Trial and Retribution

A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS - MARTIN'S CLOSE (2019)

Peter Capaldi sports the worst wig in costume drama history.

WRITTEN and directed by Mark Gatiss, this is a laboured adaptation of a minor M.R. James' tale included in the 1911 collection More Ghost Stories. Introduced by unnecessary modern armchair dweller Stanton (Simon Williams), we are soon back in 1684, where Judge Jeffreys (Elliot Levey) is presiding over the murder trial of his cousin, Squire John Martin (Wilf Scolding), a "young gentleman of quality." Prosecutor Dolben (Peter Capaldi) presents the case that Martin slit the throat of backward peasant Ann Clark (Jessica Temple); Martin played with Clark's affections, and this callous action had ruined a promising marriage proposal for him. What makes the proceedings unique is that Clark makes herself known to Martin after her death, with Ann haunting the Squire in the courtroom, in his cell, and following him to his hanging.

MARTIN'S CLOSE should not use the A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS moniker at all, as it is an underwhelming historical drama with only flashes of creepiness. This celebrated BBC strand of the 1970s is a prime example of what has become the Hauntology concept; with their pre-digital, incomplete history, paranormal programming in this decade has become particularly astute to these nostalgic otherworlds. Contemporary culture's constant recycling of old entertainments and inability to escape from them is at the heart of the phrase, leading franchises to - at best - tired facsimiles of past glories. MARTIN'S CLOSE has a whimsical portrayal of Jeffreys - the notorious hanging judge and vengeful alcoholic - with Capaldi attempting to hold the half-hour together in his Brian May wig. But its superficial theme of social standing is lost under bright photography (it was filmed in late July) and a micro budget that would make the piece more a candidate for daytime television than a late night chiller.

The ghosts of M. R. James do not uniformly convey to neat resolution. Sometimes protagonists steer clear altogether, in others a haunting ends only when a vindicated act of revenge is carried out.

In a 2015 Guardian article, Michael Newton makes the shrewd point that our general acceptance of Christmas ghost tales has shifted to the Americana of Halloween. This has been illustrated in the disappointing later entries of the A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS series. James brought spectres to the snowbound feast with a cosy anxiety, while Halloween mirrors our now jolted directness. But perhaps it is because of the march of time - and more importantly, technological levels of communication - that the effectiveness of cathedral closes and windswept locales has now eroded into shock scares that we can act out ourselves. The widespread yearning for social media and, inevitably, untouchable levels of self-importance, has no rationale for old school atmosphere and tradition.

"It's a nasty night innit?"

JACK THE RIPPER (1959)

THE FIEND (1972)

Unlike the documented slayings, the controversial Tempean production JACK THE RIPPER features strangulation followed with knifings that are almost an afterthought.

DIRECTED by renowned producers Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman (who also helmed THE HELLFIRE CLUB), JACK THE RIPPER belongs to a quartet of British chillers - HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, PEEPING TOM, CIRCUS OF HORRORS - that pushed the bar on sadism. Both the Mercy Hospital for Women, and the Whitechapel police, are laden with the archetypal angry mob as a black-clad figure with a surgical bag is haunting the East End, asking his victims "Are you Mary Clark?" Inspector O'Neill (Eddie Byrne) welcomes a visit from his friend, NYPD detective Sam Lowry (Lee Patterson), who becomes attracted to Anne Ford (Betty McDowall). While the leading red herrings are Ford's guardian Dr Tranter (John Le Mesurier) and hunchbacked orderly Louis (Endre Muller), this Saucy Jack turns out to be Sir David Rogers (Ewan Solon), who finally corners and kills Clark (Barbara Burke) as revenge for the suicide of his son, who found out his lover was a prostitute.

Loosely based on Leonard Matters' book The Mystery of Jack the Ripper and scripted by Jimmy Sangster, JACK THE RIPPER was given an aggressive promotional campaign in the States - which even included a Steve Allen novelty single - and the American version disposes of Stanley Black's score and also has a colour insert of oozing blood for Rogers' lift squashing. A spiced-up continental version adds four minutes to the running time, and was particularly popular in France. Here the murders had extended knife thrusts and exposed breasts, with the nudity quota increased by a showgirl changing room. But the most salacious difference was a private sequence where champagne is poured over Maggie (Dorinda Stevens)'s chest.

Hungarian actor Endre Muller adds monster value to this particular JACK THE RIPPER backstory.

The timing of the "Sadistic quartet" is significant. Between 1957 and 1960, Hammer had injected a large amount of hubris into the British film industry despite the best efforts of the censors. Consequently, the office of John Trevelyan could not be seen to allow one company to flourish within the new boom, even when producers were prepared to go the extra mile on gore and nudity. Yet JACK THE RIPPER was still involved in a prolonged set of altercations, the first version of the script described by a BBFC examiner as "even the title [is] too full of sordid and sadistic association to be acceptable as a film." After a meeting with Trevelyan himself the BBFC softened their stance, Berman cleverly turning up to the appointment with Sangster himself as a bargaining clip after the board's reservations on THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. This lead to a battle over cuts which give the picture a feverish edge, though Trevelyan's preference for shadow and fog is also entertained.

Matters and his source publication are an interesting topic in itself. An Adelaide-born journalist who fought in the Second Boer War and became a Labour politician, Matters proposed in a 1926 article that Jack was a doctor whose son had died from syphilis caught from Marie Kelly; dubbed "Dr Stanley," he committed the murders in revenge and then fled to Argentina (where the author had been editor of the Buenos Aires Herald). The Mystery of Jack the Ripper was an expansion of this, an alleged deathbed confession which stumbles at the first step because Kelly's autopsy found no evidence of sexual disease. Nevertheless this 1929 book was marketed as the first serious study of the Whitechapel murders, and at least has an authentic sense of the locale as all murder sites were then unchanged since 1888.

"Sinner ... Your Evil Shall Destroy You." Tony Beckley and Ann Todd prey for THE FIEND to be removed from their résumé.

A religious fanatic is the serial killer of choice for Robert Hartford-Davis' THE FIEND. The Minister (Patrick Magee) leads a sect called The Brethren, where widow Birdy Wemys (Ann Todd) has become a devoted member, together with her troubled son Kenny (Tony Beckley). The socially inept Kenny - who works as both a security guard and a swimming pool attendant - has been dominated by his mother and the church, and descents to a murder spree of what he deems to be sinful young women (one is picked up in a foyer of a cinema showing the Hammer SCARS OF DRACULA / HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN double bill). Birdy is dependent on insulin banned by The Brethren, and flat-sharing sisters Nurse Brigitte (Madeleine Hinde) and chain-smoking tabloid reporter Paddy Lynch (Suzanna Leigh) are ensnared into this sordid world in an attempt to save the mother and expose the gospel-loving, nonconformist gatherings. 

Hartford-Davis was hardly a neglected auteur, but THE BLACK TORMENT and CORRUPTION were notable entries for British horror. However THE FIEND - released in a cut version as BEWARE MY BRETHREN for United States markets - makes tedious use of puritanical ideology and plays like a tepid Pete Walker production (Kenny's use of a tape recorder to play back the death throes of his victims references another filmic mainstay, PEEPING TOM). But religious extremism was hardly a subject matter on many people's lips in early 1970s Britain, yet the overwrought Magee tries his best to raise the bar before dying on his 'Jesus Saves' cross.

Space Invaders

NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT (1967)
THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE (1967)

Sizzling Jane Merrow as secretary Angela Roberts in NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT. A seasoned stage, TV and film actress, her most famous role, as the mistress of King Henry in THE LION IN WINTER, earned a Golden Globe nomination.  

NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT completes a loose trilogy of science fiction films directed by Terence Fisher from the mid 1960s (following THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING and ISLAND OF TERROR). Based on the novel by John Lymington, this tepid alien invasion yarn from Planet was first adapted for a now lost ITV PLAY OF THE WEEK from 1960, the telescript actually forming the foundation for the movie version. On the Orkney island of Fara, author Jeff Callum (Patrick Allen) and wife Frankie (Sarah Lawson) run The Swan Inn; when Callum's new secretary arrives - Angela Roberts (Jane Merrow) - sexual tension rises in tandem with a heat wave, even though it is the middle of winter. The wanton Roberts has had an affair with Jeff, and with temperatures rising daily, Callum, mysterious scientist Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee) - who has converted his room at The Swan into a research centre - and Dr Stone (Peter Cushing) try to halt the spread of omelette-like creatures. 

Four years after debuting in Britain, NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT was theatrically released in the United States as ISLAND OF THE BURNING DAMNED on a double bill with GODZILLA'S REVENGE. The blobbish space visitors challenge the worst of American cinematic aliens, glowing motionless before being washed away by rain (they are certainly up there with the carpet monster from THE CREEPING TERROR). With refreshingly abrupt dialogue, it is more a domestic melodrama than a SF epic, the performances all raise the bar to an undeserved level (Lee at his arrogant best, and Cushing's dignified doctor - despite the searing temperatures - leaves his coat on in best English tradition). Unlike the visual flourishes in his Hammer Gothics, Fisher had little time for science fiction, generating only pockets of suspense in any of his otherworldly terrors.

Similar to his attitude of the horror genre, Milton Subotsky turned science fiction into childsplay for THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE.

Released the same month, THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE ("to enslave Earth!") is another SF B-movie helmed by a genre director (in this case Freddie Francis), for one of Amicus's worst productions. Written by Milton Subotsky from the book The Gods Hate Kansas by Joseph Millard, it uses many of the sets and props from DALEKS - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD. Described by Subotsky as "almost a Cold War parable," the film starts with blue meteorites landing in a field. They are investigated by the government department of Dr Curtis Temple (Robert Hutton), who has a metal plate in his head due to a motor accident. This renders him impervious to alien mind control and an unleashed space plague, as he attempts to infiltrate the visitor's compound. It transpires that the aliens are using humans as slave labour on the moon to repair their spaceship, an operation headed by The Master of the Moon (Michael Gough).

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE originated from a deal struck between Max Rosenberg and producer Joseph E. Levine; if Amicus could make two pictures for £200,000, Levine would finance and distribute them. Consequently, Montgomery Tully's THE TERRORNAUTS - another nadir in Amicus SF - was awarded £80,000, with the rest allocated here. Woefully mechanical, Subotsky would dismiss the problems by blaming distractions putting together the studio's next portmanteau, TORTURE GARDEN. Francis's film arguably shows the greatest British hallmarks in a science fantasy setting: not only do the aliens apply for a bank loan, it is ultimately all a great misunderstanding, and ends on a firm handshake. More interesting is the casting of Pakistani actor Zia Mohyeddin as Temple’s best friend Farge, who has to melt down his silver cricket trophies to manufacture the laughable anti-mind-control colander.

Mad Monsters

THE VULTURE (1966)
PROTEUS (1995)

"Half man, half beastbird ... swooping on his human prey ... drinking blood ... mutilating flesh!" Diane Clare carried off by THE VULTURE.

THE VULTURE manages to pull in so many disparate elements, it is amazing it still fails to generate any interest: genres such as rural murder mystery, cutting-edge science fiction and family curses from beyond the grave are all mashed into banality. The titular character in this Anglo-Canadian travesty rivals the moth creature from THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR as the most ridiculous monster in British horror; glimpsed only as a pair of legs and talons, this is only fleetingly fleshed out in the climax with wings and the balding head of delusional Professor Koniglich (Akim Tamiroff). This man/bird beast appeared on screen three years after the publication of Stan Lee and Steve Dirko's The Amazing Spider-Man #2 (May 1963), which featured the first appearance of Spidey super villain Adrian Toomes aka a very similar-looking Vulture.

Set in Tolferro, Cornwall, the film begins with school teacher Ellen West (Annette Carell) taking a shortcut through a cemetery, who witnesses a bird creature fly out of the coffin of 17th century sorcerer Francis Real. Local legends state that Real cursed the Stroud family line for burying him alive and murdering his vulture, which was also contained in the casket together with a number of gold coins. While modern heir Brian Stroud (Broderick Crawford) dismisses the supernatural punishment, his niece Trudy (Diane Clare) and her American scientist husband Eric (Robert Hutton) are more open-minded. And with good reason: advanced transmutative technology has been used to teleport into the grave, molecules becoming mixed with the remains of the sorcerer's beloved pet.

Years before Mega Shark or Sharktopus, PROTEUS provided 

video rental stores with its own fish-based mutation.

In this war between science and superstition Koniglich is obviously the villain from the start, with his Germanic accent and black cape. Furthermore, the stilted drawing-room chatter, static performances and fixed camera would be more at home on stage. THE VULTURE is also strangely out of time, having more in common with 1940s Poverty Row terrors, and creature features of the 1950s. The final film of veteran writer/director Lawrence Huntington - though his THE OBLONG BOX treatment would surface in 1969 - Huntingdon's only other genre venture was in 1941 with TOWER OF TERROR, about a mad lighthouse keeper.

Basically THE THING on an oil rig, PROTEUS is a dreary monster movie helmed by special effects technician Bob Keen. The screenplay was written by film critic and author John Brosnan, who adapts his 1983 novel Slimer. We open in Hong Kong harbour, where Triads expel six Heroin smugglers. Alex (Craig Fairbrass) is actually working undercover, but when the group's yacht explodes, they seek refuge in what is seemingly an abandoned offshore drilling facility. The rig is actually a research complex which has combined human and shark DNA, resulting in a creature that can imitate and absorb its victims. The practical monster effects are laughably rubbery (when Proteus attacks in the finale, it is a kind of Jaws on legs), with the cast more akin to daytime TV than a horror movie (and certainly not looking like drug smugglers). Following on from THE VULTURE's cliches, Dr Shelley (Nigel Pegram) is a German-accented mad scientist, and Pinhead himself Doug Bradley appears late on as company boss Brinkstone, suffering a particularly ignominious end with a tentacle down the throat.

Burlesque Melodrama

THE FACE AT THE WINDOW (1939)

Harry Terry - The Showman from Hitchcock's THE RING - is the titular face at the window, brought to life by cinematographer Hone Glendinning.

THIS Tod Slaughter "quota quickie" is actually great fun. Steeped in the Grand Guignol tradition, it is fittingly set in 1880 Paris, but all the characters speak with crisp British accents. The drooling face of crazed killer Le Loup ("The Wolf," Harry Terry) appears to his victims in windows, with a lycanthropic howl and a knife plunged into their backs. Against this backdrop leering Chevalier Lucio del Gardo (Slaughter) has set his sights on Cecile de Brisson (Marjorie Taylor), whose heart belongs to bank clerk Lucien Courtier (John Warwick). Del Gardo frames Courtier, but thankfully Lucien also has worked with Professor LeBlanc (Wallace Evennett). LeBlanc's experiments with electricity can reanimate corpse muscles to reenact their final tasks; ultimately this leads to the uncovering of Lucio as The Wolf, who has been aided by his deformed stepbrother.

Directed and produced by Slaughter's faithful helmsman George King, this is one of many screen adaptations of the detective play written by F. Brook Warren in 1897. Before his blossoming as a Dick Dastardly style cad, Slaughter was often cast as the hero on stage in the 1920s, and he even portrayed Lucien treading the boards. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW however sees him at his scenery-chewing best, grabbing and forcibly kissing Taylor in scenes that are uneasily effective. All the truly great horror film actors - Karloff, Cushing, Lee et al - had a particular finesse to their craft, yet Slaughter wallows in slimy delirium and manic cackles. In his own way, he evidently enjoys his work.

The cinematic paradigm of a face at the window is an artistic extension of monster versus victim. Flipping an inside threat to the outside, Alfred Hitchcock makes expert use of Norma Bates' silhouette in PSYCHO.

A visage or figure appearing at windows is one of the oldest and most repeated horror film tropes. Not only is it unsettling for the potential victim, it also radiates doom to a situation and impending threat to property. Often this is a sexual urge from the outside to the passive female inside, in everything from KING KONG to PEEPING TOM. Alternatively it can be the building itself, radiating blue light upon Max von Sydow in THE EXORCIST, or a piece of architecture such as the Amityville house. In the 1970s pop culture was full of demonic children, and the eerie window motif encompassed two particularly unnerving examples on television: the undead orphans of A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS - LOST HEARTS, and Ralphie and Danny Glick in 'SALEM'S LOT. Yet it is a theme that has shifted like the genre itself, further amplified by productions that have home invasion at their core. 

Altered States

PSYCHEDELIC BRITANNIA (2015)

Pink Floyd’s brittle genius Syd Barrett is symbolic in the British psychedelic story, an illustration of the timeless cautionary tale of art versus fame. In the programme, sculptor Emily Young calls Barrett "a little wild Puck or Ariel figure coming out of the woods. He seemed to me to be borne of the English countryside."

THIS absorbing BBC4 documentary explores the rise and fall of the most visionary period in British culture: five LSD-laced years between 1965 and 1970, when musicians reimagined the boundaries of sound. Narrated by Nigel Planer, this hour long piece sees a generation of homegrown R&B bands discover psychedelic drugs and embrace the avant-garde, starting a movement that would uneasily morph from the bohemian underground to chart success. Substances were initially taken with a wide-eyed innocence, broadening sensory, artistic and emotional possibilities. So began the counter-culture surge against postwar stability and professional pigeonholing, a kaleidoscopic and hallucinatory palette enthused by the 1950s beat generation. It was an important time, when battles for gay rights and women's liberation would also be instigated.

The Sixties had been swinging, but now there was a dizzying but heightened altered state. This lifestyle had a preference for the imagery and fashions of youth; like the concept of Hauntology, this yearned for the security of a safer and less complicated world ("In the mid 60s, a counter-culture swapped the white heat of technology for an older Britain of Edwardian fantasy and bucolic bliss.") It was an idyllically pastoral and untroubled dream, where The Wind and the Willows and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland were an Arcadian blueprint. Singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan dropped out of city life and moved into rural Britain; other bands travelled further, The Beatles with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India, and The Rolling Stones and The Incredible String Band departed for Morocco.

Created by Australian artist Martin Sharp, the cover of Cream’s Disraeli Gears album became an iconic image of the era. It was also used for the retrospective compilation Those Were the Days, released in 1997.

All interviewees still talk passionately about their baroque time in the sun. The mainstream lysergic drip fed us two cornerstones in 1967: 'Arnold Layne' became Pink Floyd's debut single in March, and May saw the release of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Eclectic mixes were not just present in the music, but also in location. Classical was embraced by The Yardbirds (who introduced a vocal chant for 'Still I'm Sad'), The Nice and Procol Harum, and Cream were heavily Jazz-influenced. London may have had The UFO Club, International Times, nostalgic fashion outlet Granny Takes a Trip and the "music-hall psychedelia" of The Small Faces, but the documentary also highlights Robert Wyatt's Canterbury pioneers Soft Machine, and Birmingham-based The Move and The Moody Blues. For this Midlands assault, Roy Wood channeled his "DIY sitar" while Justin Hayward and company changed the scope of the LP with concept album Days of Future Passed.

In PSYCHEDELIC BRITANNIA, Arthur Brown describes taking LSD: "seeing into people's eyes, I saw all the universes, I saw them being born, I saw them die, I would say it was the nearest I came to being able to see God." Yet like all Utopia, it is inevitably undone by reality. Childlike optimism was no match for the harder realms entering Britain in the latter stages of the 1960s. The early growth of The National Front and "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland shifted the United Kingdom to Dystopia, as did Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech on mass immigration.  

"Chant to strange gods, and beat unhallowed gongs"

The Courtyard (2003)

Neonomicon (2010-11)

Providence (2015-17)

A concert by the Ulthar Cats - referencing a H. P. Lovecraft short story - is a gateway to the sequential horror of The Courtyard; this is the cover of #2 (February 2003).

THESE three Avatar comics - a publishing house renowned for its creative freedom (code for graphic sex and violence) - cover Alan Moore's main association with H. P. Lovecraft. Originally planned to appear in Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths, The Courtyard became a two part release in its own right. Written by Antony Johnston and illustrated by Jacen Burrows, it is based on a 1994 narrative by Moore which appeared in the Creation anthology The Starry Wisdom. Unorthodox FBI agent Aldo Sax investigates three seemingly unrelated ritual murders in the United States using anomaly theory, a method that correlates disparate data into a cohesive whole. His exploration leads him to Club Zothique and a drug called Aklo, peddled by veiled Johnny Carcosa. Sax is given a potent white powder and experiences spectral planes and primordial creatures. Understanding that Aklo is not a drug but the language Carcosa had spoken, the visions drive Sax to kill his neighbor using the same modus operandi as the cases he was examining.

Inspired by the ninth sonnet of Fungi from Yuggoth, Moore creates the long-faced Sax almost as a modern Lovecraft facsimile, and even in such a short story it is laced with inevitable fan service. Aklo has been used by many authors after its inception in Arthur Machen's 1899 The White People, a mystical language which has been used by Lovecraft himself (The Dunwich Horror, The Haunter of the Dark); Zothique is an imaged future continent in the works of Clark Ashton Smith; the action takes place in Red Hook, with the protagonist mimicking the blatant racism from HPL's The Horror at Red Hook; and to flag the sexualities to come, Carcosa offers to sell Aldo "a cock ring from Innsmouth."

Neonomicon (or "New Necronomicon") explores two of H. P. Lovecraft's most notable undercurrents, literally fleshing out his unnatural rituals and sexual shyness. Here FBI agent Brears gives a Deep One a handjob.

The story continues in the notorious four-issue Neonomicon, which Moore has described as "really fucking horrible." FBI agents Gordon Lamper and Merril Brears visit Sax at a psychiatric hospital. They are investigating a copycat killer, and want to question him about his motives, yet he only speaks unintelligible gibberish. Lamper and Brears track down Carcosa whose disturbing paraphernalia lead them to a specialty shop in Salem - Whisperers in Darkness - stockists of occult books and weird sex toys (which include dildo tentacles, Cthulhu gimp masks and an Elder Thing as an inflatable doll). Going undercover as husband and wife, Lamper and Brears attend an orgy hosted by the owners, members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon who regularly indulge in rituals to attract the sexual attention of a race of fishmen. 

This grotesque melange continues with the agents exposed and Lamper murdered by the cultists. Brears is sexually assaulted by the Order then locked in a room with a Deep One, which rapes her continuously for several days. During this ordeal Brears has a vision of Carcosa, who reveals himself as an avatar of Great Old One Nyarlathotep. When the sea creature tastes a drop of Brears' urine, it determines that she is pregnant and helps her escape into the ocean. Brears returns to the city and contacts the FBI, who raid the specialty shop John Woo-style. Three months later Brears visits Sax and is able to understand his speech as Aklo, the language of the Deep Ones. Brears realises that the events in Lovecraft's fiction are actually premonitions of a future apocalypse, an event that will be heralded by the birth of her child, Cthulhu.

The prolonged interracial rape in Neonomicon owes little to Lovecraftian cosmic horror. It's more like the comic book equivalent of passing a car crash; you look, but you know you shouldn't.

In a 2010 interview with Wired.com, Moore labels Neonomicon "one of the most unpleasant things I have ever written," and forged against fallout from the WATCHMEN movie and an impending issue with HMRC. "Although I took it to pay off the tax bill," says Moore, "I’m always going to make sure I try and make it the best possible story I can. Because I was in a very misanthropic state, I probably wasn’t at my most cheery. So Neonomicon is very black, and I’m only using black to describe it because there isn’t a darker colour." Suppressed Lovecraft themes - from underlying racism to lack of female characters and carnal activity - are given a brutal makeover, feeling as if the reader is experiencing a snuff movie. Lamper is black and dies quickly, and Brears is a recovering sex addict; it's as if Merril's past has made it justifiable that her epiphany encompesses a building and uncontrollable despair.

In contrast, the twelve-issue Providence is a dry, historical thesis. Exhaustively researched - as you would expect - Providence is similar to From Hell when Sir William Gull examines London architecture; but that was only a chapter, here it is over eleven issues. Author Robert Black tours New England and the outsiders of society, befriending Lovecraft who is inspired by Black's travels to write prophetic stories. In the final issue we reconnect with Brears, who gives birth to a baby Cthulhu as the Earth becomes a fiction based dreamstate. One looks at Moore's trilogy wondering if he has devalued Lovecraft for his own dramatic gain, similar to Gull's Masonic whim. The core of the Cthulhu mythos is that interdimensional entities look at humanity as not even a footnote; yet Moore has argued that there is a different relationship between humans and Cthulhu, as the Great Old One is a caricature of our form, rather than the more abstract deities. In the end, to quote Dr Pretorius in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, "to a new world of gods and monsters!".

Avatar mainstay Jacen Burrows drew all three tales. His clear line and almost cartoonish style is greatly influenced by Hergé and Mike Baron; this is the limited Century cover to Providence #11 (November 2016).

Moore has a long and problematic history of sexual violence in his comics. Notable examples include Silk Spectre in Watchmen, the attempted rape of Kid Marvelman, and The Joker's treatment of Barbara Gordon in Batman The Killing Joke. Rape did occur fleetinging with Lovecraft but off page, in The Curse of Yig and The Horror at Red Hook; and in contrast to Neonomicon, Deep Ones in The Shadow over Innsmouth appear to prefer willing human partners. Providence riffs on The Thing on the Doorstep for its own rape scene of choice, a particularly warped body swap involving a possessed Black and a thirteen-year-old girl. Moore used a similar trait for Swamp Thing when Abby had sex with her husband Matt Cable, who was controlled by her uncle Anton Arcane.

When Monsters Attack!

BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER (1959)
GORGO (1961)

Initially written as an amorphous blob, distributor Allied Artists insisted that BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER became another 1950s movie dinosaur.  The Behemoth itself originates from Job 40:15-24, given to Earth on the fifth day of Creation, and generally regarded to have been Satan in the form of an elephant.

IN BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER, scientists Steve Karnes (Gene Evans) and James Bickford (Andre Morell, channeling his role as Professor Quatermass) travel to Looe in Cornwall to investigate the death of a fisherman, whose dying word was "behemoth." Thousands of dead fish have washed ashore shortly after, and it is discovered that samples contain large amounts of radioactive contamination. Karnes suspects that the "behemoth" is a large marine mammal that has mutated as a result of nuclear testing. After an attack near the Essex coast, eccentric paleontologist Dr Sampson (Jack MacGowran) identifies the creature as a Paleosaurus, an aquatic dinosaur that emits an ionising pulse like an electric eel. Surfacing in the Thames and capsizing the Woolwich Ferry, the monster then rampages through London. While Karnes and Bickford advise the military to administer a dose of radium, they hope to accelerate the radiation sickness that is slowly killing the beast.

This joint Anglo-American production, released in the United States as THE GIANT BEHEMOTH, was co-directed by Eugène Lourié and Douglas Hickox, and is a facsimile of Lourié's own THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS. Evans and Morell are the most convincing aspects, and Lourié - an art director by trade - manages to bring out some atmospheric locales, but the threadbare budget and punishing schedule clearly hindered the special effects. Willis O'Brien and his assistant Pete Peterson were subcontracted by the film's initial team of Jack Rabin, Irving Block and Louis DeWitt, the latter providing the embarrassing "umbrella handle" version of the Paleosaurus during the ferry attack (the prop's wooden base even clears the Thames). Similarly, during the London stomping, the model's ankle joints are visibly falling apart. These climactic attacks were actually filmed without sound to save money, but a nice nod to O'Brien's glory days sees stock screaming from KING KONG dubbed in for the panic.

GORGO's off screen life has included a Charlton comic book run illustrated by Steve Ditko. This is the cover of Gorgo #3 (September 1961), where Latin dictator Astro - a reference to Fidel Castro - commands the creature to destroy all countries who oppose him.

Two years later Lourié helmed GORGO, a co-production of the United Kingdom, the United States and Ireland. Captain Joe Ryan (Bill Travers) and his first officer Sam (William Sylvester) are salvaging for treasure off the Irish coast when a volcano erupts. Taking their ship to Nara Island for repairs, they consult an unhelpful harbour master cum archaeologist and encounter a sixty-five foot tall dinosaur awoken by the seismic explosion. Capturing the monster, Ryan shuns the University of Dublin for a better deal from Dorkin's Circus of London. Exhibited in Battersea Park, it transpires that the monster Gorgo - named after the fearful Gorgon of Greek myth - is in fact only an infant. The two hundred feet mother has been following its phosphorescent trail and comes ashore in the capital, to demolish as many landmarks as possible and rescue her offspring.

For GORGO, stop-motion gives way to a man in an unwieldy monster suit, swiping at and stamping on the miniatures in banal, overlong sequences. Refreshingly both monsters survive to return to the sea, innocents escaping human interference and violence. The completely male cast are more like caricatures - Sylvester looks consistently flippant and uninterested - with the military and scientists also severely lacking in any kind of intelligence. The dramatis personae also includes an annoying young Irish orphan boy played by Vincent Winter, who had won the Academy Juvenile Award for 1953's THE KIDNAPPERS.

The Sinister Urge

SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986)
THE URGE TO KILL (1989)
LIVING DOLL (1990)

It took three directors - including Caroline Munro's partner George Dugdale - to helm SLAUGHTER HIGH.

AMERICAN horror and exploitation producer Dick Randall took up permanent residence in the UK from 1981 until his death, bankrolling a number of disposable fare including the three features under consideration here (he also produced DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS). SLAUGHTER HIGH - shot in London and at Holloway Sanatorium - is a cheesy slasher which begins with bespectacled high school nerd Marty Rantzen (Simon Scuddamore) seduced by Carol (Caroline Munro) as a joke. Several other students appear and physically abuse Marty while filming his ordeal, before the school's coach (Marc Smith) intervenes. However the April Fool's Day pranksters aren't finished yet, giving Rantzen Marijuana which accidentally sets off a chain of events that ends with Marty being doused with nitric acid. Ten years later the culprits are invited back to a fake school reunion, where Marty stalks them in a jester mask.

By the mid 1980s the slasher genre existed in self parody - even Jason Voorhees is referenced by name here - and sample killings in SLAUGHTER HIGH are suitably outlandish for their cliched characters: Ted (Michael Saffran)'s stomach explodes after drinking acid-laced beer, Shirley (Josephine Scandi) is melted in an acid bath, Joe (Gary Martin) is eviscerated by tractor blades, and Stella (Donna Yaeger) and Frank (EMMERDALE favourite Billy Hartman) are electrocuted while having sex. But the most ridiculous factors are the variable American accents and Munro trying to pass herself off as "girl most likely to succeed" despite being thirty-six at the time. Like the movie itself the cast are simply going through the motions. Only Scuddamore goes the extra mile in what would be his one and only film; the actor committed suicide by a drugs overdose not long after the production's wrap.

Following in the footsteps of H.A.L. 9000 and Skynet, THE URGE TO KILL's murderous A.I. takes sexually driven human form.

THE URGE TO KILL's premise is given away by its working title: ATTACK OF THE KILLER COMPUTER. Written and directed by renowned smut peddler Derek Ford, this unreleased travesty tells of lecherous music producer Bono Zorro (Alan Lake lookalike Peter Gordeno). Bono lives in a hi-tech flat (actually Randall's London apartment) which is run by a computer called S.E.X.Y.; however the A.I. develops feelings and becomes jealous of his female company. The computer kills the girls by scalding in the shower, death by electric toothbrush, melting by jacuzzi and - in the most notorious scene - a woman is trapped in a sun bed and her breasts explode. Somehow S.E.X.Y. has been able to manifest itself in human form, a green and silver nude woman who can even drive a car.

Horror movies of the 1980s both feared and revered technological advances, asking questions where society might be heading as we embraced the home computer boom. For THE URGE TO KILL, the answer is down the sexploitation sewer. In his last film, Ford crafts a tale that is Alexa meets DEMON SEED meets GARTH MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE (but without it being an in-joke). All the actresses have zero credentials, and spout dialogue as if reading idiot boards off screen. This, together with the dubious dubbing and hokey special effects, make it simply one of the worst entries in the entire British horror film canon.

"Look at her hair, its real"; Mark Jax and Katie Orgill in LIVING DOLL. Despite the perverse premise, the film falls between comedic understatement and gross-out.

In LIVING DOLL, introverted medical student Howard Adams (Mark Jax) works in the NYC Metropolitan morgue (actually Hammersmith Hospital) with wisecracking Jess (Gary Martin) for hostile boss Ed (Freddie Earlie). Howie is infatuated with Christine (Page 3 girl and model Katie Orgill, in her only acting role), who runs the flower shop at the hospital. He is shocked when she becomes his latest arrival, having been accidentally killed in a car accident by her obnoxious boyfriend Steve (Marcel Grant). Adams is shaken to discover a medical card indicating Christine suffered from catalepsy; refusing to accept she is definitely dead, he digs up her casket and carries her corpse back to his fleapit apartment, despite rent problems with harridan landlady Mrs Swartz (Eartha Kitt). Howie and Christine share the happenings of "their" day, watch television and cuddle on the couch - the student even brings a teddy bear back from her apartment - as the maggots and rats slowly take hold.

LIVING DOLL is a ponderous sleazefest that exists in a dreamstate tinged in sadness; it is a story that doesn't develop, and has a cast that aren't engaging. Every role is unlikeable or stereotypical; gullible nurses and a transsexual who lurks in alleyways are quite unnecessary. Orgill is visibly breathing in some scenes, but the sudden lapses into an "alive" state are jolting and effective. The lurid effects on Christine's decaying corpse help magnify the insanity, and there is also a gruesome autopsy sequence (yet the "money shot" is undoubtedly Howie's gooey, open-mouthed kiss).

Dead and Loving It

DRACULA (2020)

IN SEARCH OF DRACULA (2020)

"I'm undead, I'm not unreasonable;" Danish actor and musician Claes Bang is The Count in the BBC's new DRACULA miniseries.

ADAPTED by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, this loose and outrageous version of the perennial classic was screened as three ninety-minute segments over the New Year. We open in 1897 Transylvania, where Lawyer Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan) travels to Count Dracula (Claes Bang)'s labyrinthine abode, and soon becomes embroiled in mystery and contagion. The second episode is an expanded account of how Dracula sailed to England on the Demeter, assimilating his fellow travellers and its crew. And after being rescued from a watery grave 123 years later by The Jonathan Harker Institute - a scientific facility guarded by militia - the final part sees Dracula imprisoned like Hannibal Lecter, before the arrival of confidant Renfield (Gatiss himself) whom he had been skyping (luckily, the wifi password was set at 'Dracula').

As off-kilter as BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA and as hammy as CARRY ON SCREAMING, the production was shot at such notable locations as Orava Castle (NOSFERATU's homestead) and Bray. Bang is a Prince of Darkness somewhere between Roger Moore and David Walliams, and unsurprisingly for a Gatiss Dracula, The Count is not just insatiable for blood but also for homoerotica. Dolly Wells is the standout as dovetailing character Sister Agatha Van Helsing, before regressing into dull descendant Zoe for the third installment. In fact it is this last ninety minutes were everything is finally derailed, the modern setting used as if Quentin Tarantino was suddenly helming a primetime soap opera. The two opening salvos do hold interest, not least because of the old school makeup feel; bloody feedings and animated corpses are made creepier with jump cuts, and Dracula’s emergence from the innards of a wolf is pure 1980s body horror.

A miniscule character in the source novel, nurse Sister Agatha is now a nun and a Van Helsing, portrayed by Dolly Wells ("like many women my age I'm trapped in a loveless marriage, maintaining appearances in order to keep a roof over my head.")

More tactile is Gatiss' companion documentary IN SEARCH OF DRACULA, which charts The Count's literary origins, cinematic legacy and lasting iconography. Gatiss has always been more appealing as a fanboy, and we share his delight as he views original novel notes and interviews a host of Hammer starlets (Joanna Lumley attributes Christopher Lee's appeal to his eyebrows). As Moffat states, Bram Stoker's creation was the first time evil gained an attractive allure; and through his consequent journey, Dracula has become a myth in his own right, branching out from his own back-story of folklore and superstition. Appealing to our own more sinister psyche, the lord of the vampires is as insecure and shallow as all of us, seeking food, companionship and a sense of belonging.

It is this fascination with lore that is DRACULA's greatest strength and weakness. Written and unwritten rules are playfully addressed; Zoe tells The Count that his phobias are simply legends he had believed for so long that they have manifested as truth (sunlight death rays, for example, do not combust him, a trait introduced in NOSFERATU). Gatiss and Moffat juggle so many threads that basic questions remain puzzling: the treatment of reflections is particularly problematic, and why doesn't Dracula age before his rescue by the Harker Institute? The climax is also ambiguous; Dracula drinks Zoe's cancerous blood, leaving both characters seemingly dying but leaving enough room for a possible second series.

Bond and Beyond (Part II of II)

MOONRAKER (1979)

A fusion of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, MOONRAKER sees Roger Moore in his fourth Bond movie, the first 007 picture to adhere to the summer Hollywood blockbuster.

THE largest grossing James Bond until GOLDENEYE, MOONRAKER is the most preposterous of all 007 adventures, but does benefit from stunning locations, extraordinary Ken Adam sets and Derek Meddings' Oscar-nominated effects. When Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale)'s Moonraker shuttle vanishes, Bond (Roger Moore) questions the billionaire at Drax's luxurious California estate. In Venice, Bond uncovers a laboratory manufacturing a deadly gas, which he learns is to destroy life on Earth so Drax Industries can preside over a master race on an opulent space station. Together with undercover CIA agent Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles), United States Marines and former Drax henchman Jaws (Richard Kiel), 007 thwarts the plans and destroys the poison capsules jettisoned towards Earth. 

Because of prohibitive British tax laws, this movie became a £30m Franco-British co-production (which explains the high proportion of French cast and crew), and took precedence over FOR YOUR EYES ONLY because it could cash in on the STAR WARS phenomenon (even Cubby Broccoli admitted they went too far). MOONRAKER particularly suffers from loose editing, obvious product placement and an overbearing comedic tone; when Jaws - in the pre-credits sequence - lands without the benefit of a parachute onto a circus tent, it acts as a signpost of what is to come. Even Shirley Bassey can't save the insipid theme (allegedly offered to Kate Bush, who sensibly declined the offer). But the narrative is nonsensical: for a motion picture which prided itself on the technical advice from NASA, the space battle is still full of laser sound effects (the vacuum of the stars has never hindered filmmakers), and it is a mystery why the RAF are transporting a fuelled shuttle in the first place.

"Look after Mr Bond. See that some harm comes to him;" 
Michael Lonsdale is effortlessly creepy as Hugo Drax.

Performances are also negated by the superficiality. In stark contrast to his assured performance in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, Moore telephones his eyebrows and charisma in, and looks nondescript in a number of outrageous sequences (especially on board the embarrassing inflatable gondola). Chiles makes for an appealing but functional Bond girl, and the effectiveness of Drax servant Chang (Toshiro Suga) is overshadowed by the slapstick. But this is nothing compared to Blanche Ravalec as Jaws' girlfriend Dolly, who, together with Sheriff Pepper, ranks as the most inappropriate role ever to grace a Bond. Pint-sized, pig-tailed and bespectacled, Jaws falls madly in love with Dolly and are inseparable for the rest of the film. Long standing characters are treated only on a rudimentary basis; though assigned to MI6's Brazilian HQ, Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) carries on her sidelining during the Moore era with a brief appearance, but at least Maxwell's real-life daughter appears in a non-speaking role as one of Drax's perfect specimens.

Ian Fleming's original Moonraker novel of 1955 is the only Bond book that takes place solely in Britain, and consequently has been described as the author's hymn to England. Featuring a nuclear warhead destined for London, the film retains only the lead villain's name, the label of the rocket, and an undercover love interest. The novel paints a very different Drax, who is a Nazi in Britain under the employ of the Soviet Union; he has had plastic surgery and one side of face is permanently scarred. This, together with red hair and a moustache, sees Fleming liken the character to a ringmaster. Amazingly, the first adaptation of Moonraker was a year later on South African radio, with future BLOCKBUSTERS host Bob Holness as everyone's favourite secret agent.

Bond and Beyond (Part I of II)

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)

Nobody does it better; Roger Moore and Barbara Bach both give outstanding performances in this iconic Bond movie.

WHILE on a mission in Austria, Secret Agent James Bond 007 (Roger Moore) encounters a set of Russian operatives and kills Sergei Barsov (Michael Billington). Meanwhile, Allied and Soviet nuclear submarines are disappearing, so M (Bernard Lee) and his KGB counterpart General Gogol (Walter Gotell) assign 007 and leading Russian spy Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) to work together and investigate. The leading suspect is reclusive Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens), a billionaire shipping magnate who has a unique operational base: Atlantis, a structure in the sea at the centre of his plans for a new aquatic world order. Bond and Amasova discover that Stromberg has been using his huge cargo ship Liparus to capture the submarines and imprison the crews, planning to use the subs to launch nuclear missiles to destroy civilisation. The two agents initially forge an uneasy alliance, which is further tested when Amasova realises that it was Bond who had murdered her lover, Barsov.

Freed from his strained relationship with Harry Saltzman, and following the lukewarm reception for THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, Cubby Broccoli was determined to re-energise the Bond franchise. Yet the project was not a smooth ride: a disjointed script writing process - which had included the resurrection of SPECTRE and input of writers as diverse as Anthony Burgess and John Landis - was further shadowed by a court injunction obtained by Kevin McClory, who was attempting to remake THUNDERBALL. TV puppetmaster Gerry Anderson also instigated legal action when he discovered that some aspects of the script bore a resemblance to a MOONRAKER proposal he had submitted with UFO script editor Tony Barwick prior to DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. Anderson was persuaded to drop the case, and rights were purchased by the producers.

A Steel-toothed character adapted from Ian Fleming's bad boy Horror, Richard Kiel's Jaws is one of the most recognisable Bond villains, but a missed opportunity. A nudging joke has the character bite and fight a shark at the end, but another less obvious tie-in is that JAWS director Steven Spielberg was approached to helm the picture, only to allegedly ask for too much creative control.

All this acts as problematic metaphors for Ian Fleming's novel The Spy Who Loved Me itself, the writer's most bizarre book. A total anomaly, it is written from the heroine's viewpoint, much of the action takes place in a motel room, and Bond himself doesn't appear until late on. Allegedly based on a true story, it was Fleming's intent to move away from the standard 007 format after criticisms of the Bond novels. After even greater disapproval, the author claimed at one point he just found the manuscript on his desk anyway. Consequently, when he sold the film rights of the books to Broccoli and Saltzman, Fleming specified that the source material was to be reinvented for the big screen and only the title could be used. 

With a screenplay eventually in place - a combined effort credited to Richard Malbaum and Christopher Wood - production designer Ken Adam warned Broccoli that no sound stages in existence could accommodate the envisioned tanker battle climax; when Cubby simply instructed "then built it," it marked the creation of the famous 007 Stage at Pinewood, and also illustrated the kingpin's determination for the most spectacular Bond yet. Made for a then gargantuan $13.5m, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME contains exemplary Derek Meddings modelwork and is generally a visual stunner - filming major sequences in Egypt, Sardinia and the Bahamas - and unleashes the beautiful Lotus Esprit into the pantheon of extraordinary gadgets. The female cast are also particularly stunning - even the hotel receptionist is played by Valerie Leon - and Bach remains one of the most attractive lead women ever to grace a Bond film.

Veteran German actor Curt Jurgens as Stromberg. Underdeveloped and underplayed, the villain joins the ranks of Gustav Graves from DIE ANOTHER DAY, Brad Whitaker from THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, and Elliot Carver from TOMORROW NEVER DIES as most ineffective menaces in the world of James Bond.

In essence a YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE remake, director Lewis Gilbert returns for what is widely regarded as the high mark to Moore's tenure, but there are issues. The comedic one liners still grate, and Marvin Hamlisch's dated score cheapens the action. But the main problem is Stromberg; a wet fish himself, Jurgens even has webbed fingers, which are never directly referred to. One of the dullest of Bond villains, he is another adversary who is reduced to pushing buttons and issuing ultimatums (his demise is also anticlimactic, providing a low key shootout). Even his rogues gallery are a mixed bag: dubbed by Barbara Jefford, Caroline Munro sizzles as helicopter assassin Naomi, Milton Reid's hulking henchmen Sandor is soon despatched, and the effectiveness of Richard Kiel's dim-witted but determined Jaws (in a role where David Prowse and Will Sampson were considered) is diluted by being increasingly used for light entertainment, an issue taken to another level for MOONRAKER.