Episode 001 – Woman in Black
#welcometohorror #thewomaninblack#thewomaninblack2012 #hammerfilms#hammerhorror #horrorpodcast#danielradcliffe #horror #horrorfilms#horrormovies
https://soundcloud.com/user-686252518/001-woman-in-black
Transcription
Hello and welcome to Horror.
This is a fault nightly podcast in which myself, Lee and Adam will be taking our friend Chris on a journey through the twisted world of horror cinema in the hopes of introducing him to some of the many delights the genre has to offer.
The premise is very simple, we will sit down together and watch a film, as soon as it’s finished we will sit down and record the podcast immediately afterwards.
As such it will be very spoiler heavy and we do suggest you watch the film yourself before listening to the podcast not only so we don’t spoil it but also so you know exactly what we’re talking about.
At the end of each discussion we’ll decide what film we’ll be watching next and we’ll let you know so you have a fault night to watch it yourselves and then come on our journey with us again.
Along the way there will be facts, laughs, opinions, probably quite a life swearing.
Any forefront you’ll need it or you’ll be completely irrelevant as this is audio only.
So with the introduction over, it’s now time for the podcast.
Thanks for listening.
[Music] So Chris, we’re less than five minutes out of your first movie, which was A Woman in Black.
So what were your thoughts.
Okay, I’ll start with the good.
So excellent cinematography, great shots.
As I was thinking and I saw in the description the sense of isolation was excellent from the start.
I think the combination of what was going on in his mind, his isolation and his sense of loss from his wife that he was still comes to terms with and then that was reflected in him going to the house.
Yeah.
And you can’t really beat that sort of style house for eeriness and a sense of foreboding I think I just spend the whole of that film every time I’ve seen you just going “I want that house” I don’t want to clean it, I don’t want to redecorate it, I want it exactly as it is there.
So what I was trying to work out, what is it about that era.
I guess that was Victorian was it.
Yeah.
I’m not quite sure I know the difference between Victorian and Edwardian but you know that sort of era.
I was trying to work out if you go back further, did they get scarier or is that just the best era for a scary house.
I think it is.
I don’t know if that’s because a lot of ghost stories and things are set in that time.
But why did that come about.
Is that just because that’s when films started to be.
.
.
I think it was almost part of the Gothic revival, I suppose.
They just had a lot of.
.
.
Because the original, obviously Gothic originally comes from the sort of architecture, and then it goes from there.
But there were a lot of, certainly that sort of era and the sort of period leading up to it and everything.
– A lot of sense of gargoyles.
– Yeah, yeah.
– And the decorative elements, the arcs and everything else like that.
And it’s a very, yeah, just, I think it was just a thing that was bubbling back up at the time.
It’s like in the ’20s, you started getting people were obsessed with Egyptology and things like that.
But I think it was almost like the folk tales, I suppose.
Stuff, vampires, werewolves and obviously ghosts.
I think it was a big thing for it at the time as well, obviously.
A lot of the original horror writers were all back in the Victorian era.
It was back when ghost stories were a big part of your Christmas celebrations.
Mediums were coming into their own.
The whole idea of spirituality.
Yeah.
So I think all of that made that time.
.
.
It walked.
.
.
Made it.
.
.
I don’t know how to spell it.
it’s both all of those elements in together so that the time and the idea of a.
.
.
I mean, you know, the clothes and the dolls.
I mean, do they still make dolls that look that scary.
I tell you what though, there are two things.
Pluckwork monkeys and rocking chairs never have them in the room.
They attract poltergeist activity, just all kinds of stuff.
I couldn’t even bear a monkey playing cymbals in a fez.
No.
I don’t care who it’s come from.
I don’t care how much it costs.
No.
We cannot be dealing with that.
And also I really liked the different threads.
I said the start, which I suppose it kind of stopped about halfway him sort of remembering his wife and the sense of what’s going to be happening with his son because of the pages that were blank so sort of a sense that that’s going to be filled in somehow and probably not in a good way but how exactly they were going to do it.
Yeah and then meeting the guy who is nice to him and helping him out but at first I was trying to think is he actually good because you’re trying to work out you know what is the bad yeah who are the good is who are the bad is and he gets into the pub and all of a sudden like everyone’s like not in this village going back you know.
That actually I thought was a very that was something that really harmed me because obviously I’ve not seen it before.
Yeah.
And but that is that is a pure hammer moment.
Yeah yeah absolutely.
You go in and everyone just quiet and down you know we don’t have any room for that sort of stuff.
Yeah but then the woman who was trying to be helpful to him and And it wasn’t clear exactly what her motive was.
Perhaps she just was a bit more willing to try and face– They’d lost their trip.
They lose their trip to the start of the three children at the start.
So is she– she’s thinking she wants to get it out there, let the people know.
Either that or it’s just she’s an incorritable drunk.
She was whacking that whiskey down.
And then of course, so when he first goes to the house and a few scary things start to happen and you’re trying to work out, well, is this his mind.
Is he losing it.
What’s real.
And you have a sense that perhaps there is some something real happening there.
And but then the actual real things where the other children start dying.
Yeah.
And so the girl who’s a little liar.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the whole thing becomes impossible to be purely Yeah, something is clearly happening but what exactly is there and trying to follow the story of who is this woman and yeah why is she so angry with everyone and in fact I don’t think I fully understood that and why was she so angry with the village as opposed to just the two people that took her.
They only said that yeah because she had her child taken away she was going to take everyone else.
Yeah so I think it was just they were the near.
just became really angry and yeah and just anyone’s like yeah it’s well not only that also I suppose it’s the more the more classic thing of like where absolutely no one should have this happiness yeah yeah yeah I have been robbed off and power and extended yeah as far as she can yeah and I think the I was surprised how little was CGI or obvious.
I think a lot of it was more slight of hand and camera triggering, which just works better anyway.
Yeah, it did.
I liked it.
As you say, it goes down to the whole cinematography and the whole feel of the film.
I just thought, yeah, brilliantly done.
As you say, CGI pulls you out of it so often.
Even when it’s done well, it can– – This is something, yeah.
– Where it was just a woman standing in the shadows with her face painted white is absolutely terrifying.
So yeah, so why mess around with it and make it in.
The other thing I loved was a lot of those films, they tend to, you have your quick jump scare moment and then it’s gone.
What I loved in that was in the prolonged section in the middle when he first stays overnight at the Elmarsh house.
It’s event after event after event.
And that five minutes is just one thing after.
Instead of there’s, you know, he sees something, then it goes back to daylight.
Everything’s normal.
Then it builds up, he sees something and they brought it all together.
Yeah, and it made it feel like a very not overly, but the film, although it was it was quite slow going and there was a lot It never felt like there wasn’t enough actual scares and action going on.
It did manage to.
.
.
it was perfectly paced for me.
I really enjoyed that.
I think.
.
.
I mean.
.
.
I loved the landscape.
I loved the modern landscape.
That.
.
.
and yeah, you just want that house.
Yes.
That is a good house.
a good house.
I was saying actually, I don’t know if the house is on the island but I’m sure somebody told me the Coles way in the island is real.
Oh it is an actual thing, why.
Again the house presumably isn’t actually on it.
So I don’t remember that cold.
I know but it might be worth trying to find out where it is and go for a little trip up there.
Maybe 39 dB at some point.
So what didn’t you like about it.
If they were your positives.
Okay so as you were just saying I think to build up to the middle and then towards the end where it was really the real crescendo.
Yeah that was fantastic.
I think the bit where I wasn’t too sure was when he decided to dig up the body only because I started to be a bit rational then and I was thinking would the body still be like.
.
.
I found myself thinking that had it’s solid enough state for him to pull out I know I don’t know enough about biology to know how long a body will be preserved or I know things can be preserved in much better than others so that’s possible it also seemed like he’s that little bit too far-fetched that he’s convinced that this is a good idea.
– It does seem like a leap to go from rationality of this is what the world is and then have your mind completely blown and then you’re making connections like that.
– Yeah, and it’s almost like he became a bit of a séance, the fact that he was up for doing the ritual.
So I figured there’s gotta be points where you’re suspending disbelief.
obviously a few of those points had already happened.
(laughing) So it just, it was like, do I need to think about this too carefully.
Yeah, and obviously the fact that he’s using the card to pull it out.
I know, I suppose it made more sense that I didn’t realize there was gonna be a carriage that he could pull out.
So first I was thinking, you’re just gonna try to find a body at the bottom of the, well, you know, very well.
– Bring it up a little bit at a time, or whatever.
– But so, that wasn’t too bad.
And then I think the next biggest problem I had was, I thought the end was actually really quite sweet because he died and there was with his wife and he was quite happy.
He was like, “Okay, that’s quite nice.
” – That’s not a negative thing.
Let it end like that.
– No, no, but so he’s like, I suppose I had to again readjust because I felt like I was expecting it to be bad at the end.
Like I was expecting it to start to die and it all falls.
– And it’s getting tested by him.
– And it’s all actually, that’s quite nice really.
So yeah, it’s fine as that’s what the ending was meant to be.
But yeah, it left me feeling good as opposed to I thought I was gonna be left feeling pretty awful.
– Yeah, again at the middle part.
– ‘Cause I think, ’cause yeah, I think I was on the same page with that.
I assumed at the end, especially when it was, he was looking around and there was no one there.
I thought, oh right, so he’s part of her damned collective.
– Yeah.
– And then, yeah, he does meet the misses.
‘Cause that was another thing that confused me slightly I wasn’t sure if the woman who was running the inn, I wasn’t sure if she was meant to kind of look similar to his wife.
The actress did look quite a lot like her.
Some connection.
So I didn’t know if that was, because I wasn’t sure if that was going to go off on a thing, because not being funny, the husband seemed like a dick, so I thought maybe he’ll run off with her or something.
But yeah, that was.
.
.
No, it was weird actually, because I kind of expected the same thing.
I thought it was going to have a bleak ending.
Yeah.
I just assumed it was going to be the little boy was going under the train.
And that I was going to do anything about it.
Although when you’ve been desperate enough to convince a man you’ve just met to haul a carriage out of the marsh pit, you’d keep hold of the little buggers end.
(laughing) Like where you going.
What you doing.
– Yeah, yeah.
Although adults are pretty useless.
– That’s true.
(laughing) – Yeah.
So, yeah.
– I think the only, it was something we discussed with a friend of ours, Chris, I believe it was, of them discussing with someone about this film.
And he said, “Oh yeah.
” because I was really impressed with Daniel Radcliffe’s performance because obviously the first thing he does.
.
.
It did take a little bit to get the idea of Harry Potter.
And I thought I was going to have more of a problem with that.
Yeah, and I thought he did a really good job.
But as I say, I was discussing with somebody else at one point over a few beers, and I’m sure he said to me, “Oh, I had loads of.
.
.
” I thought he was terribly cast because he was too young for the character who was playing someone who was already married and all that kind of stuff.
And I’m sure at the time I said yes, but I was thinking about today on the way home, planning to come and do this.
And obviously, back in that era, things were different and people did marry and have children a lot earlier, because everyone died a lot earlier than they did in that era.
That’s true, yeah.
And yeah, so I think that was a negative I had before.
Yeah, and I was kind of kicking myself in the car thinking, “Yeah, why didn’t I think of that before when we discussed it.
” But yeah, so that was something that I’ve heard for me.
Yeah.
Because I think, I mean, I’ll admit that is probably the main reason is I hadn’t seen it, was I just felt, you know, I wasn’t going to be too hard to.
.
.
Well, I’ve never seen Harry Potter, but it’s.
.
.
I hadn’t to recently actually.
It was just like a sort of.
.
.
The association is there.
Yeah, and I just thought, you know, and I mean, I must admit, I think by the end of bit.
By the end of it I’ve gone with it but initially I found him a bit unembowel-y.
But also I think that in a weird way that also feels traditional hammer.
Yeah.
Where the sort of the main protagonist is usually a bit bland.
Yeah.
You know and it’s all the others around who sort of add the colour and everything else like that.
But he also, which I was very reassured by, is he doesn’t suffer from ruler face.
Now ruler face is something that I’m looking into and it’s whenever you see someone who is a child star and you can’t work out what’s wrong with their face, it’s because their head has grown to the sides of their face the the equivalent size of two Helix shatterproof rulers.
(laughing) It’s about that much.
And you’re trying to work out what it is and it looks like it’s still the child head encased in a slightly bigger head.
– Almost the uncanny valley of the G.
I.
A.
(laughing) It very nearly looks.
– Yeah, it is.
– But the something.
– Yeah, you’re sort of sitting there going, it’s like, what’s his name.
From the sixth sense, Hallie-J I think it’s probably because he’s quite big.
expanded quite exponentially but he definitely has that effect where it’s like you’re still an eight-year-old and they’ve just put you in a man costume.
They’ve just inflated you and put you in grown-up clothing.
So I think it worked.
But the majority of the cast I thought were great.
The guy who played Sam Daly is a guy called Syrian Hines and I’m obsessed with him because he really looks like John Cale from The Velvet Underground and I’ve always wanted him to play John Cale but that’s not really there.
But he was in Cold Lazarus, the last thing that Dennis Pomerove and he’s in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
I’ve seen him in something in the last couple of years, yeah, and he was amazing in that.
And like we said, the police constable being David Burke, who’s the original Watson in the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes.
So he’s just immediately.
.
.
That was really annoying me as well.
As soon as he came up, I was thinking, “Right, I’m sure last time it annoyed me and I am DB’d it.
” And I thought, “Right, I’m not going to do it a second time.
” So I’m grateful and you turn around and say, “It’s Watson.
” (laughing) – Mrs.
Daley is an actress called Janet McTear who last Christmas was Mrs.
Claus in like, I think it was John Lewis or whoever had done, or someone did an advert, like the Christmas advert, you know, and it’s all sort of like, oh, look at this one Christmas, have you.
And she was Mrs.
Claus in that, so she has recently been, But she’s, yeah, she was in loads of stuff.
She was in a program called The Governess, which was about a woman running a prison which had Craig Charles in it.
And it might have actually had Syrian Hines in it, I’m not sure.
But, and yeah, there was a lot of sort of, but again, that was the thing I thought was weird though, is ’cause I think Syrian Hines and Janet Mattia are really tall.
– Yeah.
– So they did kind of look like they’re taking their kid I didn’t notice him in the scene where he was talking to her outside the old tomb.
They obviously want him to stand a step higher.
She was very tall and he was walking towards her and then they were almost the same height when they were talking.
He’d climb further up them steps and she has to try and fit them both in the shot.
But yeah, I mean it didn’t detract from it.
But that was another thing I wondered when we first saw her and she brought in the dogs because that was sort of one of the only light relief elements.
Yeah there wasn’t a lot of jokes and stuff.
You know you can almost laugh at that in order of two dogs but obviously it’s got the sense of that’s her not managing to deal with the.
.
.
yeah it’s the sublimation of the briefing or something else.
But yeah I wasn’t quite sure when I first saw them.
Have I been taking this whole film too seriously.
It’s been a comedy all along.
There was a lot of dog action though because obviously.
.
.
What happened to the other dog.
The other dog, I don’t know.
I’m just a bit.
.
.
They got bored of.
.
.
I think.
.
.
I’m slightly concerned because you know I’m all for animal welfare and fairies.
You can kill everyone in the cast but if you kill the dog you’re a shit.
But I did like the dog but when he first met him on the train I’ve actually written down the word “dog-throbber” because he was holding the dog.
I think maybe the dog was just having an off day and it was like right just hold it there and it’ll be alright but the dog it did look like he was desperately for it.
He was getting this dog from somewhere.
Yeah.
I want Sean’s mate from Sean’s show was it Victor McGuire or Victor Goyer I can’t remember his name.
Yes.
Who was the dad of the little girl who ate the lime.
Yes.
Yeah, again, that was, I was just, yeah.
But I do want that house.
Yeah.
I like the idea of the cut off, ’cause that’s fantastic.
It’d just be like, you know, sort of like, oh, well I’ll pop over.
No, you won’t.
Yeah.
Because the time’s coming.
So unless you wanna come back at 11 o’clock at night, I am on my own for the evening.
Yeah.
That, the house is actually a place called, I just found it.
It’s a place called Cotterstock Hall in Northhamptonshire.
Oh.
So, not too far.
And apparently it was, the thing I found here, it was up for sale in 2014.
Wow.
For two and a half million.
That’s not a lot at all really.
It’s not a lot.
Well, I mean, yeah.
It needs a lot of work.
Well, no, I think they’ve, I think they’ve dressed it up rather nicely.
It’s actually like a hotel inside.
Well, this sort of focus.
So why did they choose that particularly.
Was there any.
.
.
I wonder if it may have just been that it was the best location they’ve seen it.
It’s just got that look hasn’t it.
I mean it’s got that large gothic manner.
It was probably also.
.
.
Or boding.
It was probably also because where is it that Hammeh used to do.
You’ve stayed there haven’t you.
Oh, Oakley Culp.
Yeah, because it was directly next door to Bray’s studio.
Yeah, but I wonder if they sort of like, “Well, we can’t cut it back.
” You know, it’s going to.
.
.
We’re going to open it now.
Yeah, we might have, that might be made slightly obvious.
So how often do Hammer release films.
That was 2012.
So they hadn’t, before that they released Wakewood, I think was the only thing they’ve released.
Oh, Wakewood and Christopher Lee were not saying about the apartment block.
So Hammer hadn’t done anything since the late 70s.
To the devil or daughter possibly.
That’s certainly the last horror film they made.
Because Hammer didn’t just do horror.
In fact they did do the boom period in the 70s of sitcom films.
All the on the buses and all that.
On the buses is Hammer and the film of Rising Damp is Hammer I believe.
I think they did Love thy Neighbor as well but obviously that ain’t going to get me into any time soon.
I vaguely remember seeing that in the working my year.
Maybe even like George and Mildred or something like that.
But yeah, so they did sort of other stuff as well.
And they did a lot of just straight ahead dramas.
Yeah.
Funnily enough, I was watching.
.
.
Have you seen Captain Clegg.
Yes.
Yeah, I was watching that the other night and I just forget that that is actually really well put together.
That’s just brilliantly done.
Yeah.
And it’s not.
.
.
And again, not really a horror.
It has tropes of horror with marsh fathoms.
Yeah, it’s more of a crime.
Yeah, it’s an adventure sort of.
.
.
Yeah, like a smuggling story really.
Yeah, I need to re-watch that because I saw it when it was re-released when it came out on Blu-ray.
That’s been a couple of years ago, haven’t it.
Yeah.
And I haven’t seen it again since.
And I’ve only seen it the once, so that’s definitely due for a re-watch.
Yeah, I do remember the Phantoms looking pretty poor, isn’t it.
But I think it’s forgivable for the.
.
.
I think, I think, helpfully, I was watching the horror channels print.
So the marsh ferns looked pretty good because everything was pretty grainy and sort of, yeah, a bit, a bit fuzzed and everything.
I was just looking into what else the, what else the director’s done.
I’m just trying to see if I identify or sort of see what’s in it.
A guy called James Watkins, didn’t ring a bell.
Oh, he’s done, he did an episode of Black Mirror.
Oh, good.
which I’ve not seen.
I’ve not seen but I’ve seen it floating about.
Mmm.
The take with Idris Elba and something called McMafia TV series of this year but yeah and I noticed that the script was Jane Goldman.
Yeah.
Who basically yeah just continues to prove that Jonathan Ross is a lucky bastard.
Do we know how closely the script followed the book.
I’ve not read that, I should read the book.
Which was Susan Hill, it says here, Woman in Black is a 1983 horror novella by Susan Hill.
So in a way that’s, it was a revival, in the Victorian era was a revival of it then, yeah.
But it’s funny because it feels so perfectly Victorian and it’s such a perfect story that, you know, You know, as you said, it feels like it was written 100 years ago.
It does feel like it felt really like the turning of the screw and the thimberch and the innocence.
It felt really like that.
Yep.
It was a fantastic BBC version as well of the turning of the screw, which I saw that long ago for the first time.
Yeah, that wasn’t that long ago.
Yeah, I think that wasn’t that long ago.
No, I think it was about three years ago they aired it one Christmas.
Christmas Eve or something.
I was brilliant.
I had no idea that it was actually, because I’ve seen The Innocents and I sat down to watch it.
I got back 10 minutes in and suddenly went, “Hang on, a minute, I’ve seen it before.
” To go back, so Hammer stopped filming the horror stuff in the early 70s and I think the entire studio folded or it sort of wound down and didn’t do anything and then they sold the name in the mid 2000s and they released yeah Wakewood and.
.
.
Wasn’t there, there was another one as well which was from Beyond the Rain or something like that.
I don’t know.
Which was like a very sort of, from what I understand it was like a real sort of, oh hey we can do these modern movies.
Oh dear.
Well they did let me in which, which I quite enjoyed.
Oh yeah the remark of let the right one in.
Yeah, which I really enjoyed.
That’s a film you’ll have to watch of you at some point.
That was a real shock.
The original was so damn good.
I’ve not seen the remake of it.
The remake is.
.
.
As remakes.
.
.
I enjoyed it.
It wasn’t because it was the original, but I think for a lot of people who wouldn’t sit and watch a subtitled movie, which obviously was designed for American audiences, who wouldn’t have watched, “Oh, this is a Swedish movie.
It’s all subtitled.
It’s got nobody that you’ve ever heard of.
Just watch it.
It’s great.
” And it was, it revived vampire movies for me ’cause I was so sick of the old genre.
– Sexy Dracula.
– Yeah, exactly.
– Sexy Drac, get off my back.
– Oh, I hate sexy Dracula.
(laughing) – Oh, Dracula, just not sexy Dracula.
– It was great, it was the first film since 30 Days a Night, I think, which really turned the genre upside down.
So, I was really taken with that.
But yeah, pushing it to the mainstream American audience couldn’t have been easy, so.
so they completely reshuff it.
With Chloe.
.
.
– Clarissa Beane.
– No.
– Just saying, Chloe Cardassian.
– Chloe, I can’t remember her name, but the girl from Kick Ass was.
.
.
– Oh, sort, yeah, I can’t remember her name.
– Yeah, but she was in it.
– Clarissa.
– Yes, yeah.
But yeah, just so that was, it was, a lot of it was the same.
There were some bits that changed.
But yeah, I thought they did a really good job.
I was a remake.
Yeah.
– Yeah, just having a quick check here.
Yeah, they did a contemporary vampire story called “Beyond the Rave,” Ben Wakewood.
Which I quite, I remember, I remember quite enjoying.
– Yeah, I remember a lot of it.
others was it the others no quiet ones yes they did do the quiet one quiet ones that was the other that that’s terrible I liked it very I think it was just because it had so much old sound recording equipment in it yes but I could just you know it was like techno poem for me I like my techno poem to be said these with a lot of bush and some pie.
Yeah I didn’t enjoy the film and to be fair part of that might have been the fact that I saw it in a screening with I don’t know if it was the last day of term at school or something but there was a group of maybe 25 early teenagers.
It was not the ideal subject.
No it wasn’t good for an atmospheric horror movie.
But again, I didn’t like it anyway.
There was a lot of things about it that didn’t stack up for me.
So I wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway, but yeah, that definitely did.
It’s one of those ones where it’s, from my point of view, I just thought it’s almost a good film.
You know, there was enough that I enjoyed it.
And I bought the soundtrack, it had Slade on it, I’m quite happy with that.
I am not happy with the fact that there was a cover of Silver Machine.
I used to be original, come on.
You can afford it.
Lemme needed the money at the time.
Well, yeah.
Can’t take it with him.
So overall, you, what were you.
What were you giving numbers.
Yeah, should we give it a minute.
I definitely liked it.
I thought it was very good entertainment.
I was happy watching it all.
And definitely got scared of points.
– That’s good.
– Yeah, yeah, there were a couple of real.
.
.
And actually, one thing I really liked, I really liked the fact that they, which was just something that was so effective when it was, when he was fannying about with the papers.
and the figure was in the background.
Then you cut the figure’s POV, but you could see in the top corner, the mirror.
– The reflection of it, yeah.
– Which I just thought was such a nicely constructed little thing, or way of doing it.
– I think a lot of it was.
It was the same as when he was standing in the cemetery and the camera was moving through the trees.
and you didn’t see her, but the camera passed behind her.
So you just kind of got a silhouette, but it wasn’t obvious.
Oh, shots like that, I just love work.
Instead of just giving you the, there she is, standing in the background where you expect to see her.
Just turning it slightly and giving you something a little bit different.
I thought it was, yeah.
– Yeah, no, I think that they sort of did a fresher version of that.
So obviously you’ve seen the theater production.
– Yes.
So I’m still having a hard time imagining how that could be scary.
So you said it’s essentially like, is it like only a very small cast.
It’s only like a few people.
Yeah, so it’s two actors.
Right, okay.
And there’s just the two of them.
So presumably it’s the Daniel Radcliffe character I’ll kick.
And the other, there’s another actor who plays the other role.
So he plays the boss at the beginning when he’s being said job.
Oh right, oh right.
When he gets to the house, he then plays the guy who befriends him on the train.
So how does he get changed between each.
Yeah, so it’s the same guy who just put him in a different outfit and he comes back out again.
Not as any women.
No, he doesn’t play any women, no.
That would have a bit more humour possibly.
Yeah, that might destroy the whole atmosphere.
I definitely would like to see that.
That seems impressive if they can pull that off.
You know and even if it’s not scary then that’s still quite good to I Really did think it was really effective.
It was there.
I said it had just as much atmosphere And everything as see as you say until you’ve been to a theater production Yeah, where they do actually managed to make it scary You’ve been somewhere that I can feel that atmosphere and that oppression.
So how did they do like the children.
That was none of that was in there.
No No, it was all just about him at the house.
What happens to him while he’s at Hillmarsh.
So he goes to Hillmarsh and if I remember correctly, again it’s 16 years ago, but if I remember correctly, it’s just he goes to the house and it’s just what happens to him while he’s there.
I think he comes back and goes again once.
But yeah, it’s not like the film where every day he’s coming backwards and forwards, it just centres around, which It makes it a lot easier obviously because they don’t have to keep changing sets.
Especially with only two of them doing all of the.
.
.
And there’s also.
.
.
was it a TV adaption from the 80s.
Yes.
Which is very good.
Again, it’s got that very bleak feel.
If I remember rightly, it’s got very little sound in it as well.
The sound was good.
The music was nice and scary.
And they kept it down as well, which a lot of times when there wasn’t any score going on, which made it really creepy.
It seemed to fit well at the points it needed to.
We say it’s that isolation of just you’re just in a house and there’s nothing else there.
And I think the TV version did that as well.
That’s a horrific moment in it as well.
Really, really chilling.
There was one when he goes back to the house, I think while he’s waiting for his child to come and meet him.
He goes back to the pub, I think, and stays one night there.
Yeah, and he has a vision of her while he’s there.
And I just remember seeing it.
And yeah, all the hairs on the back of my neck stand, it’s really uncomfortable and horrible.
It’s brilliantly done.
– Oh, well, I will have to, I’ll have to check out that version.
– I have got a copy.
it’s very bad copy because it was originally on TV in the Think probably the late 80s early 90s and that’s it so I think what I’ve seen was a VHS copy that was transferred to DVD that was uploaded to a torrent.
Yeah, so it’s a But that’s the only way to get it.
It’s never been yeah, I really see can’t buy it I think I saw a copy on Amazon once which was clearly a Like DVD-R and I think they were selling it for 40 odd quid and at that point I was It is good and it was seen two parts as well, so I think it’s about two two and a half hours and But I’d definitely be willing to sit down and watch that again at some point if you’re up for it.
Yeah, we’re making all that a bit because it is.
We’ll do the 10th anniversary episode.
We’re going back to our roots.
But, um, no, I mean, I would say if we’re talking a rating, I’d definitely give it a seven.
pushing into an A.
That’s exactly where I think it was.
Yeah, well I was thinking around seven.
No, it’s got this.
Unanimous.
Yes, a unanimous seven for some excellent parts.
Yeah, and obviously there’s a sequel, is it Angel of Death or something.
Does it feature A.
Does it feature Slayer on the soundtrack.
If only.
Because I was going to say that might slightly ruin the Victorian vibe.
Is Daniel Radcliffe in that one.
No.
Right.
I think we’re already quite aware of what sort of a sequel it’s not like this.
Yes.
It’s, erm, I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t make it all the way through.
I think I watched about 40 minutes of it and gave up.
What if you missed the best bit.
I’m pretty sure I’ve given up.
But the set up for it was brilliant.
So the idea is, it’s World War II, they’re evacuating obviously all the children from London, so three or four teachers take an entire school and they go up to a Yul Marsh house and they all stay there for the evacuation.
I thought that could have been good.
It’s a brilliant premise but before they’d even got to the house I just remember the whole thing just falling apart and becoming absolutely ludicrous.
So I didn’t persist with it.
But I don’t want to go back and give it a note.
If there’s ever a point where I have nothing else to watch, I’m more to give it another go.
But they’re making films all the time.
And there’s 100 years worth of films to go back and see.
Yes.
So I don’t think– But are they making good horror films still.
Are they defining or are they– It goes through phases.
You go through two or three years where there’s nothing.
And then you’ll have a couple of years where you’ll get stuff coming out again.
So I’d like to think, did you.
So what are we thinking for next.
The next horror film.
Are we going.
.
.
Well, no, no, so for the next film we watch.
Oh, the next film.
Are we going back in time.
A long way back in time.
What would you like to do, Chris.
Yeah.
So for the film that you just watched, would you like to go for something, again, like another contemporary made film.
So I would definitely like to watch something similar to that, but I think for the next one and possibly for the other we should try and mix it up as much as possible to try and reach the extremes of all of it and then we can figure it out from there a way back.
Okay, so would you like to get in the way way back machine and go back to something like the original universal machine.
Yeah, I’d be happy to try one of those.
Excellent, that sounds good.
So of the big five or six.
I’m taking there’s not going to be many that you haven’t seen Adam.
Of the universe ones I think I’ve probably seen the same as yourself.
I think the only thing I’ve never seen is I’ve never seen the I’ve never seen the Lon Chaney Phantom of the Opera but I don’t even think that’s that’s not even universal possibly.
I don’t think it was part of that cycle.
I think it was made in the Universal lot, but I don’t think it’s part, it’s not classed as the original set, because it was still silent back then.
Yeah, of course, yeah.
And the Universal horror, the Universal Monsters legacy collection is all from when the Tolkien started, so from Dracula onwards.
So that’s another funny idea.
It seems odd to imagine a silent horror film.
I have lots of silent horror films.
Yeah, that music I guess.
I was actually going to suggest just some point.
If we watch Nosferatu, Wes polished up the score we did by making it.
Oh did he.
Yeah.
So we could watch it with the function score.
That’d be good, I’d be up for that, yeah, definitely.
Yeah, we sat and basically improvised a score along to it, and it’s, Nosferatu is the very, it is the very first adaption of Dracula, isn’t it.
Yes.
And For Ages was thought of as a lost film because basically they made Dracula, that didn’t ask if they were allowed to make Dracula.
And Graham Stoker’s widow basically forced them to burn all the prints, but one of them turned up.
And so it still existed.
And we might have London after midnight now.
That would be.
.
.
I did read an article, I did go back to the article today and it said that they believe that it’s not true.
They think it’s another.
.
.
I can understand that.
It got me so excited.
There’s something about the idea of a film that you might never ever get to see.
And the idea of it suddenly surfacing again that’s just so exciting to me.
See that’s the thing is the thing I get with Doctor Who is obviously they wipe loads of stuff.
Then a couple of years back they found basically two whole stories.
This isn’t just a marketing ploy is it.
It’s a very good one.
long term.
I’ve been seeing 30’s and now.
These are clever people.
Because I’ve messed with them, I’ve been to Parliament.
London After Midnight was also supposedly, I think, a criminal used it in his defence for murdering someone.
is that he’d been unhinged by seeing Lon Chaney in London after Midnight, which kind of added an extra element, where I’ve genuinely seen articles written in completely good faith where people are saying, “Oh yeah, they had to ban it and destroy the Prince because it sent everyone who saw it mad.
” Oh really.
Yeah.
Which I’ll tell you what.
.
.
That’s some quality journalism going on.
I’ll tell you what, editing must have been a pig.
We’ve had four in, two of them are giggling in the corner and one of them’s on themselves.
But yeah, so back to Universal.
Frankenstein, I think is the most easily accessible.
Bride of Frankenstein is a better, I prefer as a movie.
I would concur completely.
I think Roy Frankenstein just pips it.
Yeah.
It’s one of the few genuinely better sequels.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That’s ever existed.
Yeah.
And, but my personal favourite from the Universal cycle is The Wolfman.
So I don’t know which to choose because.
.
.
Oh yeah.
And Dracula obviously started them all off.
So it is the iconic one.
So they’ve all got their meal.
the trouble is that the tub brand in Dracula is not brilliant.
It’s not very exciting.
The I mean it’s got I mean it’s a shame because it’s Bela Lugosi and he is a brilliant Dracula but just everything around it just doesn’t.
It’s very dry.
It’s a very sort of static sort of product.
It is essentially like filming a play.
Yeah.
Whereas the Frankenstein films certainly the Wolfman are they’re much more modern in feel they are movies rather than just a teleplay.
So I’m getting a sense of the Wolfman.
The Wolfman is my personal favorite.
No, no but also it’s just I think it’s a nice introduction to Long Cheney.
Long Cheney Jr.
Yes.
Especially the particular style.
well, is it.
He’s, I think he was just, I mean he was, he’s the son of Long Chang-ni, the man of a thousand faces, and he sort of got into the, got into the business through, through his father.
So he’s the actor.
Yeah.
And he, but he sort of, he was younger than Then Bela Gossi and Boris Karloff were slightly older actors, they’d already had a career.
Whereas I think Long Chaney Jr.
was kind of Wolfman’s, roughly, earlier sort of end of stuff.
Yeah, but then he went to, obviously, he played Larry Talbot in The Wolfman, but then from then he went on to play Frankenstein in Ghost of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein.
He continued to play the Wolfman, so he was in the Abun Costello movies.
So he had a much longer, and he carried on right through the 60s, once the Atomic Age films come in.
He carried on, he played the incredible transparent man, I think it was called.
And obviously at some point we will have to show you Spider Baby.
Which is, and again, Long-Jane is kind of, they’ve got him in as the name.
Yes.
And I think that’s the thing, it was like Bela Lugosi basically played Dracula twice, but he did play Dr.
Dracula, Mr.
Alucard, just variations on Dracula for the rest of his career.
He was always cast in that sort of thing, but you headline it, White Zombie.
I mean, the filmmaker Edward, who basically was like, “I’ve got better to go see.
” It was, yeah, a lot of those guys were the sort of, they just had box office names.
And I think also, I think the thing is, it’s a thing that’s quite lovely with horror is horror fans are dedicated.
– Yeah.
– And you can, you will be looked after in a weird way.
I mean, it’s like we were saying earlier with Dave Prowse.
Obviously he should be receiving, he should have been receiving a lot more love for Star Wars.
– So I didn’t even realize that he wasn’t the character when the mask came off.
I thought that was Dave Prowse.
– Oh yeah.
– Like, until I saw this, I was like, I’ll never do that with someone else.
– Yeah.
– Yeah, ’cause he said he did a couple of that.
– Yeah, so it’s like Sebastian Schuhl, who I’ve never seen, never heard of.
– No, that’s like, ’cause I didn’t even know he’d seen him before that.
– No.
– And he himself has been written out, obviously, ’cause then they put in the younger and it’s now to replace the, yeah.
– Return off the ginger.
– Yes.
Absolutely.
– Okay, so we’re going for Wolfman.
The Wolfman.
– Yeah.
– Yeah, I haven’t seen the Wolfman in a while, and it’s gonna be good.
– Okay.
– I very nearly watched it, ’cause I watched Bride of Frankenstein last week, just on a whim.
Yeah, and I very nearly watched that straight away afterwards, and I thought, no, no, I’ll wait with this one.
And I’ll, just in case.
– Save it for something special.
– It comes up, yeah.
So this will be perfect.
– So we’ll do the witches from the back when next week’s really old man, it is the Wolfman.
– Yes.
– Yes.
– Excellent, right.
Wrap it up there.
– Yeah.
– Night, night ladies and gentlemen.
– Thank you for listening.
– Thank you.
– And indulging us.
– Yes.
Go watch the Wolfman.
– Cold, pregnant.
.