photography, here are a few other more tangential thoughts.
First up the name Loomis. Its important to Carpenter. Loomis is the real surname of two members of John Carpenter's film crew. One of them, Nancy Loomis also plays Sandy Fadel in the Fog. Its relevant since in the film Halloween, the Professor, one Donald Pleasance, is also called Loomis. He was Michael Myers' shrink. Carpenter often used friends' names in his movies.
The late Debra Hill co-wrote the script for the Fog along with Carpenter. Hill had co-wrote Halloween and set the film in Haddonfield, New Jersey, where she was from! I'm starting to think that New Jersey is the centre of American horror and spooks!
Interestingly a character called Dan O'Bannon also pops up in the Fog, a reference to Carpenter's past collaboration with the real O'Bannon on Dark Star. The late O'Bannon went on to co-script ALIEN and the rest is history. Coincidentally O'Bannon's Dad was a carpenter! The actor who played O'Bannon in the Fog, Charles Cyphers, had once competed in a game show for a date with Yvonne Craig aka Batgirl!
Arguably the main character in the Fog is Stevie Wayne, the radio presenter played by Adrienne Barbeau. Barbeau was married to John Carpenter at the time and she went on to voice Catwoman in Batman The Animated Series!
The Mayor of Antonio Bay in the Fog is none other than that shower curtain queen herself, the late Janet Leigh, star of the iconic Psycho. Her daughter with Tony Curtis was Jamie Lee Curtis and both Mother and Daughter appeared in the Fog together!
The male lead in the Fog is the character Nick Castle played by Carpenter stalwart Tom Atkins. Atkins was married to Garn Stephens. They both appeared in Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Stephens played Marge Guttman the toy shop owner who has a bad evening sat in bed when she prods her hair clip into one of Silver Shamrock's witchcraft mask decals. Bad idea!
Interestingly Tom Atkins' lead-male characters in both The Fog and Halloween III: Season of the Witch meet up with a young woman visiting the towns in the films: Stacey Nelkin in Witch and Jamie Lee Curtis in the Fog.
Both women can be seen as bad omens. After teaming up with them and investigating strange goings-on in both movies, his character beds both young women whilst all around them is carnage and skullduggery.
Interestingly Stacey Nelkin had once been cast as Pris in Blade Runner. As we know, the role eventually went to Daryl Hannah.
One other thing struck me, about the coastline of Antonio Bay in The Fog. It has a distinct curving shape.
I'd seen something very similar and thought maybe they were the same but no. Here's what I was thinking of, the colony retreat in The Howling.
I didn't see any old toys in the Fog but I did see a large blue plastic space-age radio in Stevie Wayne's bedroom I think. I've no idea of the make but it reminded me immediately of the central section [dials and clock face] of the Merit Dan Dare Radio Station. Anyone know the US radio?
I've just watched Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf on TV's Horror Channel at 8 'o' clock in the morning!
For a baby boomer like me this is astonishing really.
When I was around 10 or 11 in 1970 watching the three channels we had on telly I would have had to wait till late at night before I could have seen Curse of the Werewolf back then.
So in 45 years the clock has turned full circle on werewolves and all the other Hammers of my grue-obsessed youth.
It's a revolution!
No longer midnight movies, the 'X' rated flicks of the Sixties are as tame as Saturday morning cartoons and can be watched whilst having your cornflakes!
The 9 pm violence watershed I grew up with has evaporated into a fine mist of milk and sugar.
This time-shift could only be topped by the morning newspapers coming with free copies of Creepy and Eerie comics!
Clearly a seismic shift in adult attitudes towards what kids can view I can't honestly decide if its a good thing particularly as I have just become a Granddad.
Do I want my young Grandson to have access to Hammer Horrors at breakfast time?
I suppose access is the key here. Parents [and Grandparents!] are responsible for how kids access technology in the home and therefore it should be easy to control.
But throughout history children have done what they are not supposed to and watched stuff they were never meant to see.
Just think of the video nasties during the 80's video boom. Adults supposedly had the control of the VCR but kids watched them anyway. In the public outcry that followed shopkeepers actually went to jail.
That was thirty years ago and now anything can be watched anywhere anyplace no holds barred. Instant telly for a superfast world where violence no longer respects a 9 pm watershed. Violence appears normal. Maybe this is the same in the comics genre too?
So compared to modern fare that children see on the interweb Curse of the Werewolf IS like a Saturday morning cartoon, but I will still have to think about at what age my Granddson can watch it with me. 10? 11? 12?
Recently I've been enjoying Wonder Woman the TV series on the Horror Channel.
The gorgeous and multi-talented Lynda Carter plays Wonder Woman and despite there being several more actresses who have tried on the red knee boots, its Lynda who I think of when I imagine the super heroine.
Being a Golden Age hero created in the 1940's, like Captain America and co, Wonder Woman fought the USA's arch-enemy of the day, the Nazi's. The TV series was set during World War II for the first series before shifting to the 1970's.
The only Wonder Woman collectable I've ever owned was a loose action figure from the Super Powers line by Kenner from 1984. This was back in the late 1990's/ early 00's when I flirted with the idea of collecting the whole Super Powers range.
I often saw the whole amazing collection at the annual Memorabilia fair at the NEC, where Wonder Woman, complete with her oft-missing Lasso of Truth would be rubbing perfect shoulders with Superman, Batman and The Flash.
[pixabay: public domain]
Whilst watching the TV series I have wondered whether the producers would have used the Super Powers toy if it had been available to them years earlier. Models were used in the show my favourite is this Invisible Jet. "Wonder" what the figure actually was? Mego?
Lynda Carter went on to enjoy careers in both fashion and singing and has remained a pop culture icon popular with fans.
Wonder Woman, like all her DC pals, is enjoying a resurgence of interest and will lasso our mortal minds once more this month when Gal Gadot tries on tiara in the much anticipated blockbuster Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.
I'm currently watching a film called Snow Beast on the Horror Channel.
Snow Beasts have a long and dignified history in popular culture. From the classic Abominable Snowman black and white original with Peter Cushing, the Yeti has been a staple of popular culture.
In my bookshelf is a well-thumbed copy of Snow Man by Norman Bogner, one of those iconic New English Library paperbacks made for a summer holiday read. My copy is from 1979 like the one pictured but I think it was first published in 1977, a good year for Yeti's.
[pic: nastynels]
Snowbeast is also from 1977 and is a horror flick, which for a time in the 1980's courted the video nasties when Vipco released it on VHS. Its not a nasty at all and with the likes of Clint Walker and Bo Svenson and some decent sets is very watchable. I last saw it on You Tube and with its large number of extras in the film's ski resort it reminded me of other holiday disaster films like Piranha and Jaws.
A much less able affair is the Snow Beast movie I'm currently viewing on telly. From 2011, it has a cast of about five, three of whom are on the DVD cover [the beast ate the other and it makes five] who appear to sit around drinking coffee or driving SUV's most of the time. Avoidable.
Grab a coffee and watch the 1977 movie or read the NEL paperback.
Have you any Yeti's in the closet readers?
*
ABOMINABLE TOYS
Brian's recommendation of this cool looking modern Yeti Playset by Animal Planet has prompted me to list a few Yeti toys.
Maybe the mother of all vintage Yeti toys, here's the Marx original from 1963
and video footage by Big Al of it on the Tube. Be warned, the mechanical Wampa shrieking is really unpleasant!
Then of course there is that rarity amongst Sasquatches, the Mego Six Million Dollar Man Big Foot as covered on the US TV show Toy Hunter.
There's also this 7m video on the Tube explaining the ins and outs of it as a collectable:
Although I don't own one, my own personal favourite,is this, the Snow Man from the legendary Tomland line of Monsters. He has to be the most handsome of all Yetis!
There are lots more Abominable Snowmen toys: Matchbox, GI Joe and so on. Anyone got any?
This week the long hand of my own history reached out and touched me, a severed hand to be precise.
After nearly 50 years I eventually watched Hammer Film's 1971 classic BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB on the Horror Channel here in the UK. The iconic cinema poster from the time must be the ultimate collectable from the film but I am happy to simply have seen the movie now.
Seeing this pharaoh fest for the first time was a fabulous treat and after half a century tied up a personal loose-end as my grue-filled childhood came full circle.
When I was 11 my Big Bro bought me a book about horror films. It was a softback with monochrome photos and was relatively thin but boy, did it make an impression. Most impressive of all was the cover showing a the severed hand of an ancient Egyptian Queen bearing a huge red ring, the severed hand from Blood From the Mummy's Tomb!
I was immediately propelled back to being 11 in 1971, when the world was full of wonderful monsters and I was discovering them all. I loved that book with a passion and I'm pleased to say it's one of the few things that have stood the ravages of time and escorted me into the future. I still have it next my other old horror film books from my formative years.
Watching the film I was reminded how much I adore Hammer Horrors. I have to be honest and say that the Mummy was never my favourite monster - just too slow to be frightening - but it is still a monster and so gets a shout. Blood From the Mummy's Tomb doesn't really contain any Mummy's. The slumbering Queen is already in the flesh and simply awaiting re-incarnation.
The Queen herself, Tera. was played by the sensational Valerie Leon pictured below, who also doubled as her modern incarnation, the arousingly named Margaret Fuchs. Leon was perhaps the must voluptuous of all the Hammer ladies and in its heyday Hammer's heady cocktail of sex and horror gave Hollywood some proper stiff competition.
There was a time in the late Sixties and early Seventies when young men would heatedly discuss this accolade till their shandy went flat: just who was the most gorgeous girl in horror?
The top 5 contenders for the title were:
1. Valerie Leon
2. Caroline Munro
3. Ingrid Pitt
4. Madeleine Smith
5. Raquel Welch
There were other scream queens like Barbara Steele, Barbara Shelley and Kate O'Mara and they would often bounce in and out of the list as well. Capatin Company advertising at the back of horror comics and The Athena poster shop did a roaring trade in large black and white and color posters of these - and many other film stars. Bedroom walls were plastered with them, especially the Raquel Welch monochrome wonder from the film One Million BC, a desirable collectable in itself nowadays.
Looking them up online I was pleased to see that Valerie, Caroline, Madeleine and Raquel are all still with us and ageing very nicely thank you. Must be all that fresh blood they drank! Sadly, Ingrid Pitt died in 2010 but I was lucky enough to see her at the NEC in the early Noughties. I used to enjoy her Pitt of Horror articles in Model Mart magazine immensely.
Getting back to the film, I suppose I can say that my main collectable from it IS my old horror book with the Queen's detached dexter on the front. I did own a rubber severed hand for many of my tender years and I'm surprises I never thought to put a large red ring in one of its clammy fingers like the one Miss. Leon wore in the flick.
Despite not being able to find any vintage merchandise relating to this ring its comforting to know that its still possible to get hold of a similar scarlet gem to bling-up your horror collection for just a few shakes of a scarab's tail.
During the film an antiquarian called Dandridge gets involved. We see his dusty old office and store room. I was amazed to spot a lamp in there I recognised!
It similar to the one I have in my own dusty office and store. Actually, my bedroom! ha ha
The huge Egyptian knife struck a chord as well. I was enthralled by bladed weapons in 1972/ 73 after seeing some on Kung Fu and the Water Margin on TV. In the movie Andrew Kier of Quatermass and the Pit fame wielded the dagger in a vain attempt to slay Queen Tera.
My own cellar 'dojo' at the time was bristling with swords and ceremonial knives, all of which were decorative fakes I might add! I did collect the odd real one as well like Ghurka Kukri's.
I also couldn't help noticing the similarity of the soundtrack of the film's alleyway scene - shown here via Daily Motion [around 1 hour 8 mins in] to that of the opening titles in the original Captain Scarlet TV series shown below via You Tube.
I'd love to get hold of this Pre-cert VHS video of the film from the early 1980's, especially if I found one slumbering like Nefertiti at a Car Boot sale! Even better would be a Super 8 or 35mm boxed cinefilm version but I'm unsure if one was made. Similarly there is a modern soundtrack CD package but personally I'd be much more enamored with an LP record if such a thing exists.
So, with blood from the Mummy's Tomb on my hands, I'll ponder the small world we frequent, the looping nature of life and the likely look of the film if Peter Cushing had been able to stay.
For a further peek into the sarcophagos, there is a short documentary about the film on You Tube via Cronosmantas.
Having just discovered a new freeview channel on UK TV called the Horror Channel [803] and with time to kill on Sunday just gone, I settled down to some serious Sci-Fi over a long breakfast.
First up was an old Tom Baker Dr.Who series called the Ark In Space, which I must say I enjoyed a great deal. It was an omnibus of all the episodes in one. I like Tom's Doctor along with John Pertwee's more than any and I found this story both engaging and nostalgic in equal measure. The acting was good, the music subtle and downplayed and the effects, despite being done on a shoe string, were plausible and inventive. Some of my favourite features were:
Obviously this is bubble wrap sprayed green but I thought Noah's transformation into a Wirrn was very effective!
Even more green bubble wrap was used for the Wirrn pupa, which I assume had a child crawling around in it. Again, simple but productive.
The adult Wirrn reminded me greatly of the alien insects in the 1960's movie Quatermass and the Pit. I love a good insect and the Wirrn are great.
The Ark: on first glance I thought they'd used a SWORD Booster rocket for the central tower!
Not sure what they've used but I bet someone's worked it out!
The cryo-chambers were simple opaque casts of human forms. I don't know how expensive they will have been but I thought they worked well. They reminded me of a similar translucent action doll I had as a kid. It may not even have been jointed. No idea any more what it was.
and finally I spotted various futuristic bits of furniture on the Ark and one looked a lot like this Cartell cart. Can't find a screengrab of it in the show though so I can't be sure. Anyone have one?
What do you think of the Ark In Space readers? Is there any merchandise from the series?
In the meantime I hope the Horror Channel run my fave Doctor Who stories, the Sea Devils and the Curse of Peladon.
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