Sunday 28 July 2024

Home

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Home' a BBC adaptation of the J.G. Ballard short story 'The Enormous Space'.
"I'm about to reach out and touch the infinite"

Adapted by director Richard Curson Smith from J.G. Ballard's short story 'The Enormous Space', Anthony Sher stars as 'Gerald Ballantyne' who decides to cut himself off from the outside world and live off the contents of his house.

We follow Gerald through his slow transformation / degredation via his video diary and in the more traditional manner as he destroys many of the trappings of his former life, navigates hunger and as the house expands and reveals it's hidden dimensions to him.

"Are you on drugs, Gerald?"

Obviously Ballard has a fondness for using buildings as microcosms - as in High-Rise - and there is an obvious ecological metaphor here as Gerald voraciously consumes the limited resources of his 'world'.  Essentially a one man play - peppered with occasional visits from the outside - Sher is fantastic as the deteriorating Gerald, pragmatic in the face of hunger, fearful of intrusions from the terrifying outside world and astonished by the revelations being presented to him.  It's a performance that elevates what is already a bold and artful creation made with love on an obviously limited budget that Curson Smith has simply to great effect allowing us to share, at both first and second hand, Gerald's experiences.

NB - I'm not much for trigger warnings but cat and worm lovers beware.


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Sunday 14 July 2024

Wyrd Britain is 10









We are 10!

Thank you to everyone who has supported Wyrd Britain over the last decade.

With 845 posts and over 2 million views on the blog and countless posts on social media it's been a busy 10 years.

Thank for reading, thank you for donating, thank you for buying from the shop and from the label, and thank you for being part of a vibrant, positive and supportive community both here and over on the Facebook and Instagram pages.

It's been quite a trip.

Here's to the next 10.

Stay wyrd lovely people.



Die, Monster, Die!

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Die, Monster, Die!' Starring Boris Karloff.
Loosely based around H.P. Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out Of Space', 'Die, Monster, Die!' finds American 'Stephen Reinhart' (Nick Adams - 'Rebel Without a Cause', 'Invasion of Astro-Monster') called to the home of his fiance, 'Susan' (Suzan Farmer - 'Dracula: Prince of Darkness'), in the village of Arkham, where, shunned by all the villagers, yokels and doctors alike, her father 'Nahum' (Boris Karloff) is conducting experiments using a meteor that has landed in the grounds.  Unortunately Nahum's experiments are having catastrophic effects mutating plants, animals and, inevitably, people.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Die, Monster, Die!' Starring Boris Karloff.
The film is a bit of a mish mash of Hammer horror gothic pretentions - the faded grandeur of Hammer's own Oakley Court, mist wreathed graveyards and skeletons hanging from chains in cobwebby cellars - with Lovecraftian science fiction but Karloff is a reliable figure around which the story revolves, his deluded experiments as he attempts to revive the family's fortunes and banish memories of his diabolic father providing a sympathetic - if underdeveloped - core but Adams' brash personality - and ill fitting clothes - make him an unlikable lead, especially when cold-cocking Susan's mutated mother (Freda Jackson - 'The Brides of Dracula') with a candelabra.  

It is however a fairly pacey romp that never really takes a breath and is often quite pretty to look at and, provided you don't think too hard about the plot, makes for a fun, and all too rare, Lovecraft adaptation.

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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.