Here he plays an egomaniacal theatre director at the 'Théâtre de Mort' - a loosely disguised Théâtre du Grand-Guignol - where he is moulding a young actress with a tragic past 'Nicole Chapelle' (Jenny Till) into a star. Untrusting of both his intentions and his bullying manner are the fragile former ballerina 'Dani Gireaux' (Leila Goldoni - 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers') and her damaged police doctor 'Charles Marquis' (Julian Glover in one of his first starring roles and only a year away from becoming 'Colonel Breen') who also happens to be assisting in the investigation of a spate of murders.
Playing with Hammer-esque gothic pretentions along with hypnotism, vampirism and the occult - it even manages to crowbar in some near naked voodoo too - this is a film that never quite manages to fulfil its promises - like the murder victims it's remarkably bloodless - or make the most of the various narrative threads it hints at - everyone is just about damaged enough to be the culprit - but American director Samuel Gallu injects some nice giallo inspired stylistic flourishes and manages to hold everything together keeping us guessing as to the culprit all the way to the reveal and the final result is flawed and a little underwhelming but still an entertaining way to spend 90 minutes.
NB - at the end of the video below there's a short snippet of Christopher Lee talking about the movie.
"Dark matter makes up 85% of the universe. Recent scientific theory suggests dark matter is information—a fifth form of matter—and that we can wake it up. But waking it up can let dark things out.
James Callis is Dr. John Carnack. Five years ago, his dark matter experiments led to tragedy. His redemption is working for the Department of Midnight, investigating dangerous dark matter experiments, trying to prevent further disasters. But there’s a pattern.
I adore audio plays and so one written by one of my favourite authors revolving around the types of themes and settings we champion here on Wyrd Britain is a very good thing indeed. Warren has never been shy of celebrating his influences and the shadows of 'Doomwatch', 'Quatermass' - Nigel Kneale himself the author of numerous wonderful radio plays - and William Hope Hodgson's occult detective Thomas Carnacki loom large here and those with a familiarity with Warren's work will feel the immediate kinship here with the 'Injection' comic series he does - note the present tense, I'm ever the optimist - with Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire that plays with classic British heroic archetypes and folkloric themes.
The cast are perfectly suited, James Callis (Battlestar Galactica) has that perfectly detached post traumatic British persona that mixes duty and weariness with a barely suppressed mania and Alicia Witt (Dune) - obviously I'm only talking about episode one here - is deliciously bonkers entirely inhabiting the role of being entirely inhabitated.
It's a really strong and intriguing introduction to this world, and I'm very excited to see where they take this.
Episode One: The Cold Spot Dr. John Carnack is an investigator for the Department Of Experimental Oversight. Responding to a whistleblower call, he arrives at a lab to discover Dr. Sylvie Bestler’s personal experiment: to see what’s on the other side of the universe. Starring James Callis and Alicia Witt.
Episode Two: Jack in the Box John Carnack’s old friend is being kept in a plastic cell. There’s a contamination issue. He tripped over something when he discovered his employer’s body. But Carnack is concerned that something darker is going on…Starring James Callis and Gildart Jackson.
Episode Three: Song to the Siren On the death of Carnack’s mentor, her daughter asks him to examine the death scene. They find out too late that she died of very unnatural causes. Starring James Callis and Adrianne Palicki.
Episode Four: The Red House The university bought a derelict house out in the middle of nowhere for this experiment. When Carnack arrives to shut them down, everyone thinks he’s crazy, but he knows what the Red House really is. Starring James Callis and Nolan North.
Episode Five: The Devil Runs Out A routine examination of a dark matter lab turns into a race against time, as Carnack is forced to pursue a face from his past intent on human sacrifice. Starring James Callis and Brett Dalton.
Episode Six: Judgement In the season one finale, John Carnack faces the board of the Department of Experimental Oversight, interrogated by a prosecutor. Now he must be held accountable for his actions. And for the sins of his own past. Starring James Callis and Carla Gugino.
All six episodes are included in the playlist below.
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First shown on October 15th 2003 this episode of Timeshift explores (some of) the work of legendary screenwriter Nigel Kneale.
There're some serious omissions - 'Beasts', 'Murrain' - that need to be discussed in a future more comprehensive exploration of his work but with contributions from fans like Mark Gatiss, Jeremy Dyson, Kim Newman along with some great archive footage of Kneale and his wife, the writer and illustrator, Judith Kerr, it's an easy and affectionate tribute to one of the people who defined what we think of as Wyrd Britain.
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Taken from the BBC Four Timeshift documentary series and narrated by Richard Ayoade with contributions from, the perhaps inevitable, Stuart Maconie, author Kim Newman, critic Roz Kaveney and various others this is a playful look at the phenomenon of the parallel world.
Originally screened in 2007 it is somewhat dated by many of it's reference points with the likes of 'Sliders' - which even at that point was 7 years forgotten by most folks - getting far more mentions than necesssary, as well as 'Buffy', 'Red Dwarf' and 'Futurama'. It's essentialy a piece of fluff but some interesting points are made and in our current MCU dominated world it's interesting to see how many of the identified tropes have proven to be so resilient.
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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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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.
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.
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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'Dark and sinister forces invade an archaeologist's home as he investigates a mythic folklore about an ancient oak tree on his land.'
Starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark and directed by Daniel Kokotajlo, Hurley's folkloric rural horror looks to be in good hands with the trailer offering an intense experience that bodes well for the finished film.
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It's been a while since we heard from our friend Grey Malkin (formerly known as 'The Hare And The Moon') here on Wyrd Britain but this new EP made in collaboration with 'Fogroom' provides the perfect opportunity to reacquaint your ears with his music.
Shoreline Ritual comes with the enigmatic note that it...
might be a narrative.
A cautious exchange.
A bridge between here and there.
It could be about strange occurrences along the coast,
or old dreams, loss and the sea.
It feels fragile, nebulous, adrift and elegant. It's a spell cast into the wind, a message carried by the waves and it's mesmerising.
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Recently used as the theme to the cavalcade of shallow excess that is the Met Gala this promotional chapbook (heralding a new series of reissues) of Ballard's short story - originally written in 1962 - of the death of beauty amidst the inexorable advance of the masses and their crass consumerist ways was a delightful read.
The story of a husband and wife holding back the inevitable by plucking the flowers of time from their garden in a knowingly futile attempt to delay the advancing hordes. These immaculate but anachronistic lovers, with their elaborate clothes, beautiful music, and perfectly curated collections, fearful of change and trapped in the amber of an unchanging, untainted, romanticised past, are eventually swamped by the advance as time marches ever on, trampling all before it except, perhaps, love.
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Amicus' 1977 direct sequel to 1974s 'The Land That Time Forgot' returned us to Edgar Rice Burroughs' dinosaur riddled antarctic island, 'Caprona' where Doug McClure's 'Bowen Tyler' had been stranded at the end of the previous movie. Last seen trudging over snowy mountain peaks in the company of Susan Penhaligon's 'Lisa Clayton' to throw the message in a bottle into the sea that has spurred his chldhood friend 'Ben McBride' (Patrick - son of John - Wayne) to mount a rescue mission. Accompaying him into the unknown are photographer 'Lady Charlotte 'Charly' Cunningham' (Sarah Douglas - 'Ursa' in the first 2 'Superman' movies), paleontologist 'Norfolk' (Thorley Walters), his mechanic 'Hogan' (Shane Rimmer) and, along the way, a cave-woman named 'Ajor' played by singer Dana Gillespie.
Directed, as was 'The Land..', by Kevin Connor - who also sent McClure to both Atlantis and 'The Earth's Core' - this one is every bit as flawed and fun as it's predecessor. The story is flaccid, the dinosaur effects are risible and the cast are poor (except McClure - I won't have a word said against McClure) with Wayne being boorish and bullying and an unlikeable lead, Douglas overplaying her role, Walters and Rimmer acting as comic relief and Gillespie providing the cleavage.
Written by future 'Amtrak Wars' author Patrick Tilley it's a pretty by the numbers adaptation that was the last gasp of the Amicus studio but when I was a kid Doug McClure was my absolute favourite and to this day his three Amicus monster movies rank amongst my favourites although I'll admit this one is solidly in third place.
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Stephen Ellcock Thames & HudsonA darkly evocative compendium of images exploring natural, constructed, imaginary, and subconscious underworlds, curated by renowned image collector and social media figure Stephen Ellcock. Underworlds takes readers on a captivating visual odyssey to the underbelly of everything, beginning with depictions of life and natural systems existing beneath the surface of the Earth and ending with imagery that emanates from the depths of our subconscious. Work by world-renowned artists―from Peter Paul Rubens and René Magritte to contemporary artists such as Kara Walker and Roger Ballen―is featured alongside recently unearthed images from archives around the world.
Split across five chapters - 'Beneath the Surface', Human Habitation and Exploration', Underwter Worlds', 'Imagined Underground Worlds' and 'Subliminal Realms' - this beautiful book explores humanities obsession with what lies below. Exploring burial chambers and mines, caverns and Charon, Hells, hallucinations, hollow Earth and hermits Ellcock takes us on a fascinating visual journey of everything underneath.
My own interests lean towards the fictional so those chapters on caves, crypts, sewers, quarries and the like were of less interest than those exploring our imaginative relationships but throughout Ellcock has chosen images that present a sumptuous feast of art and photography that encapsulates the creative interplay between the real and the imagined in our eternal need to explore the unknown and the hidden, and our obsessive search beneath and beyond.
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I've never really properly dug into Dunsany's writing before beyond an anthology short or two but this collection called to me (despite it's hideous cover art) and proved to be something entirely wonderful.
The title sums up the book concisely and almost perfectly except it could potentially have utilised the word 'Tiny' as most of these tales are very short indeed - between half a page and three pages each. Most are written as a morality fable of sorts, often with an environmental theme, and read as a block they get to feel a little preachy but spaced out, a couple at a time, they proved to be miniature imaginative marvels with some absolute gems amongst them like, 'The Tomb of Pan' and 'The Prayer of the Flowers' that made for a perfect introduction to the worlds of Dunsany's imagnation.
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The play makes some slight framing differences to the orignal, having an elderly Wells tell the story as true, as well as including the story's excised ending but it's generally a faithful and well construced adaptation that offers a welcome return to a classic.
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This documentary was made by comedian Stewart Lee after far-right fundamentalist Christian groups whipped up a frenzy of protests about 'Jerry Springer: The Opera' that he co-wrote and produced organising protests at theatres, against the BBC showing and against Maggie's Centres, a cancer charity providing palliative care, to which the production had made a donation. Lee's documentary takes these protests as his starting point to present a fascinating and funny investigation into religious intolerance and its impact on the arts via interviews with folks like Alan Moore and Polly Toynbee.
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