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Post by shonokin on Nov 24, 2009 22:44:22 GMT
I'm a big Kneale fan and have been rewatching BEASTS lately. Great stuff IMO. There's a marked lack of background music which lends a slow-burn and deadly intensity to the dramas.
Certain episodes really stick with me such as Buddyboy about the ghost dolphin and Baby about the mummified remains found in the wall of a house.
The DVD set it includes Murrain, which to me is a truly amazing drama that comes to mind quite often.
I also like THE STONE TAPE quite a lot but especially love the original Quatermass serials.
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Post by lukemorningstar on Feb 9, 2010 22:28:40 GMT
The most scared I have been by anything on TV ever was a public information film from the mid 70s for the 'Keep Matches Away From Children' campaign. What made matters worse it was shown on ITV during ad breaks so there was no "there now follows a public information film" warning to give me time to leg it outof the room. I was cheerfully drinking a cocoa and watching 'Within These Walls' one Saturday night in '75, when suddenly this came along and ruined my childhood! I was only 10 at the time, and I certainly learned my lesson; after seeing this I made sure that from then on I always lit my crack pipe from the gas stove............. Here is a link (make sure you have the sound up too) www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2I6qF6Tz_k but if that doesn't work then go onto you tube and search 'Keep Matches Away From Children' This still scares the shit out of me now - especially the wardrobe at the end........................................................ thethoughtsofchairmanarthur.blogspot.com
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Feb 10, 2010 8:25:33 GMT
How I miss the great British social strategy of terrifying the shite out of people to make them good.
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Post by lemming13 on Jul 20, 2010 18:27:25 GMT
I bought the dvd set of Charley Says, merrily scared the crap out of myself for ages. It also includes Protect and Survive, which I found scary for a whole different reason. My daughter loved the Think Bike ads involving the hammer and the peach, for some reason; she has this slightly disturbing tendency to re-enact it with spoons and icecream, while chuckling in sinister fashion. Maybe it's my fault for passing on some kind of horror nutjob genes... I had to make mention of a few of my tv favourites, those not already covered here. I had nightmares over a very creepy Play For Today called Penda's Fen, involving druids and ritual amputation. There was another one I don't recall the title of, involving spectral children luring living ones out into the night by singing Boys and Girls Come Out to Play. Doomwatch was a superb series, and of course Quatermass in all his manifestations. And there were some lovely anthologies like Out of the Unknown (I believe the BBC wiped that one), and Journey to the Unknown with its creepy opening sequence, a rollercoaster ride to a haunting whistling tune. And more recently there was Ultraviolet, which I was very sorry was never followed up. I don't usually watch tv at all these days, it irritates me too much (when there is something I want to see it gets sandwiched among adverts for appalling things that blast my sanity), but I did make an exception for Mark Gatiss' Crooked House - bless his Hammer Horror-steeped socks.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jul 20, 2010 19:19:11 GMT
I bought the dvd set of Charley Says, merrily scared the crap out of myself for ages. It also includes Protect and Survive, which I found scary for a whole different reason. My daughter loved the Think Bike ads involving the hammer and the peach, for some reason; she has this slightly disturbing tendency to re-enact it with spoons and icecream, while chuckling in sinister fashion. Maybe it's my fault for passing on some kind of horror nutjob genes... I had to make mention of a few of my tv favourites, those not already covered here. I had nightmares over a very creepy Play For Today called Penda's Fen, involving druids and ritual amputation. There was another one I don't recall the title of, involving spectral children luring living ones out into the night by singing Boys and Girls Come Out to Play. Doomwatch was a superb series, and of course Quatermass in all his manifestations. And there were some lovely anthologies like Out of the Unknown (I believe the BBC wiped that one), and Journey to the Unknown with its creepy opening sequence, a rollercoaster ride to a haunting whistling tune. And more recently there was Ultraviolet, which I was very sorry was never followed up. I don't usually watch tv at all these days, it irritates me too much (when there is something I want to see it gets sandwiched among adverts for appalling things that blast my sanity), but I did make an exception for Mark Gatiss' Crooked House - bless his Hammer Horror-steeped socks. You described my life. That boys and girls come out to play was terrifying at the time
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jul 20, 2010 19:38:16 GMT
I should add that I used to stay at my Gran's when I was nine or ten and we always used to sit together in the old creepy tenement watching Hammer House of Horror. The one that particularly sticks out was the guy with his eyes gouged out with gardening tools.
The funny thing is that when I mentioned this to my mother, many years later, she told me that Grannie never watched these programmes... cue twilight zone music
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Post by Steve on Jul 21, 2010 8:09:16 GMT
The one that blighted my childhood, and I'd be interested to hear if anyone else remembers this, was a play or one-off drama that was shown one afternoon in the 70s (sorry I can't be more specific). I must have been off school that day for some reason because I can't believe anyone in their right mind would've put this out when impressionable children such as myself might normally have been watching. My recollections are a little clouded with time - although I've still not managed to completely erase it from my memory some thirty-odd years after the event - but basically there were these boys about the same age as I would've been at the time, living in the north of England as I was at the time, who try to scare each other with a story about something nasty in the coalshed or outhouse or whatever it may have been. I might add that we had various outbuildings, including a very dark coalshed, in the backyard when I was a lad. Anyway, either as a result of a dare or a joke, one of the boys ends up getting locked inside this shed and it all ends very nastily. I don't know whether it was because I could relate to these kids so easily and it all played into my own childhood fears of being confined in the dark with whatever it was that occupies dark spaces when you're little, but this thing utterly terrified me and made going for coal on cold, dark wintery mornings even more traumatic than it had been previously. Still, it hasn't done me any harm - he says, reaching for the Fluoxetine.
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Post by monker on Jul 30, 2010 2:48:31 GMT
Can any of you remember any additions of some of those British dramas such as 'Armchair Theatre', 'Play for Today' or 'ITV Playhouse', etc, that may have had the effect of a horror or thriller story? I'm talking in a subtler sense than actual episodes of 'Thriller' and 'Armchair Thriller'. I used to watch those, too, but I can remember being taken off-guard as a kid when I was supposed to be watching a straight drama. Some of it could be quite haunting and themes such as ghosts and suicide seem to come to mind. This was in Australia in the late seventies and very early eighties. Any suggestions as to which episodes I may have been watching? The story that Steve mentioned above may have had something to do with it, too.
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Post by lemming13 on Jul 30, 2010 14:40:20 GMT
Penda's Fen was a Play for Today, and so was the Boys and Girls Come Out to Play. They also did the original version of Lost Hearts, I believe, which was later shoehorned into the Ghost Story for Christmas series. And there was a dramatisation of Alan Garner's Red Shift; Robin Redbreast; Stronger Than the Sun; Vampires (not an actual vampire tale but horrific enough); London Is Drowning; Crimes; Bright Eyes; Shades; Z For Zachariah. There were probably others I don't recall. Armchair Theatre mounted The Picture of Dorian Gray, John Wyndham's Dumb Martian, and I'm pretty sure they did a version of MRJ's The Rose Garden.
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Post by David A. Riley on Jul 30, 2010 15:00:47 GMT
Penda's Fen was a Play for Today, and so was the Boys and Girls Come Out to Play. They also did the original version of Lost Hearts, I believe, which was later shoehorned into the Ghost Story for Christmas series. And there was a dramatisation of Alan Garner's Red Shift; Robin Redbreast; Stronger Than the Sun; Vampires (not an actual vampire tale but horrific enough); London Is Drowning; Crimes; Bright Eyes; Shades; Z For Zachariah. There were probably others I don't recall. Armchair Theatre mounted The Picture of Dorian Gray, John Wyndham's Dumb Martian, and I'm pretty sure they did a version of MRJ's The Rose Garden. We could do with television like that today. I'd swap any series of True Blood and the rest for a few of these.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 30, 2010 20:59:11 GMT
Penda's Fen was a Play for Today, and so was the Boys and Girls Come Out to Play. They also did the original version of Lost Hearts, I believe, which was later shoehorned into the Ghost Story for Christmas series. And there was a dramatisation of Alan Garner's Red Shift; Robin Redbreast; Stronger Than the Sun; Vampires (not an actual vampire tale but horrific enough); London Is Drowning; Crimes; Bright Eyes; Shades; Z For Zachariah. There were probably others I don't recall. Armchair Theatre mounted The Picture of Dorian Gray, John Wyndham's Dumb Martian, and I'm pretty sure they did a version of MRJ's The Rose Garden. Hopefully I won't sound too pedantic, but... 'Boys and Girls Come Out to Play' was part of a series called 'Menace' (wiped apart from only 2 surviving episodes, sadly), while the earlier version of 'Lost Hearts' was part of 'Mystery & Imagination' (also largely wiped). There hasn't been a dramatisation of 'The Rose Garden', though it was narrated, with dramatised inserts, by Robert Powell in the 'Classic Ghost Stories' series. 'Penda's Fen' remains deeply unsettling, full of bizarre, nightmarish imagery. And 'Robin Redbreast', and its follow-up, 'A Photograph' (with the return of the sinister Mrs Vigo), are both extremely creepy. I miss series of plays on TV. Even if everything in strands like 'Play for Today' wasn't to my taste, the chances were that there'd be something interesting coming along.
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Post by lemming13 on Aug 5, 2010 20:57:36 GMT
You're right about Lost Hearts and Boys and Girls; but I do believe you're wrong about the Rose Garden. I definitely recall a full version, though I believe it may have been given another title - The Rose Arbor, or The Summerhouse or something of that ilk. I am almost sure it was Rosalie Crutchley who played the lady of the house, and for some reason Michael Denistoun won't get out of my brain as her husband.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Mar 15, 2011 19:51:35 GMT
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Post by lemming13 on Mar 16, 2011 11:03:19 GMT
Just acquired the first series of the children's series Shadows on dvd; I intend to share it with my kids and see if it holds up as well as other old stuff has. The episodes included are listed as - The Future Ghost The year is 1878 and Julia Pitman arrives in London hoping to find work as a nurse. Staying in a friend's hotel, she believes she is safe, but as thick fog descends, a voice in the night awakens her, calling her out of her room.. and into another world. After School Bryn Haffes is an ordinary comprehensive school in a Welsh mining village. But when Poodle and Seth are kept behind after school, they find themselves in the grip of a power they cannot explain. The Witch's Bottle Jill might never have discovered the strange powers in her possession had she not gone to stay at her uncle's country cottage. What was the secret of the dead oak tree? And why is the mysterious Catherine so concerned about Jill? The Waiting Room Sue and Gerry miss the last train from Burberry Halt and must take shelter for the night in an eerie old waiting room. An Optical Illusion Karen, Dawn and Phil are exploring a Tudor mansion, but the visit turns into a nightmare as the house and its strange inhabitants take over... Dutch Schlitz's Shoes The devilish Mr Stabs sets out with his cringing servant, Luko, to find the black glove of Mendoza. Unfortunately, they also acquire the shoes of the infamous Chicago gangster, Dutch Schlitz... with calamitous results. The Other Window An ingenious lens seems to offer a vivid glimpse of another age. But is it possible to defy the laws of space and time?
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Post by killercrab on Mar 16, 2011 16:57:56 GMT
After School and the Waiting Room were my favourites on the dvd. Enjoy!
KC
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