A Short Film About John Bolton

John Bolton is a British artist known for his work, predominantly in the horror field, for British comics like 'Look In', 'House of Hammer' & 'Warrior', US comic publishers such as Marvel, DC and Dark Horse, card games publishers Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf, his paintings of vampiric ladies and, perhaps most crucially to Wyrd Britain readers, for his drawings of the ghouls in the graveyard in the movie 'The Monster Club'

The film is presented as a roughly cut documentary, fronted by Marcus Brigstocke, focussed on the first gallery exhibition of Bolton's vampire paintings.  Bolton - who appears in the film as an interviewee at the exhibition launch - is played by actor John O'Mahoney, and is shown as socially awkward and reticent of both the gallery show and the film eventually relenting to allowing Brigstock access to his studio located in the crypt of an old church at the centre of a suitably gothic graveyard.

Developed from his own fictionalised biography ('Drawn in Darkness') this mockumentary written and directed by Neil Gaiman - who's worked with Bolton several times on stories such as  'The Books of Magic' & 'Halequin Valentine' - is, in his words, "an investigation into where artists get their ideas from".  Gaiman's status as a novice film-maker works to his advantage here and the occasional clumsiness plays to both the mockumentary form and the 'unfinished' nature of the documentary and the end result is a fun, tongue in cheek tribute to Bolton and his influences that owes a debt to H.P. Lovecraft’s 'Pickman’s Model'.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Vampyres

Spanish director José Ramón Larraz' channels both his European contemporaries and the British gothic tradition in this fabulously gory sexploitation horror as murdered lovers Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska) return to 'life' as vampires and lure unsuspecting men back to their mansion in the woods (actually the much filmed Oakley Court in Brey, Berkshire) for sexy time and, well, dinner.

Larraz plays fast and loose with the whole vampire thing keeping many of the gothic trappings - the house, the flowing black gowns, the graveyards, the aversion to daylight - but by making use of knives and broken glass these fangless - and often clothesless - vampires slice their unwitting lovers to drink, writhing orgasmically in the blood - this movie is anything but subtle - and becoming increasingly animalistic as the movie progresses.  

What little story there is just about holds together as the two feed on a succession of men whilst seemingly keeping one, Ted (Murray Brown), around for snacks, licking at a slit on his arm - I did mention the aversion to subtlety - while being watched by curious caravanners Harriet (Sally Faulkner) and John (Brian Deacon).  I wonder if there was an early script idea that explained more of the ladies origins - Who killed them? How they became vampires? Why they have a cellar full of Carpathian wine? - as there're a couple of indications, at the beginning and at the very end, that Ted was responsible for their murder but this is never explored and neither Fran nor Miriam seem to recognise him nor he them.  

Beyond the fact that the story is really only an excuse to get some bums and boobs on the screen, Larraz, on the whole, does a pretty good job and the film is a fun watch. The sex scenes are typically overlong and overblown but when he puts his mind to it he manages to craft some scenes of ominous dread - most notably in the various scenes exploring the wine cellars - has an eye for a classic gothic trope and introduces some enjoyably oneiric touches particularly for Ted as he becomes increasingly weaker from all the blood loss, not to mention the wine and sex.

.......................................................................................... 

 

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain 

 Any affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

The Body Beneath

The Rev. Alexander Algernon Ford (Gavin Reed) is the head of a clan of vampires that live in (Dracula's) Carfax Abbey (relocated by the director from Purfleet) and haunt the nearby Highgate Cemetery - for "21 centuries" despite it having only been there since 1839.  The (not very) Reverend Ford is looking for new victims from within his extended family with which to improve the bloodline of the vampiric branch of the clan.  Finding a suitable candidate in the young and pregnant Susan (Jackie  Scarvellis) he kidnaps her and sets out to establish her as a one woman breeding colony.

US director Andy Milligan made some 27 movies (mostly exploitation and horror) between 1967 and 1988 with this being one of a flurry of films made during a brief sojourn to London in the very early 70s.  'The Body Beneath' is a no budget, camp as Christmas version of the Hammer template as imagined by a third rate theatre troupe.  Beyond its awful script, dreadful direction and diabolical editing it's filled with woeful acting, pointless pregnant pauses, inane gurning and bizarre costumes.  It is entirely terrible and entirely without merit but I've always been of the opinion that those weren't necessarily bad things in a movie.

Buy it here - UK / US.

(please be aware that in the vid below the sound goes slightly out of sync about halfway through - truthfully though that's the least of it's problems - there is a shorter edited version on youtube if you'd prefer)

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Kiss of the Vampire

Hammer's third vampire movie - following 'Dracula' (1958) (UK / US) and 'Brides of Dracula' (1960) (UK / US) - was the first without the D word in the title and indeed without any links to the Transylvanian count. Made by first time horror director Don Sharp for whom it would mark the beginning of a long lasting love of the genre and a career that would include a couple more for Hammer ('The Devil-Ship Pirates' (1964) & 'Rasputin, the Mad Monk' (1966) (UK / US)), the first two Fu Manchu movies with Christopher Lee, 'The Thirty Nine Steps' (1978) with Robert Powell and the great 'Psychomania' (1973) (UK / US) it offers a slight twist on the mythology.

Gerald (Edward de Souza - 'The Man' in Sapphire and Steel's final assignment (UK / US)) and Marianne Harcourt (Jennifer Daniel - 'The Reptile' (UK / US)) are honeymooning in Bavaria when Marianne falls into the clutches of the sinister Dr Ravna (Noel Willman - 'The Reptile') and his decadent cult of sanguinary socialites and has to be rescued with the aid of boozy loner Professor Zimmer (Clifford Evans - Number Two in The Prisoner episode that doesn't have Patrick McGoohan in it 'Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling' (UK / US)). 

Writer (and producer) Anthony Hinds (the man responsible for Hammer buying the rights to Quatermass and arguably launching the studio's golden years) gives us a script that's spare and direct and plays hard and fast with the well worn vampire tropes which the director pairs with vivid and opulent visuals,  some effective shocks and set pieces and an ending that is as inventive as it is, unintentionally, funny. 

Buy it here - UK / US - or watch it below.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

The Vampire Lovers

The first installment in what's known as Hammer's 'Karnstein Trilogy' - followed by 'Lust For A Vampire' (buy it here)with The Vampire Lovers) and 'Twins of Evil' (buy it here) - 'The Vampire Lovers' is an adaptation of Sheridan le Fanu's novella 'Carmilla'.

In both the novella and the movie the vampire Mircalla Karnstein (Ingrid Pitt), using the subtly cunning pseudonyms of 'Marcilla' and 'Carmilla' and whilst wearing a ruby necklace in the shape of a drop of blood, preys on the young women she befriends (Pippa Steel & Madeline Smith) as part of a ruse whereby her accomplices manipulate events so that she is left in the keeping of an aristocratic family; seemingly using them as a long drawn out meal whilst snacking on the local village girls and assorted servants (including the Rani herself  Kate O'Mara). Ranged against her are the combined forces of Peter Cushing, Douglas Wilmer, Minder's George Cole and The Final Programme's Jerry Cornelius Jon Finch who travel to her ancestral home to finally end her murdery ways.

le Fanu's story is the perfect source material for Hammer, the novella's lesbian subtext allowed the studio to help their ailing fortunes by getting lots of pretty young actresses to take their clothes off - for art's sake obviously.  It's sumptuously made and the sets, like the cleavages, are extravagant and displayed to maximum effect but the film does drag.  The source material, as good as it is, just doesn't have the scope and with Mircalla / Carmilla / Marcilla employing the same tactic with both families it does feel like we're treading water slightly the second time around.

It is though, in many ways, classic Hammer, embracing the subject matter and the style that made their name but amping the eroticism up to the max in a move that was to define the next few years for the studio.

Buy it here - UK /  US - or watch it below.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Scream and Scream Again

'Scream and Scream Again' was the first time the three titans of horror movies, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, had appeared in a movie together which, as you can tell from the movie poster, was a big deal with the three sharing top billing.  Unfortunately, Cushing is only in it for about 5 minutes and never shares a scene with either of the other two who also only meet for a single, brief, scene at the very end and are both little more than supporting cast in the rest of the movie.

Made by Gordon Hexler for Amicus Productions, his second film in a row to feature both Lee and Price (after 'The Oblong Box'), and based on the novel 'The Disorientated Man' by the pseudonymous Peter Saxon, it's a strange sort of movie all round being built around three narrative strands that, to varying degrees, feel entirely unconnected until they all come together in the finale.

The first strand features a jogger trapped in a hospital bed, cared for by an uncommunicative nurse (Uta Levka), who keeps waking up to find another limb has been removed.  The second strand concerns an un-named Eastern European military junta where various high ranking officials are being 'spocked' to death with some sort of vulcan neck pinch whilst the third, and main, storyline tells of the police investigation into a series of violent, vampiric murders of young women picked up in a London hippie club.

I like this film a lot but truthfully they could have easily ditched the entire Eastern European storyline and made more of the other two for a far more cohesive film.  As I said Cushing makes no more than a cameo appearance and Lee's combined scenes don't add up to much more.  Price is as reliable as ever but the film really belongs to Michael Gothard as Keith the vampire and Alfred Marks as the sardonic Detective Superintendent Bellaver, the copper hunting him down.  It has it's flaws for sure but it tried to do something a bit different to the norm for which I'll always give it kudos and whilst it doesn't entirely succeed it certainly makes for an entertaining watch.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Dorabella

'Dorabella' was the final episode of the 1977 BBC series 'Supernatural' that consisted of eight episodes of gothic horror that harked back to the classic horrors of the 1930s but to my eyes more closely resemble the gothic delights produced by the Hammer Studio in the early 1970s. Each episode featured a prospective member of the 'Club of the Damned' as they made their case for admittance by telling a terrifying true story of their encounters with the supernatural.

Written By Robert Muller (who wrote 7 of the 8 episodes) 'Dorabella' tells the story of an enchanting vampire and of the two young men who have fallen for her charms as they follow her across the country, for the most part ignoring the carnage left in her wake.

Like the other episodes from the series that we've featured in these pages the episode is beautifully produced but suffers from a slightly histrionic script and features a cast with a penchant for leaving teeth marks in the scenery. Ania Marson does make for a suitably bewitching lead though, at times positively oozing malice, and this is one of the better episodes of a series generally regarded as a bit of a noble flop.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Mrs Amworth

Adapted from an E.F. Benson story of the same name 'Mrs Amworth' is a modern vampire tale that finds the titular lady - played with flamboyant aplomb by the fabulous Glynis Johns - both beguiling and terrorising a small English village but finding her match in retired professor  Francis Urcombe (John Phillips).

Apparently made as part of a series of 6 adaptations by the likes of L.P. Hartley, Robert Bloch, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, D.H. Lawrence and Issac Asimov called 'Classics Dark and Dangerous' it seems to have only made it to screen here in the UK for one brief half hour back in 1975 although the various episodes were later amalgamated into two straight to video movies - in this case 'Three Dangerous Ladies'.
(My thanks to the good folks over at the 'Taliesin Meets the Vampires' blog for providing this info)

There're no real chills here but it's got some great music and it's tiny run time means not a second is wasted with a cast of rock solid character actors playing very much within type to produce an understated but fun little treat.

Buy it here - Rare Chills - The Fear Makers:Shadow Of Death & Supernatural:Mrs Amworth [DVD] - or watch it below.



..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much appreciate a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

The Best Ghost Stories

Various
Hamlyn

With a title as seemingly clear and straightforward as that one up there you'd imagine that this here 750 page house brick of a book would be chock full of ghostly mayhem but you'd be fairly wrong in your assumption.  There's a little note at the beginning to the effect that they've played fast and loose with the term 'ghost story' and they're not lying. 

Spectral types do figure but they are mostly conspicuous by their absence.  In their stead we have a veritable smorgasbord of the grim, gruesome and ghastly; black magicians (Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 'The House and the Brain' and M.R. James' 'Casting the Runes'), werewolves (Saki's 'Gabriel-Ernest'), other dimensions (Algernon Blackwood's 'The Willows'), ancient evil (H.P. Lovecraft's 'Rats in the Wall'), death itself (Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Masque of the Red Death'), Pan (Arthur Machen's 'The Great God Pan' and E.M. Forster's 'The Story of a Panic'), vampires (J. Sheridan le Fanu's 'Carmilla') and even a spirit or two (Oliver Onion's 'Are You Too Late Or Was I Too Early').

Amongst these are a host of other tales with certain authors featuring multiple times - there are 3 Machen's and 4 Lovecraft's for instance.  There are a few stories that keen anthology readers like myself will know well like W.W. Jacobs' 'The Monkey's Paw' but in general this is an intriguing selection that isn't afraid to sit a longer tale such as the Machen or le Fanu I mentioned earlier alongside a more fleeting tale such as Guy de Maupassant's 'Was It A Dream'.

It's all the better for it too.  The size of the book kept me subsumed in it's various world's for the best part of a fortnight, I even read some of it whilst holidaying at Baskerville Hall which seemed appropriate.  It is a delightfully atmospheric and absorbing read and I applaud the decision for multiple tales as it allowed for a deeper immersion in both an particular writer and in the book itself.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Cold Hand In Mine

Robert Aickman
Faber & Faber

Cold Hand in Mine was first published in the UK in 1975 and in the US in 1977. The story 'Pages from a Young Girl's Journal' won the Aickman World Fantasy Award in 1975. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1973 before appearing in this collection.
Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full, being more ambiguous than standard ghost stories. Throughout the stories the reader is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story ('Pages from a Young Girl's Journal') but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.

I very much enjoyed the first volume of these Faber reprints of Aickman's collections of short stories.  The stories are decidedly odd and often end with only the vaguest of resolutions which is kind of fun.  This second collection, featuring stories originally published in 1975, is very much more of the same but with the strangeness knob turned way up.

The book opens with 'The Swords' a dark and disturbing story of a young salesman's sexual awakening in the company of an odd young woman from a carnival sideshow.  It's eroticised body horror at it's most disquieting mixing potential metaphor - the men at the sideshow piercing the woman's body with their swords - with the virgin narrators own confused, tumbling, feelings of arousal, confusion and (self)loathing at the situation he finds himself in.

'The Real Road to the Church', 'Niemandswasser', 'Pages From a Young Girl's Journal' and 'The Hospice'  all tell of people out of place.  In the first a young lady relocates herself to a small cottage and has to negotiate the ways of the locals and perhaps losing - or at least putting aside - an aspect of herself.  In the second a self absorbed prince removes himself from the world imposing himself in a part of his world where he previously hadn't belonged and through his arrogance finds himself both literally and metaphorically in the no man's water of the title.  The third is perhaps the story here I found the least satisfying as it tells of a young girl's visit to Europe in the company of her parents and the slow descent into the thrall of a vampire.  Unfortunately she's such a whiney little Anne Rice type that by the end I just didn't care.  The fourth was a much more interesting prospect as another fairly repressed man finds himself stranded for the night at a very unusual hospice where the guests are fed huge quantities of food whilst chained to the table and change their appearance during the night.  It's very much proto-David Lynch and utterly wonderful.

More fun is had with the relatively straight forward weird fiction delights of 'The Same Dog' whose appearance precipitates the death of a young girl  and whose reappearance comes allied with a profound shock.

'Meeting Mr. Millar' is an unusual - and perhaps slightly overlong - ghost story where another of Aickman's characteristically conservative leads is disturbed from his comfortable routine by the comings and goings of the new neighbours downstairs.

The book ends with 'The Clock Watcher', the story of a young wife's obsession with the elaborate clocks of her homeland and of her husband's increasing unease with her and them.  It's a story brimming with potential but unfortunately, for me at least, it never truly found its stride and just didn't achieve any notable level of intrigue or enigma.

I have to admit here that I struggled to find my rhythm with this book but I suspect that was mostly due to the distraction of work pressures.  There are some fun stories here and a few very enjoyable moments but it just didn't hit as immediately as the first volume.  It is however still a very pleasurable trip into a unique imagination. 

Buy it here - Cold Hand in Mine

Christopher Lee - In Search of Dracula (1975 documentary)

This is a 1975 documentary narrated by Lee about the real life inspiration for Dracula, Vlad Tepez, along with the book, it's author and some of the films.  It's very much of it's time so don't expect the now commonplace cavalcade of expert talking heads just rolling images and a voiceover.  It's an entertaining and interesting overview, competently produced but entirely made by Lee's delivery of the script.

Even if the documentary doesn't appeal it's worth skipping to the 48 minute mark to catch the magnificently mustachioed narrator's closing remarks.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Dracula (1958)

Today, 26 May 2015, marks what would have been the 102nd birthday of the late great Peter Cushing and what better way to mark the occasion than a viewing of what is arguably not only his finest hour (and 12 minutes) but also that of his friend and co-star Christopher Lee as well.

So today I wish to share with you the 1958 Hammer production of Dracula.

Directed by Hammer's legendary director Terence Fisher (who would, between 1958 and 1960, direct Cushing through roles as Van Helsing, Victor Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes and The Sheriff of Nottingham) and starring Cushing and Lee in their career defining roles as Van Helsing and the Count, future Bat-butler Michael Gough, and Catweazle himself Geoffrey Bayldon.


It's an action movie interpretation of the novel with Lee's brooding, stately and utterly cold vampire counterpointed by Cushing's vibrant and dashing action hero leaping on tables, swinging from curtains and finally dispatching his foe in one of the most recognisable of all Hammer scenes.

I know you're all going to enjoy this one.  If you're anything like me you've seen it many, many times already but there's always time for another viewing of an absolute classic.


Dracula 1958 by Alice-Bauer

Twins of Evil

This, the third instalment of Hammer's Karnstein Trilogy, is a film that I have adored since before I first saw it. I was already a fan having read the House of Hammer comic adaption by Chris Lowder and Blas Gallego in the early eighties in an 'annual' called 'Dracula's Spinechillers' - the Twins of  Evil strip can be downloaded as a PDF from Alison Nastasi's site here - and absolutely loving it.  When I finally saw the movie it was everything I had hoped for.  Peter Cushing in full vampire slaying mode, debonair and despicable vampires and typically for Hammer at the time beautiful young ladies ripe for defiling.

Predating the two earlier Karnstein movies, Twins of Evil tells of the arrival in the town of Karnstein of orphaned twin sisters Maria (Mary Collinson) and Frieda (Madeleine Collinson) sent to live with their Uncle Gustav (Peter Cushing).  Unfortunately for the twins the town is plagued by two evils, Gustav and his zealous, puritan, witch-hunting 'Brotherhood' and the lascivious then vampiric actions of Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas). There is though the distraction of dashing school teacher Anton Hoffer (David Warbeck).

Cushing is at his fire and brimstone best here playing somewhat against type as a deeply unpleasant man who has been consumed by his beliefs and who can no longer see goodness in the world and refuses to accept anything other than his own 'truths'.  Thomas plays his Count Karnstein as louche and arrogant; brash and overconfident in his taunting of Cushing's Brotherhood, contemptible in his search for vampiric immortality, his callous disregard for others and his corruption of Frieda.  Neither of the Collinson twins display great acting ability but (with a few notable exceptions) this was never a key requirement for Hammer's early 70s leading ladies.

There are, of course, far better made, far better written and far better acted Hammer films but I just really love this one.  It's fast, overblown and fun and is one of a few films I can rely on to entertain me when nothing else is doing the trick. 

Buy it here - Twins of Evil [Blu-ray] - or watch it below.



..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much appreciate a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Anno Dracula

Kim Newman
Titan Books

It is 1888 and Queen Victoria has remarried, taking as her new consort Vlad Tepes, the Wallachian Prince infamously known as Count Dracula. Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel follows vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club as they strive to solve the mystery of the Ripper murders.
Anno Dracula is a rich and panoramic tale, combining horror, politics, mystery and romance to create a unique and compelling alternate history. Acclaimed novelist Kim Newman explores the darkest depths of a reinvented Victorian London.
This brand-new edition of the bestselling novel contains unique bonus material, including a new afterword from Kim Newman, annotations, articles and alternate endings to the original novel.

Wow! Now that was a trip worth taking. Newman's reinvention of the Dracula mythos, indeed the whole vampire mythos, is a sumptuous and beautifully literate experience.

The basic conceit is simple. What if van Helsing and his followers had failed to stop the Count and he had fully implemented his plan to conquer and rule Britain? Here his marriage to Queen Victoria has brought all of the famous vampires out of hiding and has led to the adoption of vampirism by many within the country from politicians to beggars. Into this society comes the fear and outrage engendered by a spate of murders of vampire whores in Whitechapel by a killer christened first 'Silver Knife' and later, more famously (or infamously) 'Jack the Ripper'.

Newman makes no attempt to hide the identity of his ripper, it's one of the first things the book divulges and instead we are allowed to view, Columbo style, the slow advance of Charles Beauregard, agent of the Diogenes Club, as he investigates and eventually solves the crimes.

This is secondary however to the changes in both society and the individuals around Beauregard. The novel is bigger than a mere whodunnit. There is, in the great spirit of the Diogenes Club's most famous member (along with his brother and his author), a plan most devious, a plot most wonderful and a scheme most subtle that only the most indolent (no offense to Mr. Newman) could have conceived of it.

It's wonderfully written with subtle changes of pace and tone which carry you along as much as the plot. Newman's writing was only known to me through his articles in Empire and his excellent book on Apocalypse Movies so this was a real revelation and a joy from start to finish.

Buy it here -  Anno Dracula (Anno Dracula 1)