Adapted from the M.R. James story of the same name published in 1904 in 'Ghost Stories of an Antiquary' this BBC version stars Greg Wise as Professor Anderson a repressed and slightly pompous Oxford academic investigating finds in a cathedral archive. These papers hold claims of devil worship on the part of a previous bishop and a man named 'Nicholas Francken' who had practiced his nefarious deeds in the house that had previously stood on the spot now occupied by the hotel in which Anderson is currently lodging.
It's not entirely successful, the cast, Wise in particular, look more costumed than clothed, the early outdoor scenes are too crisp, bright and summery which sets an initial mood at odds with where the story wants to lead us and the director, Piers Wilkie, never quite manages to inject the required level of bacchanalian excess onto the oneiric orgies emanating from the ghostly room of the title but presents a convincing environment and for the most part succeeds in creating a tense atmosphere of encroaching dread leading to an unostentatious but satisfying climax. Buy it here - Ghost Stories from the BBC: A View From a Hill / Number 13 (DVD) - or watch it below.
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Today we mark the sad passing last week of electronic music pioneer Peter Zinovieff following a fall at his home the week before.
In the 1960s he was a member of Unit Delta Plus along with Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and formed the company EMS with David Cockerell and Tristram Carey which developed the VCS3 and Synthi A synthesizers so beloved of purveyors and connoisseurs of early electronic music.
I thought we'd take this opportunity to celebrate his life and work with these two videos. The first is the slightly more irreverent made using footage from the documentaries "What the Future Sounded Like" and "The New Sound of Music" whilst the second was produced by Sound on Sound magazine in 2016.
If you would ike to hear more of his music then I heartily recommend tracking down a copy of 'Electronic Calendar/The EMS Tapes', a fabulous retrospective of his early work at the EMS studio.
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When several soldiers are found brutally murdered and the authorities decide that a leopard is to blame elderly sisters Ellie & Joyce Ballantyne (Beryl Reid & Flora Robson) soon realise that the cause of the problem is closer to home than that, right under their feet in fact, bricked up in their cellar.
Produced by Tigon films and written and directed by James Kelley ('Doctor Blood's Coffin') 'The Beast...' was pretty much panned on release and has yet to truly find it's audience but personally I think that's a shame. Yes it's a bit talky, there's little in the way of suspense and the ending doesn't quite achieve the necessary level of pathos but at the heart of this proto-slasher there's a nice idea dealing with a little explored topic that makes for an intriguing premise for a horror-thriller and there're two great performances from the neurotic Reid (who made a bit of a habit of appearing in great wyrd movies, 'Psychomania' and 'Dr Phibes Rises Again') and the cool calculating Robson ('The Shuttered Room') as the two sisters with the rest of the cast which includes T.P McKenna ('A Child's Voice') and John Hammill ('Tower of Evil') providing able, if maybe a little unispiring, support.
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'Shades of Darkness' was a mid 1980s series for Granada TV that presented adaptations of unsettling tales by authors - some famous names (Agatha Christie) and some less so (May Sinclair) - this particular episode is based on the short story of the same name by L.P. Hartley originally published in 1931 in his collection 'The Killing Bottle'.
The story here revolves around a house haunted by the vengeful ghost of a young woman murdered by her violent husband whose revenge involved possessing the bodies of those she asks to carry her across the threshold of the house and in whose corpse she leaves again in the manner suggested by the title.
Carol Royle gives a predominantly strong performance in the lead and Peter Machin is entertainingly manic as her doomed fiance, there's a fun and barbed performance from Heather Chasen and Ken Kitson (Last of the Summer Wine's 'P.C. Cooper') is the de rigeur rake leaning local with the all the information on the legend of the ghost, Lady Elinor (played by Samantha Gates who, trivia fans may like to note, was one of the two children on the cover of Led Zeppelin's 'Houses of the Holy' album).
Directed with a fairly gentle hand by Gordon Flemyng (director of both Peter Cushing Dr. Who movies) from a script by Alan Plater, who also adapted May Sinclair's 'The Intercessor' for the same series, this is a less satisfying story than that other that never quite manages to be spooky and has a spectacularly unlikely conclusion. It is though eminently watchable and, like the rest of the series, an always welcome stab at producing sympathetic adaptations of golden age supernatural tales in the vein of the BBC's M.R. James adaptations at a time when they weren't being made.
Oh and cat lovers please consider yourselves warned.
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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.
(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)
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