The Kilburn Chain Saw Massacre

Chainsaw Terror (1984)

Come The Night (1985)

"Edward Briggs seems like a normal enough man. Not very friendly perhaps - but then who wouldn't after witnessing that bloody family tragedy?" So begins the back cover blurb for this cult paperback. 

IN 1984, British horror/war/crime novelist Shaun Hutson agreed to write a novelisation of Tobe Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. Star, his publishing company, failed to obtain the rights, but encouraged Hutson to write a chainsaw-based novel anyway. Producing a manuscript called Chainsaw Terror using the pseudonym Nick Blake, Star instructed the author to cut around twenty pages. However, despite this, Bookwise - the then largest book retailer in England - banned it from their stores, objecting to the word chainsaw in the title. By Hutson’s own account other retailers, including W. H. Smith, did not have a problem with the moniker, but later claimed that the novel was “banned outright.”

The book was retitled and re-released in late 1985 as Come The Night, which is regularly described as a heavily censored version. First print copies of Chainsaw Terror originally sent to non-Bookwise vendors are consequently now selling for exuberant amounts on eBay. But the reason that Chainsaw Terror goes for so much money is that the people buying them often believe it is the complete novel. It is; yet Chainsaw Terror and Come the Night are the same book. Because of this misconception and its distribution notoriety, plans for further entries - Chainsaw Slaughter and Chainsaw Bloodbath - were abandoned.

Come The Night offers a more generic cover, away from the splendour of the original artwork.

Our story is set in Kilburn, London, when in 1978 twenty-six-year-old Edward Briggs watched his father, carpenter Ralph, murder his wife with a shard of mirror, before turning the weapon on himself. Five years later, Edward's love for sister Maureen has turned to lust. Unknown to him, Maureen has been involved in a relationship with work colleague Michael Ramsey, and is eager to escape her life in the family home. Meanwhile, Vicki Powell has been working the Soho streets, trapped in a life of prostitution through oppressive pimp Danny Foster. And when fellow call girl Penny Dawson doesn’t return after agreeing to spend the night with a punter, Vicki gets concerned. Love has also been forming between herself and journalist Dave Todd, who has been working on a series of vice articles. With more people going missing, Briggs has certainly been busy behind closed doors.

Brutally nasty and written with sheer gusto, Chainsaw Terror's putrid pages drip with the stench of severed limbs and overtly-chlorine semen. The book draws on an array of pop culture influences rather than literary horror; Hutson has said he is more taken by physical rather than written media, particularly the kinetics of Sam Peckinpah. The only real nod to the THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is a hammer clubbing, and it's more like an early 1980s maelstrom of William Lustig's MANIAC meets the Video Nasties panic, via Denis Nielsen and Ed Gein (Edward keeping his sister's head around also reminds of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2). To add to the mix, Hutson brings a couple of traits to the sex and violence: whenever somebody is cut up, they seem to shit or piss themselves. Also, Edward has the weird (yet perfectly sensible) habit of taking off all of his clothes before he goes into dismemberment mode.

While paperback versions of Chainsaw Terror and Come the Night are scarce, the entire text of Come the Night (and hence Chainsaw Terror) forms part of a 1999 Pan collection of three Hutson novels (which also includes SF stories The Abduction and The Visitation).

Hutson's depictions of prostitution is a suitably depressing neon netherworld, trying to do for mid-1980s Soho what TAXI DRIVER did for mid-1970s New York City. As Gavin Whitaker writes in his blog Gavgcrimson, a lot of what Hutson writes surprisingly holds up to historical scrutiny: "during one of Edward's visits to London's red light district he encounters a porn film called SEX SCHOOL, which sounds as if it's informed by the John Lindsay blue movies in which adult actresses portrayed schoolgirls in the jailbait fixated plots of Lindsay titles like JOLLY HOCKEY STICKS, SCHOOLGIRL JOYRIDE and GIRL GUIDES' MISFORTUNE, which would still have been floating around Soho in the early 1980s."

For a history ripe with misleading information, there have also been tales of the uncut version of Hutson’s original manuscript being passed around. The author himself "confirmed" that a friend in Birmingham had run off several dozen copies of the fully uncensored text and had been selling them for £75 each. The extent of the publisher's censored material has never been clarified - not even by Hutson himself - but a couple of instances can lead to educated guesses. There appears to be evidence of this in the scene where Edward is about to drive a power drill through an eye, only to skip over the gore. Speculation also exists when Briggs comes close to killing two kids, only for their mother to come home and thwart his plans by tripping over the wire of his drill.

La Tronconneuse de l’Horreur/The Chainsaw of Horror was part of the Gore series in France, published by Fleuve Noir from 1985 to 1989. Distinguished by some of the most revolting covers ever, the series began with a severely abridged version of John Russo's Night of the Living Dead novel. Subsequent entries included Herschell Gordon Lewis, Guy N. Smith and John Halkin.

Actually Hutson's twelfth novel, Chainsaw Terror followed such opuses as The Skull ("It had been waiting for centuries, buried in a place they called the evil ground ... waiting for just one drop of blood to restore it to life,") Slugs ("They slime, they ooze, they kill!") and Spawn (which has telepathic, blood-feeding foetuses). He is Garth Marenghi before Garth Marenghi, a 1980s cult icon who looked more like the front-man of a Heavy Metal band. One of several authors who rose to prominence during the splatterpunk trend, the author acquired a rabid legion of fans, and his association with them even resulted in adopting their names into his work as victims. Hutson's page-turning, bombastic style exists in a potent mix of familiarity (main characters's love interests will usually be a blonde in jeans) and genre-splicing (Deathday's monsters are a hybrid of vampires, zombies, demons and serial killers). Throughout his 1980s horror novels he is obviously having a blast, with Iron Maiden playing in the background of one Breeding Ground scene.

The Human Zoo

CONFESSIONS OF AN ALIEN ABDUCTEE (2013)

Chantelle Pyper is proclaimed to be the most abducted person in Britain, and appears to be a mutation of Diane Morgan's MANDY and Lisa Marie's Martian Girl in MARS ATTACKS.

DIRECTED, produced and filmed by Guy Gilbert, this fifty-minute Channel 4 documentary looks at three British cases of UFO abduction, and the support network supplied by the Anomalous Mind Management Abductee Contactee Helpline (AMMACH), run by therapist/media personality Joanne Summerscales and ex-communications/broadcast engineer Miles Johnston. Not only does the piece capture the Britishness of the alleged contactees, it also encompasses the sadness that has engulfed and guided their lives. We first meet Labour councillor and driving instructor Simon Parkes, who believes that he has an alien mother, an alien "Cat Queen" lover (well, he does own nine felines) and otherworldly children whom he sees regularly (although his wife is not happy about it). Simon never knew his father, and his mother was an alcoholic.

Regular abductee Chantelle Pyper lives with her 24-year-old son Dominic, who also has frequent encounters. Particularly irksome for Chantelle is that the aliens move and hide her cigarettes, and are in the habit of beaming her up after KFC take-away meals. To help her in this plight, Miles has sent Chantelle a device consisting of a crystal connected to a battery. Fittingly unimpressed, she describes it as "a little vibrator," and in a masterpiece of understatement says "It'll not work; it's a waste of time."

Joanna Summerscales and Miles Johnson. The AMMACH website was closed in 2015 due to extensive hacking, but its legacy lives on in The ET Newsroom, governed by Summescales.

Our third case is Marie, a freelance accountant, who believes that aliens have implanted devices in her body and tampered with her DNA. Luckily Miles "has all the latest equipment" for examination, which includes ushering Marie into a black-screen cubicle in his garden and asking to take her top off. Things get particularly heated when Marie doesn't get the answers she is looking for with a lie-detector carried out by Terry Mullins, chair of the British Polygraph Association. Marie also has a DNA test, which turns out to be normal. The accountant, it turns out, had a daughter Gina, who also experienced alien contact and committed suicide a few months before the programme was made. Marie believes that Gina is now with "light beings," and looks forward to reuniting with her.

Sleep paralysis and false memories provide plausible explanations for many accounts of alien abduction. But with no sceptical viewpoint, and solely concentrating on the sheer outlandishness of the situations (using CONFESSIONS in its title instantly - and deliberately? - reminds of Robin Askwith), the programme is a bizarrely sad experience. Starting with trailer clips from EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, THIS ISLAND EARTH and THE ANGRY RED PLANET, UFO devotees have even described the programme as a mockumentary, clearly upset by its flippant but nevertheless grounded tone. A better inclusion would have been footage from the original, dream-like INVADERS FROM MARS, a foundational film in the development of the abduction narrative, which predates and potentially influences real-world claims.

"Our Fish Are Family!" (Part II of II)

DOCTOR WHO - WARRIORS OF THE DEEP (1984)

DOCTOR WHO - LEGEND OF THE SEA DEVILS (2022)

In WARRIORS OF THE DEEP, The Silurians and Sea Devils return to DOCTOR WHO after over a decade. Redesigns further cheapen this notorious entry: the stockier Silurians now speaking through their third eye, and the Sea Devils donning a Samurai-inspired outfit.

SIMILAR to THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA, WARRIORS OF THE DEEP is a Cold War allegory. Disastrously starting Classic DOCTOR WHO's twenty-first season, The Doctor (Peter Davison), Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Turlough (Mark Strickson) find themselves on Earth's Sea Base 4 (in "around two thousand and eighty-four.") Within it, a team led by Commander Vorshak (Tom Adams) undergo regular nuclear missile tests to ensure they are ready to combat their rival (equally unnamed) superpower. However, surviving members of a Silurian triad revive a colony of Sea Devils to use the weapons to attack the Base enemy, provoking a global catastrophe which will allow the reptiles to reclaim the world. The monsters also send an electrified sea beast - the Myrka - to infiltrate the humans, who are also housing spies Nilson (Ian McCulloch) and Solow (Ingrid Pitt).

Early in its production, Margaret Thatcher announced a snap General Election, creating sudden demand for BBC studio space. Unexpectedly losing two weeks from an already pressured schedule, many signs of this are amplified to ramshackle proportions: scenes had little or no rehearsal time, actors fluff lines because only one take could be afforded, and sets had to be constantly realigned. The Myrka costume - which resembles a pantomime horse - was completed only an hour before shooting, leaving the puppeteers high on glue, and as paint had not dried, it visibly rubbed off on surroundings. The ultimate irony was that the creature was controlled by William Perrie and John Asquith, famous for RENTAGHOST's Dobbin. The Silurians and Sea Devils fare little better, looking static and childish (taking cue from THE SEA DEVILS, actor heads are at neck level for the underwater menace, giving a wobbling and crooked appearance).

Genetically modified by Silurians from an unknown species of dinosaur, The Myrka in WARRIORS OF THE DEEP holds a particular resonance in Time Lord lore. Its attack on polystyrene bulkhead doors and electrocution of a karate-kicking Ingrid Pitt are forever burnt into the retina of long-suffering Whovians.

Written by Johnny Byrne and directed by Pennant Roberts, WARRIORS OF THE DEEP loses its nuclear tensions by becoming a monster of the week show. In hindsight it would have been better to close down the serial and regroup, as the budget and time restraints force everything to be flat and workmanlike (the "battle" scenes have the protagonists lined up like toy soldiers). Cementing its catalogue of chaos, the four-parter permanently bathes its sets in bright light, enabling the viewer to easily identify every continuity error and mishap. Under these circumstances it seems harsh for Michael Grade to use the Myrka in a clip for his guest appearance on ROOM 101, many regarding the twenty-first season opener as a key element towards the slow death and eventual cancellation of the programme.

Broadcast as a no-so swashbuckling Easter Special, modern DOCTOR WHO maligns the underwater warriors further in LEGEND OF THE SEA DEVILS. Written by Ella Road and Chris Chibnall, the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), with companions Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop), set out to find the hidden treasure of the Flor de la Mar. However, they end up at the wrong time and team up with Madam Ching (Crystal Yu), as they battle the aquatic foes for the "Keystone." It's a bloated, erratic mess, with amateurish action and endless technobabble. There are also attempts to develop the relationship between The Doctor and Yaz, which entails a series of head tilts for the latter.

LEGEND OF THE SEA DEVILS has an updated design by Ray Holman and Robert Allsop. Made shorter to compensate for Jodie Whittaker's height, Holman "included some nods to the original look, weaving netting through the costumes" and their armour. When creating the heads, Allsop took measurements from a cast for the 1980s Sea Devils. Apparently, the newer masks enabled the creatures to have "more realistic expressions."

The Chibnall Era is a clear indicator of the downgrade in writing between show-runners. Characterisation is one-dimensional, forcing actors to dig-deep for charisma (a particular issue for Gill). As a viewer we are constantly told how brilliant everyone is, which is a total disconnect with anything on screen. This penultimate episode for Chibbers is particularly hollow, further dragged down by horrible CGI (it looks like a 1990s video game) and the Sea Devils themselves, reduced to bug-eyed, rubbery imitation. Whitakker is forced to prattle on to whatever boring exposition is in place, and often oblivious to a story happening (even an energised scene is stopped in its tracks with more Doctor/Yaz emotional hankering).

"Our Fish Are Family!" (Part I of II)

THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA (2025)

This DOCTOR WHO spin-off has totally re-designed Sea Devils. A crushing disappointment, it achieves the difficult balancing act of unintentional hilarity, numbing boredom and badly timed fish jokes.

PENNED by Russell T. Davies and Pete McTighe, THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA is a five-part DOCTOR WHO companion piece that completed the BBC and Disney contractual obligation. What was built-up as a more adult series is quickly replaced by the usual Kinder-garden-level lecturing and amateur performances. Barclay Pierre-Dupont (Russell Tovey) is a low-level UNIT Transportation Clerk, estranged from partner Barbara (Ann Akinjirin) and non-binary teenage child Kirby (Cat Gannon). However, due to an HR error (!), Barclay becomes part of a UNIT task-force to engage with "Homo Aqua," a sea species led by Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Understandably, they are furious about the contamination humanity has caused to the oceans, and choose Barclay as their contact in peace talks, as he was the only person to show respect with a deceased Sea Devil.

Within minutes of the first episode airing on BBC1, viewers were complaining of major audio issues, some even relying on subtitles to follow the story (fan forums also quickly renamed the unwieldy title TWATBLAST). The programme falls into the same political trap as Davies' second WHO show-running tenure, critiques that are mere broad strokes. Pierre-Dupont is a metaphor for modern entertainment, that is, a tide of mistaken hiring, and the shoehorned diversity here is illustrated in a now twin UNIT wheelchair attack of Bingham (Ruth Madeley) and Chesney (tetraplegic George Robinson). And in a love story nobody is interested in, we get more air time between UNIT commander-in-chief Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) and toy boy Colonel Ibrahim (Alexander Devrient); thankfully Ibrahim is shot dead by an equivalent of the JFK magic bullet. 

It is no surprise that Russell T. Davies writes plenty of sweating, shower and topless scenes for Gay icon Russell Tovey.

There certainly is no war in the exciting, battle-sense, nor much screen time for the sea creatures themselves. What we do get is blanket posturing about ineffectual and corrupt power structures, with the Davies-written final episode as batshit crazy as his recent WHO finales. The laborious threads that had been woven are now adrenalised into a finishing line of signal disruptors, ancient unity and an engineered virus so clever it can only affect nine out of every ten Sea Devils. Yearning for a new life with Salt, Barclay abandons humanity and develops gills, swimming away with her after an underwater ballet that reminds of the interplay between Julia Adams and THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.

It's a catalogue of moments, and these are not reinforced. For example, when all the pollutants from the sea are hurled back at us - including what's left of the Titanic - all subsequent scenes do not show any rubbish on the streets. Much simpler settings are also fumbled, such as the UNIT contamination chamber, which isn't even contained. The only way TWATBLAST can make any sense whatsoever is that it all exists in the fragmenting mind of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. In a typically bizarre coda, she asks a jogger on a beach to pick up a discarded bottle. When the man refuses - somehow oblivious to the events of the series - Kate pulls a gun on him and insists he picks up his rubbish, becoming increasingly unhinged.

"Welcome to the Members Club"

The DOCTOR WHO Extermination (2023-25)

"Never seen a TARDIS before?" Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson first appeared together in the 2023 Christmas special THE CHURCH ON RUBY ROAD. Fighting a flying ship of baby-eating goblins, the Time Lord was now in a God-fuelled meta-fantasy. Two years later, DOCTOR WHO redefined the meaning of Shitshow.

RUSSELL T. Davies' second stint as show-runner for New WHO began with three 60th Anniversary shows, and continued with two eight-episode seasons and a couple of Christmas specials. Unaffectionately known as the RTD2 phase, everything felt immediately wrong. The DEI hiring in front and behind the camera was dutifully delivered, but there was something else; we had musical numbers, breaking of the fourth wall, and literal flashbacks to the classic series. In LUX, The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and companion Belinda (Varada Sethu) climb out of a television and discuss the show with three gobsmacked fans. It brought self-awareness to new levels, creating a sense that RTD2 itself was a simulation.

Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker altered WHO DNA in a number of ways. There was the mix of fan fiction-level stories, change to lore and leveling of "The White Male Gaze," but it became impossible to discuss without being perceived as a misogynistic troll. Yet the second Davies period broke it as an IP. What is most perplexing is how gleefully destructive Russell treated his own cherished childhood favourite, especially with an alleged £80m budget boost from Disney. Equally unfathomable is how an entertainment can be bankrolled to a designated, minority target audience (as an approximation, a 2023 global survey found that only 9% of adults identify as LGBTQ+). For any franchise it is a marriage made in hell, with obvious results: stories written by unqualified individuals forever the victim, sledgehammer allegories, and falling ratings.

For the RTD2 writing pool, we had transgender author Juno Dawson, Nigerian poet Inua Ellams and bisexual television director Kate Herron in the mix. The inclusion of Dawson was particularly controversial, having written This Book is Gay, a 2014 LGBTQ+ manual for "ages 0-18."

Science fantasy/horror communities have always been particularly rabid, linking everyday happiness to beloved shows similar to sport-team worship. When a long-standing programme evolves as a specific moral, it is probably best not for the stars to tell them to "go and touch grass" if you don't like the direction (Gatwa) or "just watch it and get over it" (Gibson). It is this dismissive reaction that underpins the modern zeitgeist, that viewers should not voice any opinion unless it aligns with theirs. Even with the worst viewing figures in the shows history - albeit hindered by the streaming policy - DEI WHO rejoiced not only because the fringe were the centre of the conversation, but that unhappy fans - particularly from the classic age - were leaving their playpen.

Modern WHO acolytes' simple appeal for any disgruntled Classic followers is to just stop watching. A bold request, which would be easier if from 2005 it had been revamped to an unrecognisable degree. But it is more than nostalgia, rather a national institution with a rich history. Chibnall/RTD2 has not been about world-building, more going back to a box of toys and distorting concepts to their agenda because they can. The liberal use of actual footage from yesteryear - and general character heritage - best illustrates this double standard. For example, in ROGUE, Gatwa's instant infatuation with Jonathan Groff is fleetingly interrupted by showing him his previous incarnations. This even included Richard E. Grant's Doctor from the 2003 webcast SCREAM OF THE SHALKA.

Russell T. Davies returned "to protect [DOCTOR WHO]" from Disney. Unfortunately, his flair for emotional clout was thrown out the window, replaced by nonsensical cartoon versions of legacy characters. Russell has an increasing habit of writing himself into a corner, then pulling a deus ex machina to get out of it.

Politics have always been evident in Classic WHO: the Galactic Federation in THE CURSE OF PELADON; decrepit bureaucracy within THE DEADLY ASSASSIN; the dystopia of THE HAPPINESS PATROL et al. But Davies deals with affairs of state with all the gravitas of buzzwords, whirlwind subtexts without any time or need for reflection. It is always just an angle: the villain of THE ROBOT REVOLUTION is Incel Alan Budd (Jonny Green), a one-dimensional representation set up for ridicule. In a world gone mad, Juno Dawson's pro-Palestine THE INTERSTELLAR SONG CONTEST was paradoxically screened the same week the BBC finally sacked Gary Lineker over sharing an anti-Semitic tweet. It's all one checklist after another, superficial and non-nuanced. There is no space to discuss or educate, just to tell people to fuck off.

Filmed back-to-back, the double eight-episode runs are clearly not enough time for any endeavour to breath, let alone one which attempted to bring back past glories leading up to two finales. In the end of the first block we had "God of Death" Sutekh - who had hitched a lift on the TARDIS since PYRAMIDS OF MARS - banished by a dog whistle and leash; and the whole Whoniverse waited with baited breath for the second conclusion, where The Rani (Anita Dobson/Archie Panjabi) resurrected Omega to start a rebirth of The Time Lords. The internet went into meltdown with theories and leaks: would Gatwa regenerate into Billie Piper - with the aid of Whittaker - providing Davies with a perfect symmetry?

Two-time RuPAUL'S DRAG RACE winner Jinkx Monsoon as Maestro from THE DEVIL'S CHORD. Whovians still watched the show akin to a disastrously failing relationship: they know they should let go, but hold on in the vain hope of past glories.

And the answer was yes. DOCTOR WHO was now a gimmick, with Piper not even listed as The Doctor in the end credits ("and introducing Billie Piper" is suitably open-ended, and the regeneration on screen didn't actually finish). Was this actually Bad Wolf, kick-started by The Doctor shooting regeneration beams into the TARDIS, or Rose from the parallel dimension? Obviously affected by re-shoots due to Disney's baulking and Gatwa's itchy feet, THE REALITY WAR nonetheless was as underwhelming as the EMPIRE OF DEATH, failing to tie up many loose ends (Susan (Carole Ann Ford)?) and changing its own narrative (Belinda seemed to be another character all together, enthusiastically wanting to go on more travels, but most jarringly this career-minded individual was now a gushing parent). And Omega was reduced to a giant zombie that just has the time to eat a Rani before being dispatched back to the Under-verse.

In a July 2025 interview on the My Manchester podcast - a concern "focusing on the arts, social and charitable scene" - Davies revealed that one of his driving goals since taking the reins again was to steer the show away from what he called “very straight, very masculine, very testosterone-y” science fiction, and that DOCTOR WHO needed to "fill a space." This is so off the mark to be insulting, creating an issue that simply isn't there. The Doctor has never been macho-SF, rather a character that uses compassion and intelligence over physical force. The Time Lord's curiosities and eccentricities made him a beloved and unique creation, standing apart from the laser-blasting antics of other major franchises. It was another jaw-dropping quotation from the show-runner, particularly as it was Davies himself that shifted the dynamic in the 2005 reboot with the Tenth Doctor and Rose. So it was hypocritical to hear him talking about moving the show away from being too straight when he was the one who made The Doctor heterosexual to begin with.

"Oh, hello!" When Classic WHO stumbled towards a hiatus and cancellation in the 1980s, it suffered from an egotistical pantomime producer and camp light entertainment. RTD2 became a duplication of the earlier pause, with Billie Piper - like the show - literally hanging in the balance.

And in the same month, when you thought things couldn't get any more unhinged, Gatwa appeared on SUNDAY WITH LAURA KUENSSBERG to promote his play Born With Teeth. In a truly bizarre interview, the 32-year-old, wearing a Ballet Black promotional shirt, said that he walked away from DOCTOR WHO "because I’m getting old. My body was tired. My body, my knee. And I’ve now just started doing some ballet. So I’m making really great decisions here." He added, "[being The Doctor is] the most amazing job in the world, a job that any actor would dream of. And because it’s so good, it’s strenuous. Takes a lot out of you physically, emotionally, mentally. So, it was time." It remains to be seen how the geriatric actor gets on with his ballet adventures, a pursuit that requires stamina and flexibility whatever the level. It is also particularly strange for Gatwa to claim playing The Doctor was draining, as he was only playing himself.

Things became even more uncomfortable when Kuenssberg asked him about his withdrawal from being the UK’s Eurovision spokesperson, an appearance that formed part of a WHO crossover for Juno Dawson's episode. When Kuenssberg asked if Gatwa had pulled out due to the involvement of Israeli contestant Yuval Raphael, the actor, who has openly expressed pro-Palestine views, replied: "no, I was just very busy." It must be difficult to be such a prima donna, especially for the time it would take to read out a few jury scores. Gatwa claims he withdrew a long time before it was actually announced - which he states was "interesting." 

Andy Milligan in London (Part II of II)

BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS (1970)

THE MAN WITH 2 HEADS (1972)

THE RATS ARE COMING - THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE (1972)

"Their prime cuts were curiously erotic ... but thoroughly brutal!" Apparently "sadism was just an appetiser" for Andy Milligan's BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS. 

THE three Andy Milligan pictures under consideration here all typify the filmmaker's "horror and hate" ethos, showing disdain for family, heritage and both sexual and working relationships. His take on Sweeney Todd, BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS, can be described as his most entertaining London-based release, and in true Tod Slaughter style, is filled with grisly details and unnecessary melodrama. Todd (John Miranda) brutally murders customers in his barbershop, with the corpses passed on to neighbour Maggie Lovett (Jane Hilary). With the help of "head" butcher Tobias (Milligan's English mainstay Berwick Kaler), Lovett fills her prize pies with body parts. Lovetts’ innocent employee Johanna (Annabella Wood) and her fiancé, sailor Jarvis (Michael Cox), are just two who get caught up in the convoluted shenanigans.

BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS starts as it means to go on, where Todd slits the throat of an Irishman, then uses a meat cleaver to hack off a hand to take the victim’s ruby ring. Later, a couple discover a female breast (complete with nipple) in a pie, and Mr Busker (William Barrel) whispers to Mrs Lovett the items he and his sister would like to find inside their next purchase. The picture benefits from strong performances - particularly a haunting Kaler, and Wood excels with a Madeline Smith-like purity - but basically it is one unhinged argument after another.

Filmed as DR JEKYLL AND MR BLOOD, THE MAN WITH 2 HEADS was chosen as the title to ride the coattails of AIP hits such as THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT and THE THING WITH TWO HEADS.

Milligan's strangely static version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, THE MAN WITH 2 HEADS, credits the source novelist as Robert Louis Stephenson and opens with a totally unrelated scene of what one assumes to be a Jack the Ripper murder. Dr William Jekyll (Dennis DeMarne) believes that evil has a specific location within the brain and can therefore be isolated and removed. Working alone in the lab, Jekyll's assistant Smithers (Kaler) accidentally knocks over a glass of water, obliterating Jekyll’s antidote notes. Smithers attempts to write over the impressions, recreating the formula. Jekyll, frustrated by the non-delivery of lab rats and unaware his antidote is now ineffectual, tests the formula on himself, transforming into Danny Blood, a brutal sadist who torments and abuses prostitutes – taking particular interest in Soho resident April (Julia Stratton).

The movie sees Milligan particularly barbaric towards women. "There’s nothing a man likes more than to come home to a cigar, his beautiful wife, and dog," Blood tells April, "only you’re not so beautiful, and I don’t have a dog" (this precedes his command to April to bark, then puts out his cigar on the nape of her neck). As the madness begins to bleed into Jekyll’s day-to-day life, he cruelly and misogynistic-ally addresses a quiet female student, Victoria (Jennifer Summerfield), in front of her peers: "what makes you think you should be a doctor, standing up there as if you know what you’re talking about? All women should be in bed… to be used." 

A more apt title for Milligan's English swansong would be THE RATS ARE COMING TO PAD OUT THE PICTURE - THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE EVENTUALLY. 

THE RATS ARE COMING - THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE attempts to do for werewolves what THE BODY BENEATH did for vampires. But due to the success of the rodent-themed WILLARD, sequences were added to increase the running time (one of which has the real killing of a rat). Set in 1899, a lycanthropic clan is headed by Papa Mooney (Douglas Pfair), who lives in a country manor with children Phoebe (Joan Ogden), Mortimer (Noel Collins), sadistic Monica (Hope Stansbury) and subhuman son Malcolm (Kaler). When his "normal" daughter from a different mother returns home from medical school, Diana (Jackie Skarvellis) - together with new husband Gerald (the godawful Ian Innes) - the family starts to unravel for good, including the revelation that the curse was not due to an animal bite, rather Phoebe's incestuous union with Papa.

Festering in their estate, the Mooney's are your quintessential Milligan doomed family. Jimmy McDonough, in his Milligan biography The Ghastly One, describes the picture as "by far the weakest effort from Milligan’s English sojourn," and only Stansbury's bitchy psychopath is of note. Started under the title THE CURSE OF THE FULL MOON, the film is ineptly bland and talkative, and like all of the filmmaker's output characters seem genuinely beyond hope, a reflection of Milligan's wider wounded soul.

Andy Milligan in London (Part I of II)

NIGHTBIRDS (1970)

THE BODY BENEATH (1970)

Berwick Kaler and Julie Shaw play strained lovers in the avant-garde NIGHTBIRDS. Their entanglement illustrates Andy Milligan's perennial view of the sexes: how passive men are manipulated by women.

DESCRIBED by Tim Lucas in Video Watchdog as "horror's unwanted weirdo," Andy Milligan was more derogatorily pigeon-holed by Psychotronic's Michael Weldon, who said that if you were a Milligan fan, there was no hope for you (Stephen King also famously dismissed his 1968 opus THE GHASTLY ONES as "the work of morons with cameras.") Most of the Minnesota-native's movies were made for under $15,000, and he was virtually a one-man production company. Not only did Milligan write, direct, photograph, edit and design costumes, he was also a make-up effects supervisor using Grand Guignol techniques (this garish style put him on a similar plain to Tod Slaughter). Dying in 1991 from AIDS and buried in an unmarked grave, Milligan was not an open homosexual, rather an S&M addict relying on fantasy to exorcise his personal demons.

Milligan's filmography of open scars shows a venomous disdain for the church and dysfunctional families; in particular, the home is a cesspit, and relatives are endlessly judgmental. These onscreen complexities mirror his real-life upbringing, as his mother was an overweight alcoholic who allegedly was physically, mentally and sexually abusive to all her children and husband. Although close to his father, Andrew Milligan Sr was a US Army officer, which meant further pressures due to frequent relocation. On set Milligan had a reputation to be demanding and bad-tempered; colleagues also relate to emotional and sexual manipulation, raising speculation that he suffered similar (untreated) health problems to his mother. To typify his chaotic life, one of the filmmaker's few long-term partners was Vietnam veteran Dennis Malvasi, who was a convicted abortion clinic bomber.

THE BODY BENEATH promised "sexually rampant ghouls, depraved souls and blood-red roses filmed in the graveyards of England." In fact, Andy Milligan shot in Highgate Cemetery without permission.

Milligan's residence in London produced NIGHTBIRDS, THE BODY BENEATH, BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS, THE MAN WITH 2 HEADS and THE RATS ARE COMING - THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE. Although known as a horror director, NIGHTBIRDS - similar to his 1965 debut short VAPOURS - exists in a contemporary setting and aspires to be an arthouse stage play. NIGHTBIRDS tells of Dink (Berwick Kaler) and Dee (Julie Shaw), who have run away from their mothers and are struggling to survive in a not so swinging London. A slow-burning character study, the fragile, virginal and possibly gay Dink is in direct contrast to the resourceful, strong-willed but unbalanced Dee. Kaler and Shaw - both impressive first-timers - force along the paper thin plot, until the true nature of Dee is revealed in the final reel (in which syphilis and the abandonment of her dying child doesn't stop a calculating demeanour).

Behind the nonsensical title THE BODY BENEATH, this is Milligan's most accessible film and illustrates his loathing of clerical figures. Reverend Ford (Gavin Reed) and his silent wife Alicia (Susan Heard) are 400-year-old vampires residing at Carfax Abbey, aiming to restore their incestuous bloodline after years of outsider marriages. Aided by three ghoul brides and hunchback with a heart Spool (a returning Kaler), Ford captures relatives Susan (Jackie Skarvellis) and Candace (Emma Jones) for his carnal needs. The production is best remembered for its delirious Undead Gala climax, where the Vaseline-smeared, red-tinted lens captures the cannibalistic conference (we learn that even Julius Caesar and Elizabeth I are members of the bloodsucking clan).

Chiefly, THE BODY BENEATH takes place in the Neo-Tudor mansion Sarum Chase near Hampstead Heath (Milligan would return for THE RATES ARE COMING - THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE). The nudie short MISS FRANKENSTEIN RIP was also shot there, as well as being photographed for the sleeve of The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet.

It could generously be said that Milligan modernised vampires before Hammer's DRACULA, A.D. 1972, and played with lore akin to CAPTAIN KRONOS VAMPIRE HUNTER. For example, the ghoul women politely say hello before biting their victims, although they don't have fangs. In further quirks the undead use chloroform, as well as having blood pressure reduced by leeches and being able to move around in daylight thanks to an injection that counteracts the sun. Painfully ponderous and talkative, the washed-out look adds to the Gothic austerity, with Reed revealing in the madness (and certainly getting the best lines).

"Where Science and the Occult Clash!"

NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT (1973)

Here is a film starring Christopher Lee and featuring a Police investigation on a Scottish island that isn't THE WICKER MAN. The climax - where Lee is tied around the neck and arms and propelled into a bonfire by minors - mirrors Edward Woodward's demise in Robin Hardy's cult favourite, which was actually released nine months later.

AGAINST the backdrop of several Trustee murders who support an orphanage on a Scottish island, one young girl, Mary Valley (Gwyneth Strong), is taken to a London hospital after a coach crash and suffers psychological issues. Psychiatrist Dr Haynes (Keith Barron) and journalist Joan Foster (Georgia Brown) interview the girl's wayward biological mother Anna Harb (Diana Dors), a prostitute and convicted murderer. When Haynes is killed, the hospital's senior member Sir Mark Ashley (Peter Cushing) and friend Colonel Charles Bingham (Christopher Lee) take their enquiries to the orphanage, as Anna also travels to the location hoping to reunite with her child. Ashley and Bingham eventually uncover the sinister truth: personalities are being transplanted into the children.

Based on the novel by John Blackburn and directed by Peter Sasdy, NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT was the only film from independent Charlemagne, set up by Lee and former Hammer producer Anthony Nelson Keys. A commercial failure, the picture suffers from a laboured script by Brian Hayles - mostly known for his television work and creator of The Ice Warriors for DOCTOR WHO - and also wastes its outstanding cast, as no character is fully fleshed out. Cushing and Lee are almost playing themselves, and Dors is totally unhinged with her red wig. In fact the acting standout is thirteen year old Strong, and it was a shame no substantial big screen roles came her away, the actress becoming forever known as Cassandra from ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES.

Barely seen in America, NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT became THE RESURRECTION SYNDICATE, a title which unveils its premise. The picture was also released on video as THE DEVIL'S UNDEAD.

As a thematic exercise NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT is troublesome in its use of children, portraying orphans and castaways as scientific guinea pigs and exploitative commodities. Apart from Haynes, the leads are using the unfortunate youngsters for their own needs: Anna views Mary as property which has long been denied to her, Foster and Ashley see the minors as their particular professional interests, and Bingham engages in the mystery for his murdered friend but relishes the thrill of the chase. As an interesting side note, with Blackburn's novel published in 1968, a similar theme is explored in the 1971 United States offering THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN. Here, in an inversion of the thesis, a coven are kidnapping souls of children to transfer into their bodies.

Ghosts at the BBC (Part II of II)

CAN WE EXPLAIN THE POLTERGEIST? (1965)

40 MINUTES: GHOST TRAIN (1989)

Cambridge University's George Owen is our stilted guide for CAN WE EXPLAIN THE POLTERGEIST?, a meandering half-hour which questions orthodox science and the components of historical and contemporary noisy spirits. Owen had written a book under the same title, which won the 1963 Parapsychology Foundation Award for Original Treatises.

BATTERSEA in the 1950s and Enfield in the 1970s are two cornerstones in UK poltergeist activity. This type of paranormal event is harder to define than ghosts; even parapsychologists can't agree on its nature: are they entities which prefer physical disturbances, such as knocking, throwing cups across a room and upturning furniture, or rather unknown energies driven by stress? They certainly like to mess with your stuff, but so do attention-seeking adolescents intent on pranks. The pointed question CAN WE EXPLAIN THE POLTERGEIST? was asked by George Owen - Fellow and Mathematics lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge - an academic archetype who quickly reassures the viewer that "poltergeists are even rarer than murder." 

Hardly Fox Mulder, Owen investigates three occurrences, beginning with the then topical case of Swansea housewife Mrs Marcia Howell. Secondly, events from the early 1960s are recounted from the famous Sauchie, Scotland story of Virginia Campbell. Here, family physician William Logan is given extended screen time in reading from Virginia's diary, and his own experience in seeing "puckering" bed sheets and pillows. For our final tale we are off with George to Northfleet, Kent, for what the presenter intriguingly refers to as "another type" of poltergeist. However, after he describes footsteps, strange smells, female apparitions and a glowing, levitating bed, he probably means haunted house.

Despite its haphazard nature, GHOST TRAIN and its ilk are certainly preferable to modern documentaries and YouTube ghost hunters.

You could travel by Intercity into GHOST TRAIN, an episode of the 40 MINUTES documentary strand which ran on BBC2 from 1981 to 1994. We open with four nurses setting up to spend the night in "the most haunted house in Britain" - Chingle Hall near Preston - to raise money for their hospital. Then a cut to Helen McCormick - who has "always seen ghosts" - living in Chorley. She recounts a large crucifix being found in her cellar; soon after, Mrs McCormick starts to see a monk - who she calls Dominic - walk past her kitchen window. While sketching the figure, which is now seen frequently inside the house, Helen is clearly not worried, calling him a "lovely" ghost who once did a little dance.

Next up is Reverend Jack Richardson at Harnham Hall in Northumberland. Here he blesses the earthly remains of Kate Babington, who died as a prisoner in 1670, in the hope of putting her spirit to rest. This uninspiring trip is followed by a bus driver telling of how he rescued his aunt after a warning from an apparition, and a schoolgirl seeing her deceased grandmother. Lastly we have civil engineer and part-time clairsentient Eddie Burks summoned by RAF Linton-On-Ouse to contact the ghost of an airman. Burks describes his abilities in releasing forms from their predicament as "like turning a key and letting someone out of prison."

Built in the shape of a cross, Chingle Hall has suffered almost every type of paranormal phenomena over its long history, from apparitions and poltergeists, to EVP and spontaneous combustion of wooden beams.

As the train speeds through the countryside we see a number of disembodied talking heads, with snippets of creepy tales and spooky facts adding to the random feel. The credits roll with a nurse's catch up, who discuss their time at Chingle Hall with the current owner. Unfortunately there is nothing too interesting in their draughts, door knocking and a stopped watch. In the end, as our impromptu train passenger himself turns to the other side, the carriage cleaner fittingly puts a newspaper report about the nurses in the bin.

Chingle Hall was a long-held fascination for author Peter Underwood and occultist Dennis Wheatley. Originally known as Singleton Hall, Eleanor de Singleton was born in 1567, and both of her parents died before she reached the age of six. Eleanor was then reputedly imprisoned by her guardians, whereby the two uncles repeatedly sexually abused her. Eleanor's harrowing story ended when she either gave birth to a Hydrocephalic baby, or she survived only to be murdered. Together with this understandably tortured soul, there is also the story of Franciscan priest John Wall, born at the Hall in 1620. Hung, drawn and quartered for not forsaking his religion, a group of nuns were said to have brought his head back to Chingle and buried it somewhere within its boundaries.

GHOST TRAIN illustrates the needs of the human mind as much as what lies beyond. Like all supernatural compilations, it is a casebook for wishful thinking and personal yearning.

If you are told a house is haunted, chances are you will amplify every noise, creak and temperature change into an unnatural situation. Even though we can hallucinate under a variety of scientific notions - sleep deprivation, high stress, infrasonic waves et al - it is easier to tell a spooky yarn. This sense of unnerving historical and psychological baggage truly haunts the human psyche. We are hard-wired to make sense of the nonsensical, and to present narratives to relieve repressed anxieties. Still possessing a predatory fear, ghost stories are linear in their make-up, retreading the same elements because we refuse to accommodate scientific advancement. Be it William Logan's moving pillows or Helen McCormick's friendly monk, they are imprints of vulnerable locations and reassuring religion. Unfortunately, brain chemistry will remain the biggest mystery of all, as we fail to accept the eternal abyss.

Ghosts at the BBC (Part I of II)

THE GHOST HUNTERS (1975)

A key Haunted Generation entry, THE GHOST HUNTERS reaches for the tweed jacket and enough clunky equipment to shake a spirit at.

THE GHOST HUNTERS is a fifty-minute BBC documentary described in the Radio Times as thus: "Ghosts abound in Britain. Thousands of people have seen and heard what they believe to be phantom footsteps, abnormal phenomena, and ghosts of all shapes and sizes. In tonight's documentary, Hugh Burnett visits some of the people who have tried to track them down, or heard and seen things they cannot explain. The film ranges from a haunted house, a haunted inn, even a theatre haunted by a butterfly - to Borley Church." The most memorable sequence is kept to last, as a tape recorder is left inside overnight at Borley; it captures a creaking door and an otherworldly, melancholic sigh.

The amount of scientific babble rivals the pseudo-extravagance of American documentaries of the time. We open with Benson Herbert - the father of electrical-based spookiness - investigating a Wiltshire pub, where he surmises that unconscious energy of some people can influence the attachment and movement of ghosts. He is aided by faithful assistants Vicki and Reg, who help set up such nonsensical aids as an anti-fatigue "negative ion pistol," and an infrared device which can "detect a candle a quarter of a mile away." More hardware is on show when John Cutton, a retired Naval commander, plugs in some apparatus which has a "vibrator" and a wind vane to detect draughts of air. This will set off cameras to snap the apparitions, though ultimately this particular ghost hunter believes manifestations are created in the mind anyway.

Chair of the Ghost Club, interviewee Peter Underwood also penned Ghosts of Borley, Borley Postscript and The Borley Rectory Companion. 

Burnett tries to remain grounded, but rightfully questions the endlessly archaic theories. Andrew Green - the media labelled "Spectre Inspector" and author of Ghost Hunting: A Practical Guide - states that telepathy and electromagnetic rays can contact events of the past, then draws on a survey that states that 61% of ghost sightings in this country are of living people. This figure comes from The Census for Hallucinations, a survey conducted from 1889 to 1892 that sought to determine the frequency with which people were experiencing auditory or visual illusions. It is interesting that Green is quoting this almost a century on, and even more interesting in how it illustrates the shift in how we now perceive ghosts.

After our visit at the home of Green - which includes an alleged impromptu visit from three boys - we are treated to a tour of Bath by "ghost collector" Mrs Royal, then a vicar stating that entities are guiding, heavenly bodies; the presenter wonders why then, that ghosts usually appear specifically clothed. Unsurprisingly this bamboozles the Man of God, who you feel wants to swiftly retreat to his less-demanding brethren. As the Borley Church segment closes the programme, Peter Underwood - the prolific author who began the trend for regional haunted books - reinforces a more ethereal explanation, that we are being recorded on some eternal tape. The documentary certainly packs a lot in, and acts as a fascinating para-historical snapshot, but plays more as an examination of the human brain than anything paranormal.