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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Apr 8, 2022 14:03:21 GMT
Black Shuck Books have just announced Sean Hogan's follow up to England's Screaming. Focussing on North American horror films and series, Twilight's Last Screaming is now up for pre-order... blackshuckbooks.co.uk/tls/
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Mar 30, 2022 14:21:28 GMT
I'd also like to see House of Long Shadows for the extraordinary cast, someday. It's described as an adaptation of George M Cohan's ancient play 7 Keys to Baldpate and is often given a vigorous thumbs-down by genre fans, but I'd still like to see it. Most of Walker's things aren't really my idea of fun. H. 'House of The Long Shadows' was instigated by Cannon Films, who approached Pete Walker to make a classic style horror film with Karloff and Lugosi. After Walker pointed out the problem that they were ever so slightly dead, it became a project for the surviving big names in classic horror - with Sheila Keith's role initially written for Elsa Lanchester, who was too ill to accept. Walker initially thought of remaking 'The Old Dark House', but the rights were held elsewhere, so he opted for Earl Derr Biggers' 'The Seven Keys to Baldpate', which Cohan had adapted for the stage and which had been adapted several times for the cinema. After screening a few of the older films, which weren't really horror subjects, screenwriter Michael Armstrong abandoned most of the plot apart from the framing idea, and wrote a script which was an affectionate pastiche of old dark house clichés. It's quite unlike Walker's previous works, and its deliberate old-fashionedness was off putting to some, and others disliked the comedy elements. I love the old fashioned nature of the plot, and the chance it gives the veteran stars to have some fun with the types of roles that had made them famous without actually mocking them - Lee is very funny playing embarrassed by the goings on around him, while Cushing gives a lightly comic turn that moves into touching pathos. Price was annoyed that his favourite speech was cut in the editing process (as was Armstrong), but gets to be flamboyant and sinister. Carradine presides over the gathering as the elder statesman. And Sheila Keith is splendid, as ever (Long Shadows really introduced me to the fabulous Sheila's work, and I love that this sweet, funny lady was bemused by her standing among horror fans). The young leads don't quite manage the sharp talking screwball comedy exchanges intended by the script, but I like them more with each viewing - can't be easy not to be overshadowed by the 'long shadows' in the cast. I can understand why some don't like it, and it's not a perfect film - there's a twist that makes little sense but whose sheer cheek made me laugh so hard on first viewing that I forgive it - but it unites the horror greats on screen and gives them plenty of interaction, unlike previous attempts like 'The Oblong Box', where Lee and Price share fleeting seconds together, or 'Scream and Scream Again' where Cushing never meets Lee or Price, and the those two share only a single scene together. And I suppose it's become one of my favourite 'comfort films' over the years.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Mar 29, 2022 21:44:35 GMT
Just watched my first Pete Walker, "The Flesh and Blood Show". Good enough to get me to try "House of Whipcord" later; never heard of him until a certain member who's alias escapes me mentioned watching TFBS last night on a certain social media site. Think I'll skip "Frightmare" for the time being. Can't imagine who might have described 'The Flesh and Blood Show' as being like the randy older cousin of 'Theatre of Blood'... I've only seen a handful of Walker's films. The others being 'The Comeback', 'House of Whipcord', and 'House of the Long Shadows' (which I adore, and which I'll be watching again tonight on BluRay). I've been gearing up to watch 'Frightmare' for what seems like decades now, but the closest I've got has been the fantastic Sheila Keith pastiching her own role in the 'Dr Terrible's House of Horrible' episode 'And Now The Fearing...'. Might take the plunge and watch it and 'House of Mortal Sin' sometime soon.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Feb 10, 2022 18:30:55 GMT
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 27, 2022 20:16:39 GMT
That's very cool that you wrote a tribute to Dark Shadows, Daniel. The original series is my all time favorite TV show. (Don't ask me what I think of the Tim Burton film, LOL.) I adore the original Dark Shadows. I don't mind the Burton film, though I wish they'd gone with the original treatment, which was a more serious affair. I like to think that the whole thing takes place in Parallel Time, and when Jonathan Frid, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker and David Selby turn up briefly, they're the 'real' Barnabas, Maggie, Angelique and Quentin investigating another dimension they've found by opening a door in the abandoned wing of the house. I also quite like the 90s remake, though wish it had continued and gone into the even weirder areas the original series had explored once it went full-on supernatural. It also ended before any of the hoped for appearances by original cast members could happen. I am a big fan of the Big Finish audio series, which has ingeniously continued where the original left off. The problem, I suppose, in trying to recreate DS's appeal is that any new attempt already has the original's legacy overshadowing it, so we all know that there will be vampires and witchcraft and ghosts, whereas with the original series that all seemed to happen as if by accident, so it lured in viewers who wouldn't have dreamed of watching a horror show under normal circumstances.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 26, 2022 22:38:29 GMT
This is cool! Seems this fetches high prices. A pity. [/div] Did you do more of those?
[/quote] My time on girls' comics was quite brief, but I wrote some short supernatural text stories for the last few issues of Bunty under the title 'Strange Shadows', and in the 2002 Bunty Annual I had a five part text story, 'The Mansion of Strange Shadows', which was partly a tribute to 'Dark Shadows' (every character was named after an actor from the series) and partly an attempt to do an Amicus-style anthology story. I'd have liked to have written more Valda adventures, and I did eventually revive the character (briefly) alongside a bunch of the company's other classic 'superheroes' (Captain Hornet, King Cobra, Katie the Cat, The Amazing Mister X) for the short-lived 'Digital Dandy' in a strip called 'Retro-Active'.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 26, 2022 17:09:48 GMT
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 26, 2022 4:48:31 GMT
Ha! I wrote that 2002 Valda strip, a Victorian adventure with something creeping around in the fog. That same Mandy Annual also had my 16 page 'Chillers' section with a selection of spooky features and fiction - my own homage to the days of Spellbound and Misty - and I'm still proud that it prompted the publishers to print a special warning sticker about the 'Special Spooky stuff Inside' for the front cover.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 17, 2022 21:36:33 GMT
I START COUNTING is wonderful, but how is it "folk horror"? It is a psychological thriller. It's mentioned as tangential to folk horror, as the element of urbanisation creeping into rural areas - the tower blocks contrasting with the old house the kids visit - has common themes with folk horror.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 13, 2022 18:44:48 GMT
Over two sittings, I thoroughly enjoyed Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, Kier-La Janisse's fascinating 192 minute exploration of the history and development of Folk Horror in films, television, and literature. A host of experts, including some familiar faces (I was particularly delighted to see Lawrence Gordon Clark in there discussing M.R. James), evocative animation, music and poetry (recited by Blood on Satan's Claw star Linda Hayden and Ian Ogilvy from Witchfinder General), and scores of intriguing clips from dozens of films and shows from around the world. I watched it, followed by the deleted scenes, on blu-ray as part of Severin's All The Haunts Be Ours folk horror box-set, but the documentary is also available as an individual blu-ray, and is now streaming on Shudder. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSYBpdDSh9A
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 10, 2022 17:51:33 GMT
Despite the YouTube billing, this is the trailer for a different, unrelated film titled 'The Cat Creeps' from 1946. There were two versions of 'The Cat Creeps' shot on the same sets in 1930, as a Spanish language version - 'La Voluntad del muerto' ('The Will of the Dead') - was shot at night while the English language version was shot during the day - the same being done with Universal's 'Dracula' the following year. The Spanish language version of 'The Cat Creeps' is also lost.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 9, 2022 17:16:41 GMT
Dark Shadows (1966-1971) H. As a fellow Dark Shadows fan, one of the highlights of my Christmas season was watching many of the original cast members reunited to perform a spirited reading of a radio adaptation of A Christmas Carol. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWUmihz0F6M
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 19, 2021 17:39:48 GMT
I found it on my ebook site. It looks interesting, and people have said it is good. I love this book. One of my favourite novels of recent years. Have enjoyed all of Hendrix's novels, but this one in particular got me 'right in the feels'.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 17, 2021 20:23:47 GMT
John Gordon - Eels and Under The Ice, both featured in The Burning Baby and Other Ghost Stories, would qualify for this thread, I'd imagine.
M.R. James - Martin's Close has a pond containing a dreadful secret.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 16, 2021 19:26:07 GMT
Much prefer the screen version of The Shadmock, an entirely different beast to RCH's loopy original. Having just read The Monster Club, I was surprised to find that The Shadmock of the film appears to be based more on the book's The Mock, with the filmic Shadmock's whistle having an effect not unlike the Mock's blow. Also felt like the book's Eramus was more akin to Donald Pleasence's role in the From Beyond the Grave version of RC-H's An Act of Kindness than Vincent Price's suave vampire. Given that the book has anagrammatic references to that film's director and a couple of its producers, I wonder if RC-H was imagining Pleasence in any prospective film version. The location of The Shadmock story in the book, Withering Grange, seems to be RC-H's Clavering Grange in disguise, even down to the previous owner being of the Sinclair family - the Sinclairs having been established as Clavering Grange's owners in The Door. As for the film, a recent rewatch found me enjoying it far more than I'd remembered. Yes, the monster masks are dreadful, and the joke shop fangs cheapen things, and it might have benefitted from another story and losing a couple of the songs - though the Monsters Rule OK song by The Viewers is still great fun - but it's a lot of fun, and James Laurenson's Lon Chaney-Phantom-Lookalike Shadmock is a memorable creation.
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