Ghost stories
01:31:19
About
We hide our guilt, chill our bones and look for the tenth number as we watch “Ghost Storeis” by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson, adapted from their smash hit stage play. A film in which Daddy’s got Meow Meow; we all get to play Finger-Mouth with the dead; and Martin Freeman makes Adam look a right prat. Along the way we discuss the original stage version, Charlie Brooker’s “Dead Set”; the SNL Vincent Price specials; and the script of unmade horror film “The Otherwise”, by Mark E. Smith and Graham Duff. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY.
When this bitch kicks, I'm moving to Vegas.
Famous lines
- "I'm too young to die. The only person I've had sex with is my babysitter." — Hajime
- "Kutabe! Kutabe! Kick the bucket! Kutabe! Kutabe! You can suck it!" — Spiritual Sleep Spell
- "Dude, we're gettin' a Dell." — Keiichiro
- "¡No corran en el hospital, cabrones!" — Nurse
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Transcript
Show full transcript
Lee Good evening and welcome to Hora. I'm Lee.
Chris I'm Chris.
Adam I'm Adam.
Lee Yay!
Lee And we're here this evening at the behest of our friend and listener Joe, who has Joe, Joseph Watson, to use his full name because I've never actually spoken to him, so I probably shouldn't show his name, he might not like it.
Lee who who came up with a fantastic idea last week and messaged Adam and said, have you guys covered ghost stories from 2017? If you haven't, it might be one to cover.
Lee and we all went, oh shit, yeah, we've we all watched that and loved it and missed, oh,
Lee and I forgot to say spoilers and swearing.
Chris Yes.
Lee Yeah. We want to start, you know, reintegrating that into the beginning of the show to give people a heads up because we've not done for the last couple of years.
Chris Here's here's a spoiler.
Chris Joseph Watson may or may not have gone very high up or very low down in my estimation of him.
Lee Oh.
Chris I'm not I'm not going to give it away.
Adam That's not a spoiler.
Chris You got.
Adam That's intrigue.
Chris There's there's a bit of intrigue for you.
Adam Yeah.
Lee Intriguing cable.
Adam You're a tease, Chris.
Adam That's what it is.
Chris no.
Lee I know.
Lee but before we get to the bottom of that and find out how Chris felt about this film.
Lee Oh, really?
Lee I know.
Lee Oh, my word.
Lee
Chris It's going well.
Lee I know.
Lee Right, so, before we get into that though, we're going to discuss what we've been watching.
Lee So, over to you Chris, what have you been watching?
Chris Well, I have been listening to
Lee Oh.
Chris listening to the Vampire Lestat audiobook.
Chris Which I know I know it's not Adam's favorite.
Chris That was, you know, he lost a bit of the the Anne Rice happiness during that book.
Adam That's put him off the boil, I'll be honest.
Chris Overboiled.
Chris But no, I've been enjoying it. I do actually really like the way she writes and the way she describes things and I still love the philosophy and the time and
Chris Lestat is is both likable and detestable.
Adam Yeah.
Adam That's that's the point of the character really.
Chris Yeah, yeah.
Chris But but I'll tell you what though, listening to it at night when you're half falling asleep, there is some weird stuff going on.
Chris I was having some strange dreams about Vampire Lestat and his adventures in in the rock world.
Chris But I I got to say, I've I've actually been enjoying it, so I'm going to continue listening to these.
Adam Excellent.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Interview is the only sort of short book, the rest of them proper door stops.
Chris They do step up a bit, yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Chris But yeah, I'm hoping I don't know if I will get but at the moment I'm positive.
Chris I'm definitely going to continue them.
Chris So, yeah, I've been I've actually really enjoyed going back to that because I did like them when I was younger.
Chris and it's been long enough that I've forgotten the details.
Chris Let's say, but I did, I loved watching the interview.
Chris And yeah, that's the sort of thing that works for me.
Lee Fantastic. Excellent.
Lee Adam, what have you been watching?
Adam I've, well, I've watched a documentary Sons of Sam on Netflix, which was a true crime documentary.
Adam But the reason I mention it is it did make me listen to Hulver.
Lee Oh, yeah.
Adam Because the the bloke who did the music clearly has as well.
Adam and but yeah, that was interesting, but it's the conspiracy that I know is hogwash.
Adam But it's quite interesting in that sense.
Adam also Greg Davis has got a new dark comedy on.
Adam And it feels a bit inside number nine, the way it's done.
Adam He's basically it's called it's called.
Chris Is it the cleaner?
Chris Yes, funnily enough, we watched the first episode.
Adam Yes, with Elena Carter.
Chris Yes.
Adam Yeah.
Chris I didn't think of it exactly as horror, but yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Chris It does have a dark enough element, yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Adam And yeah, basically Greg Davis is a crime scene cleaner, so he goes and mops up like murder scenes and dead bodies, basically.
Adam but each week he encounters someone different.
Adam So the first week it's Helen Bonham Carter, who is actually the woman who stabbed her husband 35 times.
Adam And Greg.
Chris She's showed me next to it.
Adam Yeah, showed me to about seven, you do it, everything else just show me next to it.
Adam And then the second episode was David Mitchell as a writer who's Nan exploded.
Adam So, but yeah, they're sort of.
Adam They're they're that sort of, I don't know if you're not been gentler end of Black Comedy, I suppose.
Adam But it's sort of, yeah.
Adam but I'm definitely going to be sticking with that.
Adam let you know how that goes.
Adam And I've read the otherwise, which is the script of a film written by Marky Smith from the fall and Graham Duff, who wrote Doctor Terrible's House of Horrible and Nebulous and Ideal and loads of stuff.
Adam And it's basically they were in the process, well, they'd written this sort of weird horror script, and were sort of looking to get it funded, but then Marky Smith died.
Adam So, and the fall were are actually in the story.
Adam So and yeah, it's all set round a lonely recording studio and there's satanic bikers, but it's all like sort of just a very sort of Lancastrian or Yorkshire sort of psycho mania almost.
Adam But yeah, and it's very, very strange, very interesting read.
Adam And it's also one of those ones where it's like, I'd really love to see this, but I can't see anyone actually funding it.
Adam Unless there's a really big full fan out there.
Lee Yeah.
Adam But I reckon they could have done it crowdsourcing, like you know, like online, so on.
Adam But yeah, so that is and that's my that's all the weather.
Lee Excellent, fantastic.
Lee so I have started my run up to Halloween viewing.
Lee
Lee so I've been watching an awful lot, but the things I did want to mention,
Lee one, you can go onto YouTube and watch all of these.
Lee So it's the Saturday Night Live Vincent Price Halloween specials.
Lee Oh, wow.
Chris Sounds interesting.
Lee They are fantastic, so it's Bill Hader, playing Vincent Price, and every year they do one and he has different guests.
Lee again, they're set in the 60s in theory, so they're kind of famous people of the time.
Lee so Kennedy turns up in one and stuff.
Lee but yeah, Kirsten Wig is always with him playing a different person each time and she just
Lee I still think she's one of the funniest actors on TV at the moment, she just absolutely makes me cry.
Lee so yeah, so go and check those out, they've got a Thanksgiving one as well and a Christmas one.
Lee So yeah, I like I spent a good hour and a half and then that just led me into going and watching loads of old SNL stuff.
Lee yeah, so that's a great afternoon, so I'd definitely recommend that.
Lee and in prep, well, not in prep, actually, because last night we watched ghost stories.
Lee And then today Jennifer said, we've not watched Dead Set, I don't think, since it aired.
Lee which again was Andy Nyman, was in there.
Lee So we watched all of that this afternoon in one sitting and,
Chris Was it Charlie Brooker as well?
Lee It was Charlie Brooker wrote it, yeah.
Chris Yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Chris I remember you mentioning about this.
Lee It's amazing.
Lee It's on it's on Netflix.
Lee You can all go and watch it.
Lee The whole thing.
Chris So is it a dark dark comedy?
Lee Yes.
Lee Yes.
Chris Oh, okay.
Lee So it's basically it's a zombie outbreak takes place, and there are a group in the Big Brother house, so they don't know what's going on outside.
Lee And the main character is a runner on the show.
Lee So it's her trying to find the best place to hide and trying to find somewhere secure and her boyfriend is halfway up the country and he's trying to get back to her because he's been carjacked.
Lee By people trying to escape the zombie infestation and it's oh, it's just fantastic.
Lee Like Kevin Eldon's in it and Davina McColl is in it who
Lee I've only ever seen being a presenter, but she genuinely is fantastic.
Lee It especially as a zombie, she's such a good zombie.
Lee so yeah, so go and check that out, it's on Netflix, it's like two hours and 20 minutes for the whole thing.
Lee And yeah, it's just brilliant.
Lee And it's aged 2008, I you know, I was thinking, oh, it must have been 2015 or 16 because it still feels really relevant and really modern.
Lee
Lee But yeah, 13 years old and it still looks absolutely incredible.
Lee So yeah, check out.
Adam I I suppose it's quite helpful that Big Brother hasn't fundamentally hasn't changed.
Adam And it's always like that sort of artificial environment.
Lee Yeah.
Adam So it's so you spend most of your time in an area that,
Adam I mean, I've no idea if Big Brother is still running.
Lee
Adam
Lee I don't know.
Adam But, you know, it never really altered the format, would it be like, right, you lot are the servants and you lot are the nuls.
Adam And that will cause you lot to have a row, wouldn't it? And we can film it.
Adam
Adam But yeah.
Lee Which is why it was it which is why it worked great to have a zombie outbreak.
Lee Because those zombie films, as we've said before, are always based more on the people than the zombies.
Lee And of course, they always get people like Adam, I don't watch Big Brother either, but I'm always aware of it.
Lee And they seemed after the first couple to always pick people who were going to hate one another.
Adam Oh, definitely.
Chris You got to you got to have the drama, yeah.
Lee So putting them in a genuine seriously dangerous situation where it's life or death and they've all got very different views just worked phenomenally, really.
Chris
Adam Yeah, because I I did watch the first series of it.
Adam because it was just like, it's a telly event, so I'm going to watch that.
Adam And that was basically, yeah, it was just we've got genuinely ordinary people in.
Adam Second series, kind of the same, but you found a few more people annoying.
Adam And then by the third series, it was people who realized it was a springboard to a career.
Chris Yeah.
Adam So you had annoying people of that level, plus the the program makers had like you say to that point where it's like,
Adam Right, let's make sure that these people, you know, let's get two people in who are definitely going to have a fucking route.
Chris
Adam You know.
Adam I mean, some sometimes it backfired, I remember they did Celebrity Big Brother and they had two of Jordan's exes in there.
Adam And everyone was like, oh, that's going to kick off, that's going to do that.
Adam And it's like, are you telling me they are going to be anything other than quite laid back.
Adam If they are exes of Jordan, you know that they're going to be quite easy going.
Chris Yeah.
Lee Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, Riz Ahmed, we discussed from when he was on Rogue One previously.
Lee I forgot that he was in this because it was before he was famous, so I'd never put two and two together, really.
Lee he's fantastic in it.
Lee But Andy Nyman just steals the show as.
Lee Yeah.
Lee An absolute at times, he's the biggest prick ever and then at other times, I'm like, yeah, I kind of do what he's doing, I think, really.
Lee Like he's a bit slimey.
Lee But ultimately,
Lee he's very, yeah, they might have been bit and I don't know, so I'm just going to lock this door and just leave him all to it.
Adam I won't spoil it for anyone.
Adam But the but I will say the sequence with the bin.
Adam Yeah, because Andy Andy Nyman and one of the losers from the Big Brother, like someone who's been evicted already on the Big Brother that is in the fictitious world.
Adam are stuck like stuck in the green room, aren't they?
Lee Yeah.
Adam with rabbit Divina McColl outside smashing on the door.
Adam And yeah, it's just.
Adam Yeah, just some of the funniest fucking stuff I've seen.
Lee It feels very much like Andy Nyman was kind of,
Lee It's one of those things where you feel like they pointed a camera at him.
Lee And gave him a corpse and then said, right, here you go, 20 minutes just just riff on it.
Lee Because so much of it felt kind of like it was in the moment.
Lee yeah, and a few of his other scenes as well, which again, I don't want to give anything away, give any spoilers because it's well worth watching.
Lee But yeah, it feels very much like like he'd kind of written those lines, maybe.
Lee I don't know the details.
Lee But yeah, really, really good.
Lee So I'm I'm glad Jennifer suddenly said, that's something we could probably chuck on as we've got nothing on this afternoon.
Lee That was a very good call.
Chris
Lee so that's it for what I've seen.
Lee Tomorrow,
Lee just to give me a quick shout out, again, the White Bus company, who do horror on C, have been doing a film festival this weekend in Southend.
Lee a lot of classic films, there wasn't anything that really grabbed my attention.
Lee And we were busy this morning, we had a historical walk and stuff.
Lee but tomorrow they are showing Parasite at the park in, which I've still never seen.
Lee So, I will be going tomorrow to a screening by the White White Bus Company to watch that.
Lee Oh, cool.
Chris Cool.
Lee So, yeah, very excited.
Lee I don't know how it was one of those films, everyone was screaming about it and I kept meaning to watch it, and then I think because everybody watched it in a very short period of time because of lockdown.
Lee It then got forgotten very quickly and I was like, oh yeah, haven't seen that yet.
Lee And everyone loved it.
Lee So I shall report back on that next week.
Adam I did I did see also the guy who directed Host.
Adam his name escapes me for the minute.
Adam has his new film is being released.
Adam which is apparently all on a dash cam.
Lee Oh.
Lee Interesting.
Adam So.
Adam Yeah.
Adam I mean, that's that's literally all I've heard about it.
Adam I don't know.
Chris Rob Savage.
Adam That's it.
Adam Rob Savage, yeah.
Lee Now that may or may not play into what we are covering on next week's episode.
Chris
Lee Oh.
Lee Maybe.
Lee I'll tell you at the end.
Adam Everyone's a tease tonight.
Chris They are.
Lee Are you talking about my low cut top?
Lee Oh, no, sorry, you were talking about teas, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, sorry, yeah.
Lee I'm on a different wavelength.
Adam I think I think I think it just counts as a jacket when it's low cut to the naval, Lee.
Lee
Lee yes, so, but before we get into this evening's main event, we did have a fantastic bit of correspondence from previous guest Dahney, he's he's listening to our episodes while he's jogging, so he's been catching up recently.
Lee And he's just listened to our 28 days later episode.
Lee And he had a very interesting story that comes from that.
Lee So I'm going to hand over to Adam to read this.
Lee I got this message at like 11:0 at night and literally sat there howling with laughter and had to forward it.
Lee and I checked with him and he said we can share this story on on the podcast.
Lee So Adam, would you like to.
Adam Oh.
Adam I don't want to suggest you're getting on in years, Lee, but according to the according to the message, this was actually quite a while.
Lee I'll tell you.
Lee I'll tell you.
Lee Oh, no.
Lee Do you know what it was, he sent it at quarter to eight.
Lee And it's it's.
Adam You saw it.
Lee No, no, no.
Lee Now this is going to prove how old I am because I do that old man thing of writing a paragraph and then pressing send.
Lee Whereas Dahney, being a youth, does the thing of writing a sentence, send, writing a sentence, send.
Lee So I was sitting eating dinner and my phone went, bing, bing, bing and I was like, oh, for God.
Lee So I just put it on silent and it wasn't until about 11:0 the night I suddenly went, oh shit, my phone's on silent, and I never found out who was messaging me, and I went and checked it and that was when I saw it.
Lee So.
Adam So for anyone who anyone who gets trapped in a coffin underground with their mobile,
Adam don't message Lee.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Well, I'm sorry, he clearly suffocated, so I didn't even bother.
Adam But anyway, so here's Dahney's story.
Adam I've got a fun 28 days later story for you.
Adam catching up slowly, obviously, with the episode.
Adam So, Frank's flat is in Balfrond Tower, which is where I grew up.
Adam My dad still had that flat when they were shooting the film.
Adam We got in the lift one day and Brendan Gleeson was in it.
Adam With Megan Burns.
Adam My dad, thinking he's fucking brilliant, gets out, holds the door to the main entrance of the building open and says,
Adam on the dad in here.
Adam Silly cunt thought he was Ray Winston.
Adam My insides cringed.
Adam End of story.
Adam That's good.
Adam That was too that was too I know 28 days later was a couple of episodes ago, but that was too good to not.
Lee Yeah.
Lee It's the kind of thing I do and I think it's exactly.
Lee I can see myself in his dad's position where you do it and think it's really funny and then two days later, he suddenly go, oh my God, he wasn't in that film and that's it.
Lee I won't sleep for three days then, like just lay in there being so embarrassed about it.
Adam One of them ones that comes back on the death bed.
Lee Yeah.
Adam I said, oh.
Adam Are you in pain, Dad?
Adam No, I've just remembered the time I just thought Brandon Gleeson was Ray Winston.
Lee So thanks very much for sending that Dahney and allowing us to share that story.
Lee It's
Lee Yeah.
Lee Fantastic.
Chris That is a classic.
Lee yes, so, onto this evening's main event because I'm sure this one's going to
Lee going to get us talking for a little while.
Lee So the quicker we get into it.
Lee so, as I say, Joseph Watson suggested this.
Lee
Lee and he said, oh, I don't know if you've covered it.
Lee when Adam suggested it, I was like, we must have covered it because it was such a great film and we were podcasting at the time.
Lee So we must have done it.
Chris What what were we doing?
Chris Like.
Lee I think we all saw it at different times.
Lee So by the time we'd all seen it, it was, you know, between myself and Adam seeing it.
Lee I think it was a few months difference.
Lee So we said we said, oh, we'll have to add it to the list.
Lee But the list that we've been growing is ridiculous.
Lee So we've just never quite gotten back to it.
Lee But I'm so glad we did.
Adam We still haven't covered the all of the 20 odd films we came up with for what we should do after the hundredth episode.
Adam And this is like 127 or something.
Adam So yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Adam The list's ever expand, we just call us grounds keeper Willy because we keep moving the goal posts.
Lee Oh.
Lee But but listeners, if you ever have anything like this, where you're like, have you guys not covered this yet, why have you never done it, yeah, please do message us and let us know and if it's if there's a reason we haven't covered it then, you know, then we'll say so.
Lee But yeah, stuff like this.
Chris If anything, I blame you and Adam, you know.
Lee Yeah, we're shit.
Adam Is you.
Chris That's the best answer.
Adam You can you can blame us, Chris, because yeah, you've.
Chris I feel I feel it's within my rights to blame you on this one.
Lee and again, this is something that so before the film, this was a stage show in the West End.
Lee and Adam.
Chris Oh, that's interesting.
Lee Yeah.
Lee So Adam, I and Jennifer went and saw it when it first opened.
Adam Yeah.
Lee Oh.
Adam Look what I found.
Adam For the benefits of the type, I'm holding up my still in its cellophane pack of three badges from Ghost Stories.
Chris Very nice.
Lee Wow.
Adam Yes.
Chris What does it what does it say?
Adam one says ghost stories, one says, what are you hiding from, and one says, Daddy's got meow meow.
Lee Oh.
Adam I also bought a daddy's got meow meow t-shirt.
Adam And admittedly, it was extra large, which I'm doesn't come up quite to the level that you want it to, but I'm quite happy to look like, you know, a mentally challenged ping-pong player.
Adam But.
Adam yeah, I I wore it once.
Adam My mum went that's a drugs thing, isn't it?
Adam And I was like, no, no, it's in the context of thing.
Adam Because it was when meow meow was the.
Chris Oh, yeah.
Adam the drug of choice on the street, according to the Daily Mail.
Adam Like I think three people in the country had heard of it.
Chris lasted for about three days, like, yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Adam But but then it was the what was killing children.
Adam Yeah.
Adam so yeah.
Adam My mum went, that's a drugs thing, isn't it?
Adam And I was like, no, it's because in the play and they the cat food is called meow meow and it's like.
Adam And yeah, strangely enough, went in the wash, never saw it again.
Adam So I can only assume she chat out this drugs paraphernalia t-shirt before I, you know, was corrupted immortally.
Chris Now, did you get the badges and the t-shirt before or after having seen it?
Adam It was when we saw it.
Adam It was like.
Chris But I was wondering if you got them on the way in and you know what this all about.
Adam No, no, because.
Adam Because the reason I found those is I was looking for the program.
Chris Oh.
Adam when we when we saw it.
Adam because one thing it had in there and I'm really pissed off I couldn't find it, but I do, I'll put it on the Instagram or something like that.
Adam But both Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman had written their like their top five recommended horror films.
Chris
Chris
Adam And I'm sure Dead of Night was in there.
Adam The only other one I can remember was in there was Rec.
Lee Session nine.
Adam But the Spanish.
Lee I remember Session 9 being in there as well.
Adam Session.
Chris I haven't heard of any of those so far.
Chris We've got to find out what the last two are.
Adam Session nine.
Lee How can they be their top five?
Lee And you've never mentioned.
Adam Session nine is on that list of 20.
Lee Yeah, it is.
Chris Okay, I'll let you off then.
Lee You just haven't got around for it.
Lee We certainly will get to it.
Lee and also, so when we saw it, so the the three vignettes.
Adam We saw it.
Adam We saw it in 2010.
Lee Oh.
Lee Oh, yeah.
Lee Oh, bloody, yeah, seven years before.
Adam Yeah, the lyric theater Hammersmith we saw it in 2010, which was like, I think it's first London run.
Lee Yeah.
Adam and.
Adam Andy.
Lee fantastic.
Adam Yeah, Andy Nyman was playing Professor Goodman, Nicholas Burns, who's in this as the false psychic at the beginning.
Adam was Mike Pridel, the role that goes to
Adam Oh, what's his fucking name?
Adam I've drawn completely on his.
Lee Yeah.
Adam He's got.
Adam Oh, Mark Freeman.
Lee Oh, Mark.
Adam Mark Freeman.
Adam Thank you.
Adam and David Cardy was
Adam Tony Matthews, the Paul White House character and Ryan Gage was Simon Rifkins, which is Alex's.
Adam I can't.
Adam Yeah, Alex Lawther's character, like the young kind.
Chris Kind.
Adam Oh, sorry.
Adam Yes.
Lee But yeah, it was interesting.
Lee So the three vignettes were the same but the wrapper around story was different.
Chris Oh.
Lee Which, yeah, which made it interesting.
Lee correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, I might have remembered this wrong.
Lee But it so Andy Nyman came out as a professor of.
Adam like.
Adam Yeah.
Adam The paranormal, yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Lee And basically said, yeah, most stories can be, you know, sort of explained away.
Lee Except for these three.
Lee but he he did like a long 20-minute thing at the beginning, it was really good and really funny.
Lee And they had a website that went along with it, that was a real website because we all went and Googled it afterwards.
Lee Yeah.
Lee yeah, and it was it's it was really good, but that's what I loved about this.
Lee Was it was the three stories, it worked fantastically, but it wasn't like, oh, I've seen all this before.
Lee Because that whole end bit where it turns out it was a coma and all the rest of it, spoiler alert.
Chris
Lee
Lee Yeah, it was all new, but that's funny, see.
Lee So I saw this when it came out, I hadn't seen it again, and when we kept getting the flash of you keep seeing the hospital window, don't you, and I kept thinking, yes, that's why do we keep seeing that?
Lee I know that's relevant, but I couldn't quite pick why out of my memory.
Lee And then when it came to it, I was like, oh shit, yeah, now I remember.
Lee Oh,
Lee it's fantastic.
Lee So Chris.
Lee
Lee Without further ado,
Lee where is Joseph going up or down from this one?
Chris Well, I'm sure you've both got your thoughts about this.
Chris I'm going to start with every action you've ever taken or didn't take has had an effect.
Chris Left a little trace, a ghost of itself.
Chris Me choosing that phrase, that sentence.
Chris What does that make you think that I thought?
Adam I'm guessing that you embraced this film, Chris.
Lee Yeah, I'd be surprised if you if you didn't like this.
Chris Probably say of anything given the title Ghost Stories, this could be right up the top of of what I would like in a film to do with Ghost Stories, probably.
Chris It's got everything done so well.
Chris You don't know for sure where it's going.
Chris And for me, the ending was.
Chris I mean, it's something I've thought about enough, you know, like the idea of the state of mind you could be in, levels of consciousness, when you're in a coma.
Chris The the way that and as I mentioned earlier, in fact, about listening to Vampire that, when you're you know, half asleep, the way what's happening in the real world can, you know, be woven into your consciousness and create this crazy story.
Chris That so yeah, watching that it's like, yeah, that absolutely could happen.
Chris And I I just loved the way that ended.
Chris but as well.
Chris Like the acting was fantastic.
Chris Like.
Chris I mean.
Chris I think really at first Paul White House, I don't think I've seen him play a serious character.
Adam He is so fucking good in this.
Adam I mean, everyone is.
Chris They they are, they are.
Lee Yeah.
Chris But I think that was the shocker because it's like, I've only ever seen him playing.
Chris you know, in in his comedies.
Chris And he was like, yeah, that's that's a powerful, you know, it's very believable.
Chris I didn't realize at first Philip Goodman wasn't Andy Nyman till I checked because I was like,
Chris oh, right, who is this?
Chris I mean, I don't know if I if you'd perhaps mentioned it.
Chris But and I've never seen him before playing in anything.
Chris yeah, like so just everything about it.
Chris I was like, yeah, this is gripping me.
Chris
Chris yeah.
Chris I loved it.
Chris Fantastic.
Adam I mean, that I was I was watching I was watching it back with the commentary.
Adam Which I hadn't done before.
Adam because I just thought it's Jeremy Dyson, I mean, that's that's what we've.
Adam I mean, we we've said we've it and we told people the ending.
Adam So at this point, I think it's a bit bad that we're backtracking.
Adam We assume that you know things.
Adam But obviously written and directed by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson from their stage play.
Adam
Adam But yeah.
Chris Now, I don't know, so who, like Jeremy Dyson.
Chris I don't really know, have I seen him in anything?
Adam You wouldn't have seen.
Adam You might have seen him in the background, actually, he's in the background of this.
Adam He's the he's the DJ at the barmixer in the.
Chris Oh, okay.
Lee Right.
Lee Didn't even spoil that.
Adam Yeah, looking looking a bit like Julian Barrett.
Adam But but of an acceptable height, not a terrifying height.
Adam
Adam But yeah, so.
Adam And he is the fourth member of the League of Gentlemen and basically he made the decision that he didn't want to perform.
Adam He's like, he says, he's not an actor.
Chris He.
Adam He, you know, he basically and also, I mean, the league, I suppose there is that thing, I mean, they're all good actors, so I suppose that if you didn't feel up to snuff.
Adam If you're standing next to like Steve Pembton and then Reese and Mark Gates and, you know, you would be like, no, I think I'll leave it to you guys.
Adam Yeah.
Adam But but he then took on much more like a sort of production role and a directing role and things like that.
Adam With it with it as a live show.
Adam but he basically the league is two groups of writers.
Adam And so Steve Pemington and Reeve She Smith write together and Jeremy Dyson writes with Mark Gatiss.
Adam So.
Adam And even I mean, this is the extent to which he does not appear on film.
Adam In the League of Gentlemen movie, which has the League of Gentlemen playing themselves.
Adam He is played by Michael Sheen.
Lee Oh.
Adam Which which again is in itself I love because Michael Sheen only plays werewolves and real people who exist.
Adam That's the that is his two roles, basically.
Adam So.
Adam So yeah, but so Jeremy Dyson sort of but he he's written he's written like.
Adam He's written a lot of books.
Adam he wrote and produced a mini series called Funland.
Adam but he also wrote and directed three series of Psycho bitches.
Adam Now Psycho bitches is one of those things that I really wish I could fucking get hold of.
Adam It's not on DVD.
Adam I think the first series is available on to purchase on Amazon.
Adam But series two and three aren't there.
Adam And basically the concept of psycho bitches was famous women through history going to their psychiatrist.
Lee
Adam Oh, yeah.
Adam And so you've got and actually Jeremy Dyson turned up in it, I believe, as the mother of Jesus at one point.
Adam just doing a full-blown Peter Cook and Dudley Moore mother sort of type thing.
Adam And I was like, he's out there and he's performing miracles, isn't he?
Adam But yeah, so and Psycho bitches is genuinely one of the best fucking series I've ever seen.
Adam And I reckon if you can find it, watch it.
Adam And then get me a copy of it because I want to watch it again.
Adam Because it used to be it's one of the finest fucking things I've ever seen.
Adam And it was you got loads of different comedy actresses on there like Julia Davis and
Adam Michelle Gomez, Francis Barber.
Adam And also and yeah, so he did three series of that.
Adam But he's also written short story collections.
Adam There's Never Trust a Rabbit, which I've read and it is fucking brilliant.
Lee Wow.
Lee that from you, I believe.
Lee Is that yeah, you must have yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Wonderful book.
Adam Yeah.
Adam And again, it's that sort of thing.
Adam Where it's like one one of the stories in there is a like a a debunker who is then confronted with the genuine supernatural event or someone with apparently magical powers.
Adam So.
Adam So it kind of again feeds in as a thing as part of this, I suppose.
Lee There was another one in there, correct me if I'm wrong, it was a basically it was an art teacher and he had a student who he really hated.
Lee Who was terrible, but one day did a really beautiful painting of a window with a storm going on outside.
Lee And then at the end of the story, spoiler of it, the teacher, I think he ends up with a prostitute and she stabs him.
Lee And as he's laying there bleeding out and he looks up, he sees that that is what this kid had painted all those years ago.
Lee And he gave it a terrible mark because although it was an amazing painting, he hated the kid, so he was like, yeah, no, you're rubbish.
Lee And yeah, and I'm sure that was in that book as well.
Lee I was trying to remember where I'd read it and I couldn't, but now you mentioned it, I'm sure it was in there.
Adam Yeah.
Adam It's that I think that is one of the stories in there and again, it kind of feeds into the ghost stories thing.
Adam Where it's like the guilt.
Adam playing out in your final moments or in your repose and stuff like that.
Adam
Adam He also wrote the cranes that build cranes and the haunted book.
Adam He's written one novel called What Happens Now.
Adam An academic study that I really want to get my fucking hands on called Bright Darkness, the lost art of the supernatural horror film.
Adam Oh.
Adam Which was I think that was published mid 90s when basically I think basically it was one of those things where the book was written.
Adam And then J Horror exploded and then you got so many more like supernatural things happening.
Adam Like good supernatural things happening in horror.
Adam
Adam He wrote the SX Files to Basildon and Beyond with Mark Gatiss, which was like a spoof.
Adam X Files book in the late 90s.
Adam And he's currently writing with Andy Nyman a series of books.
Adam The first of which is called The Warlock Effect and that's due to come out.
Adam Oh.
Chris Sounds interesting.
Adam So.
Adam So yes, so I mean and he so he's obviously a co-writer.
Adam Co-director on this.
Adam With Andy Nyman.
Adam Andy Nyman does kind of he says, I think Andy Nyman, I've heard an interview where he said,
Adam I basically, if you ask me, I'm an actor.
Adam But he also writes, directs.
Adam he's Darren Brown's fucking engineer.
Chris So so that's that's what really stood out to me.
Chris I mean, I think you probably mentioned it when you mentioned this before, yeah, I mean, that that's intriguing, isn't it because, you know, I mean obviously no Deren Brown and to think that yeah, someone who works with him to create his, you know, masterpieces of magic and psychology is a yeah, very impressive.
Adam Well, I mean part of that.
Adam Because again, this sort of feeds back into the play.
Adam Because the interesting thing with the play was is as they they kind of.
Adam Weirdly enough, the play is the the sort of horror stories are kind of cliche.
Adam
Adam Well, certainly the the sort of settings.
Adam You know what I mean?
Adam It's like.
Chris Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Adam a lonely home.
Adam Yeah, a deserted building, the woods at night.
Adam Yeah.
Adam And what they said was is that basically the the thing they wanted to do with the play.
Adam Was prove that they could shit you up in the theater.
Lee Yeah.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Because it was kind of like.
Adam It was.
Adam It was like, yeah, you can make these horror films and you put in jump scares and you put it, you know, you can edit and flash a face up and do all kinds of things.
Adam But if we can scare you live and make you jump and, you know, and they did.
Lee They did.
Chris They did.
Adam Yeah.
Adam It was so fucking good.
Adam But this all comes from this kind of all comes from his magic background.
Adam
Chris Yeah.
Adam So a lot of the stuff that he did with Darren Brown sort of fed into that.
Adam And similarly in the film, there there's no there's no digital effects.
Adam There's.
Adam There's obvious stuff, like, you know, the actual look of like the like Mark Freeman's wife.
Adam You know, that's obviously a CGI thing and everything else like that, but all the stuff like all the bottles piling themselves up on the on the thing.
Lee Yeah.
Lee That's just yeah, I was going to say you could see that actually like, you say you can see the difference between the practical effects and CGI.
Lee And it just made it look so much more sinister.
Lee Because it's.
Lee As good as CGI is now and it is incredible compared to what it used to be.
Lee You can still see that it's like a looks like a computer game.
Lee Whereas that is, you know, just look like the movement of every block and everything was just and it just makes it so much more creepy.
Adam Yeah.
Adam And I think, well, they said the one thing it does as well is it gives the actor something to react to.
Adam So rather than saying stare at that point where there'll be an effect happening.
Lee Yeah.
Adam It's like, shit, it's actually happened, you you react in time with it.
Adam So you kind of you are in the.
Lee It's actually happened, yeah.
Adam You're in the moment, you are in the room in some and so forth.
Adam So yeah, so the majority of the effects in it are practical ones.
Adam That from sort of, you know, their magic tricks essentially and stuff like that.
Adam And the the ghosts in the bed.
Adam That's very.
Adam whistle and I'll come to you.
Adam That was literally.
Adam Four fishing wires and a fan under a blanket.
Lee Oh, no.
Adam And they were like they said that they were just like, wow, we expected this to be reasonable.
Adam But this is actually.
Adam You know, genuinely creepy and we know what it is and what they're doing.
Lee Oh.
Adam Yeah.
Lee And and it's I know we've discussed it before, but just the cast on this,
Adam Which is.
Adam Yeah.
Lee Just.
Lee So good.
Lee So like Samuel Bottomley, who played Goodman when he was younger, I I can't believe they I I'd never put the two together.
Lee But when you see him side by side, you go, yeah, he just looks like a young version of it.
Lee It's really, really good.
Adam He really does.
Lee Yeah.
Adam interestingly enough, his son is an actor now.
Lee Oh, is it?
Adam Andy Nyman's son is an actor.
Adam Yeah.
Adam So, but I think I think he's in the barmitz for, but I think he was just a bit too young.
Adam to actually play Goodman as like a 13-year-old.
Adam Did you spot the Utopia connection there, Lee?
Lee Yes, I did.
Lee Because so when he turned up, Jennifer went, we've seen him recently.
Lee And I went, Grant from Utopia.
Lee And she went.
Lee Oh, my God.
Lee And that's the thing.
Lee It even in Utopia, so from season one to season two.
Lee Obviously they've all aged a year or two.
Lee But because he's 10 years old, going from 10 to 11 or 12, he looks so much older.
Lee And again with this, it's, you know, it's a couple of years.
Lee But he suddenly looks like a teenager and not a child.
Lee But yeah, he's fantastic in this, really, really good.
Adam Well, I mean.
Adam I mean, that that bully sequence.
Adam is.
Adam That's the.
Adam That's the weird thing with this.
Adam Is that there's there are all the jump scares, but the really horrible bits are like the bully sequence.
Adam The the the bit right at the start with Nicholas Burns doing the psychic.
Lee That was horrible. Watching that woman scratching.
Adam That's almost that's almost unbearable to watch.
Adam Yeah, you know, with the and and it's all, you know, it's just very good actors.
Adam But you are sort of like, oh, this is just horrible.
Lee Oh.
Lee And and the one that the one that always gets me is Martin Freeman.
Lee I like Martin Freeman, I think he's a great actor in Sherlock and I I've got a lot of time for him as an actor.
Lee But the big surprise in this when you suddenly find out who his other character is.
Lee I I just couldn't see it, I couldn't see him through that makeup.
Lee And then when he rips it off, I was just like, oh my shit.
Lee He does such a good job in this.
Adam Well.
Adam I think I I think I've I think I've mentioned this certainly, I think I've mentioned this to you, Lee.
Adam When I finally got around to to watching this, because it yeah, like I think it was like a couple of months after it come out that I finally got it and watched it.
Adam Because it I think also there was an element of like, I've seen the play.
Lee Yeah.
Adam You know, and it's like, well, it's just going to be, you know, the play because again, that's the weird thing is if you just did the play straight onto screen, it would just be jump scares and stuff like that.
Adam They they didn't really have.
Adam Because you had did have all those sort of bits in there, but it like you say, it was presented as a lecture, whereas this you have.
Chris Like any sense that watching the film would have possibly taken away from the effect of the play.
Adam May have.
Adam Yeah.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Chris Because I just wonder like I could imagine if they'd done a really good job on the play and that's almost a bit unexpected that they could do that, you might think, oh, you know, the film's just going to be a bit more normal, not really as effective.
Lee Yeah, certainly, because I know the play's done another run fairly recently.
Lee Oh, yeah.
Chris Yeah.
Lee So I'd say to anyone who enjoyed this film.
Lee Definitely go and see it as a play.
Chris That's still definitely worth going to, yeah.
Adam You get a different experience.
Chris Yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Exactly.
Lee And and again, seeing the way that they do this, you know, like the Paul White House story that we, you know, in the warehouse, like seeing that done on a stage with one actor and just set changes, the way they do it is absolutely and it's all done kind of in front of your eyes.
Lee Yeah, they use lighting to take your eye away from what's going on on the on the, I won't, I'll say I won't give it like.
Lee So it's like.
Lee Yeah.
Lee But because it's so dark, it allows them to change the sets.
Lee So the lights come up, you're looking at it, the lights go down and it's just him walking around with a torch, lights come up again, it's a totally different set.
Lee There's no noise, no, it's just it's so clever.
Lee It's absolutely unbelievable.
Adam I think.
Adam I'd so I think one of the other things that came up was and I remember this from the time.
Adam when the film came out, one of the taglines was the brain sees what it wants to see.
Adam And so.
Adam They they misspelled stories on the poster, they transposed the I and the E and so and yeah, and it was a thing that you know, it.
Adam You know, it definitely knew glances it was okay. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Adam But funnily enough, I was because I was looking into that.
Adam And I saw like there was some it was like some old forum post where it was people talking about it when the film was coming out.
Adam And like saying, oh, well, I hope, you know, most people were like, well, if it's as good as the play, it would be fucking brilliant and so on and so forth.
Adam But there was one guy who was like, I'm not sure if they've done this deliberately.
Adam Or whether the bloke who put it on the side of the bus fucked it up, but have you know, has anyone else noticed that the E and the I are around the wrong way?
Lee Yeah.
Lee But again.
Adam That's that's very Darren Brown is I was just about to say that is Andy Nyman and Darren Brown all over, isn't it?
Adam Stuff like it's yeah.
Adam yeah, he's it's that magic thing of.
Adam tricking you into seeing stuff, I I remember because it's funny once you get to know his stuff.
Adam It kind of we went to see him once, in a a tiny little theater under it was a little underground place.
Adam
Adam I can't remember where it was now.
Adam I remember we got off the station.
Adam And it was in some arches.
Adam It was a tiny little theater and he was basically saying to people, in the interval, I want you to queue up and come and write an animal on the board.
Adam Think of an animal and he gave you three animals to think of.
Adam And we we didn't go and queue up, but we sat in the seat and then later on, we noticed all of the posters leading up to it, which were made to look like other things they were doing as productions.
Adam But they.
Adam
Adam Oh, no, it's not.
Adam No, no, no.
Adam You got.
Adam The monkey, elephant, and giraffe.
Adam They were made to look like other things they were doing as productions.
Adam But they all had the word tiger in them, so it obviously set up.
Adam So it's one of those.
Adam It was only once you spotted it, you went, oh shit, yeah, like, I wonder how many people that worked, but it's just it's so clever, it's absolutely unbelievable.
Adam The the thing.
Adam The thing that got me when we saw Darren Brown was when they he did that.
Adam It was like at the start of it, he did like a relaxation thing.
Adam where it was like, all right, you know, and it was all I want you to picture this and everything else like that, like got everyone stand up, and then it was like, yeah, if you if you felt tired during that or I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was like, if you felt tired or you could really hear that in your head, remain standing, and it's like, and as I sat down, I was like, you've just picked out all the suggestible people.
Adam Well done, I've that's you know, immediately right, these are the people I'm going to focus on because I've actually hypnotized them now.
Adam Let them, yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Adam And a lot of it is all stuff that sort of hits into this.
Adam So, but I don't think.
Adam One thing we have to say is that it might be the only time that Danny Dyer will appear on this podcast.
Adam But we might have to do Severance at some point.
Lee Oh, I thought that earlier when Chris said, I don't think I've seen Andy Nyman in anything.
Lee And I was like.
Lee
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