A harder list to compile than for
Desert Island Discs - and how many of you have tried whittling down your music to just
Eight? I know I have, and it's almost impossible. My influences are the same. Too damn many, although if you were slowly shutting an Iron Maiden on me 'till I gave you a list, I could probably groan out a few:
Novels:
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
The Picture Of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
Candide, by Voltaire
The Jewel Of Seven Stars, by Bram Stoker
Dead Souls, by Nikolay Gogol
She, by H. Rider Haggard
Moonraker, by Ian Fleming
The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh.
Films:
The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
Nosferatu
Metropolis
The Bride Of Frankenstein
The Black Cat
Onibaba
Night Of The Demon
Les Yeux Sans Visage
Quatermass II
Quatermass And The Pit
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
It!
Hellraiser
Evil Dead II
Stories:
The Nemesis Of Fire, by Algernon Blackwood
A View From A Hill, by M.R. James
Ligeia, by Edgar Allan Poe
The Squaw, by Bram Stoker
Rokuro-Kubi, by Lafcadio Hearn
Nocturnes, by John Connolly
The Return Of The Native, by William Croft Dickinson
The Signalman, by Charles Dickens
The Earlier Service, by Margaret Irwin
Lot 249, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I'm stopping here, because, looking at the list so far, my inner voices are starting to mutter things like: 'No no no! You're wrong! what about...' etc.
And although it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the post, as I was looking for a piece of paper, I found a note to myself that had the name of my old pub quiz team. We won annoyingly often, and it was always a joy, in a packed pub, to hear the quizmaster read it out over the pub PA: 'And the winners tonight, are... THE CERTIFIED MASTERS OF DEATH'. Other names suggested were, [and we were an all-male team] 'BRIDES OF FU MANCHU', and very confusingly, though cleverly: 'IN SECOND PLACE WITH FORTY POINTS'. We took it a bit too seriously, methinks.