British Horror Films That Time Forgot E-Book

Thomas Baxter

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 284

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Have you ever watched Unmasked Part 25? Xtro II? How about Screamtime or Bloodstream? Have you ever sat through The House That Vanished or Persecution? What about Sleepwalker or The Shout? In this book we will shine a light on some of the lesser viewed or more forgotten films in the history of the British horror industry. Vampire motorcycles, devil dolls, killer chimps, escaped lunatics, lighthouse horrors, troglodytes in caves, Satanic sacrifice in an antiques shop, demon babies who don't want to be born, teleportation shenanigans cursed by a fly, frozen Nazis, video nasties, zombies in Cornwall, louche vampire cults, necrophile killers, human/plant hybrid horrors, dream demons, murderous Punch & Judy men, killer garden gnomes, outer space terror, murderous priests, mansion mysteries, woodland secrets, ghosts, Christmas splatter fests, babysitters in peril. All this and much more awaits in the British Horror Films That Time Forgot...

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British Horror FilmsThat Time Forgot

Thomas Baxter© Copyright 2024 Thomas Baxter

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ContentsAuthor's NoteThe Appointment (1982)Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984)Bloodstream (1985)Bloody New Year (1987)The Brain (1962)Cold Light of Day (1989)The Comeback (1978)Corruption (1968)Craze (1974)Curse of the Fly (1965)Daemon (1985)Dark Places (1973)Dead End (1980)Devil Doll (1964)Doctor Blood's Coffin (1961)Dominique (1979)Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)Don't Talk To Strange Men (1962)Dream Demon (1988)Exposé (1976)The Fiend (1972)Fright (1971)The Frozen Dead (1966)Full Circle (1977)Funny Man (1994)Haunted (1995)The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002)The House in Nightmare Park (1973)House of Mortal Sin (1976)House of Mystery (1961)The House That Vanished (1973)I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990)I Don't Want to Be Born (1975)Incense for the Damned (1971)Inseminoid (1981)Killer's Moon (1978)Lighthouse (1999)Link (1986)Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1970)The Mutations (1974)Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)Panic (1978)Paperhouse (1988)Persecution (1974)Rawhead Rex (1986)Razor Blade Smile (1998)The Road Builder (1971)Schizo (1976)Scream for Help (1984) Screamtime (1983)The Sender (1982)The She Beast (1966)The Shout (1978)Sleepwalker (1984)Symptoms (1974)Tales That Witness Madness (1972)Tower of Evil (1972)Trog (1970)Underworld (1985)Unman, Wittering and Zigo (1971)Unmasked Part 25 (1988)What Waits Below (1984)The Wicker Tree (2011)Xtro Trilogy (1982-1995)The Young Poisoner's Handbook (1995)Photo CreditAUTHOR'S NOTEEveryone has watched things like The Wicker Man or Shaun of the Dead or Don't Look Now. Many of us have watched all the Amicus and Hammer films. However, there are many films in the long history of British horror which are either obscure or simply somewhat forgotten. Have you, for example, ever watched Unmasked Part 25? Xtro II? How about Screamtime or Bloodstream? Have you ever sat through The House That Vanished or Persecution? What about Sleepwalker or The Shout? In this book we will shine a light on some of the lesser viewed films in the history of the British horror industry. I should point out that this book eschews the cavalcade of British horror films which have been inflicted on us in more recent years. There are so many of these VOD and straight to DVD type films it is nearly impossible to keep track and a large number of them are nigh on unwatchable. That would be a book in and of itself. It is not really applicable to call (to pluck something at random) a film like Strippers vs Werewolves a 'forgotten' horror film in the way that you might call Symptoms a forgotten horror film. Films like Strippers vs Werewolves were forgotten the second they were birthed into existence. Old films are often fascinating for the British horror fan to 'discover' - which assuredly can't be said of newer films in the vein of Strippers vs Werewolves. We will though go up to 2011 in this book in order to discuss the doomed Wicker Man sequel. Some of the films in this book are excellent (Symptoms, Full Circle, Unman, Wittering and Zigo, Paperhouse etc) and some of the films in this book are terrible (I'm looking directly at you Incense for the Damned). Going through them all though, even the bad ones, was a lot of fun. One last thing I should add is that my thoughts on the films which follow are merely of course my own opinion. You may enjoy some of these films more than I did and you may not love all the ones that I loved. It's down down to personal taste. Vampire motorcycles, devil dolls, killer chimps, escaped lunatics, lighthouse horrors, troglodytes in caves, Satanic sacrifice in an antiques shop, demon babies who don't want to be born, teleportation shenanigans cursed by a fly, frozen Nazis, video nasties, zombies in Cornwall, louche vampire cults, necrophile killers, human/plant hybrid horrors, dream demons, murderous Punch & Judy men, killer garden gnomes, outer space terror, murderous priests, mansion mysteries, woodland secrets, ghosts, Christmas splatter fests, babysitters in peril. All this and much more awaits in the British Horror Films That Time Forgot...THE APPOINTMENT (1982)The Appointment was directed Lindsey C. Vickers - who worked on some of the Hammer films and had previously directed a short film called The Lake. The frustrating treatment of The Appointment meant he never directed anything again - which is a shame. The Appointment was financed by the National Coal Board Pension Fund and was proposed as one of a number of television films which would make up a sort of anthology series. The other films did not transpire though and The Appointment did not get a cinema release. It was available on home video for a time but then became a lost film that had been completely forgotten. Thankfully it was recently rediscovered and given a DVD release.The film takes place in the Home Counties. It begins with a schoolgirl named Sandy (Auriol Goldingham) walking home along a footpath by the woods after school. She's part of the school orchestra and carries a violin case. Voices call out to her from the woods, which make her nervous, and all of a sudden she's violently dragged away by an unseen force. Holy cripes. This scene is terrifying. What an opening! These early scenes have a voiceover of a police officer reading the reports on Sandy's disappearance. They soon drop the voiceover though. You think that the film is going to be about the mystery of what happened to Sandy but it isn't at all. The film then changes into a strange and sometimes unfathomable psychological drama. The Appointment is always weirdly compelling though and plays a bit like a very bizarre episode of Hammer House of Mystery & Suspense. What is the main plot of The Appointment? Ian (the great Edward Woodward in a very large pair of glasses) lives in a nice house with his wife Dianna (Jane Merrow) and fourteen year-old daughter Joanne (Samantha Weysom). Joanne seems to have a very close bond with her father and is devastated when she learns he can't attend her school music concert (she’s a talented violinist) because he has to attend some sort of work related meeting many miles away. Joanne throws a giant strop and although Ian feels guilty to miss the recital he decides he has no choice because the work related meeting is very important. That night Ian dreams about his car being attacked by Rottweilers. His wife also has strange dreams. On his long drive to his meeting, Ian seems to keep encountering a lorry with Rottweilers on the side. Meanwhile, we see Joanne talking to something unseen by the (now fenced off) area of the woods where Sandy vanished. What can any of this mean? The Appointment is not one of those films that gives you all the answers so you have to fill in some of the blanks for yourself. It seems pretty obvious though that Joanne has some sort of psychic ability - or dark powers. There is an obvious link between Sandy and Joanne which may (or may not) be significant. The film also appears to suggest that there might be something unhealthy going on between Ian and his daughter in that she is very possessive of him. Ian goes to enter Joanne's room at night but then decides not to. It seems unlikely that this subtext was unwitting or unintentional. Samantha Weysom (who has no acting credits beyond 1991) gives a rather bizarre performance with an odd (and wooden) line delivery but you know what? It actually works for the character. It makes Joanne seem weird.It is sometimes said that this film is not horror and has no gore but that's not true. It has a consistently unsettling atmosphere thanks to the sound effects and score and a mechanic meets a very nasty end at one point. The film jumbles up dreams and reality in an effective way so sometimes you aren't quite sure what is real. Much of the film is just Edward Woodward driving in his car and, blimey, what a journey. It seems as if he drives halfway around the world! I bet part of the appeal for Edward Woodwood in taking this film was that he'd get to sit down for most of it! Why not just take the train? He'd surely get to his destination quicker.The car crash sequence near the end is utterly brilliant. It's sort of ridiculous at first but then becomes terrifying when the car flips up over a precarious drop. The sequence where Ian is all bloodied and dazed and trapped in his car (which is perched in trees!) is both gripping and frightening. There's some nice outdoor location work in the driving scenes. Woodward earns his money with this crash sequence alone. The Appointment is a fascinating thriller/horror that deserved a wider audience. It's a shame really that it didn't get more attention. It would have made a great episode in either of the 1980s Hammer television shows. This film might be a bit slow for some but it is worth sticking with and is one of those films that lingers in the memory for a while after you've seen it. BLOODBATH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH (1984)Bloodbath at the House of Death was directed by Ray Cameron - who wrote the film with Barry Cryer. This was ostensibly a vehicle for the comedian and radio presenter Kenny Everett and made by the creative team from his television show. In the film Kenny is Dr Lukas Manderville, the head of a team of scientists who investigate Headstone Manor, a reputedly haunted residence where dark things once happened. Needless to say there are soon spooky shenanigans aplenty as blood sloshes around and people are bumped off... I can't say I'm the biggest fan of spoof parody horror films. Naturally, you have your gold standard in Young Frankenstein and Shaun of the Dead and ones that were enjoyable enough (like Carry On Screaming and A House in Nightmare Park) but a great many horror spoofs are absolutely tedious to sit through. Sadly, Bloodbath at the House of Death falls firmly into the tedious category. This film fails to mimic the atmosphere and style of the films it is attempting to spoof and it also fails to make you laugh. So you have the worst of all worlds. A badly made horror parody with a terrible script. In this desperately unfunny film the jokes land with an audible thud as tumbleweed blows past in the background. The best part of the film is the massacre at the start because it feels the most like watching a straight horror film from this era. Once that is over with the film falls off a cliff - unless that is you like endless fart jokes and Kenny Everett doing a comedy German accent. Someone will shriek in the film to look out for a bat and then get hit by a cricket bat. These are the sort of jokes you get in Bloodbath at the House of Death. At one point a character investigates the house to the strains of spooky music. When he opens the toilet it turns out Dr Manderville is sitting in there with a cello playing the spooky music. You can see these jokes coming a mile off. It is probably unfair to be too harsh on the shortcomings of Bloodbath at the House of Death because it was clearly made with little money (and probably quickly too) but this is a curiously flat and tame affair for a horror spoof made in the early 1980s at the height of the video nasty era. You always hope that Bloodbath at the House of Death is going to be more outrageous when it comes to gore and sexploitation but it never really is. You have a few bits of nudity and some murders and Pamela Stephenson (as Kenny's nerdy assistant Dr Barbara Coyle) has sex with a ghost but this is the sort of film which thinks the height of comedy and shock is to make Vincent Price swear while presiding over a cult ritual. There are a lot of familiar faces in the film. Don Warrington of Rising Damp, Gareth Hunt of The New Avengers, Cleo Rocos (from Kenny's television show), Graham Stark from the Pink Panther films, and horror icon Vincent Price. Price does his thing in cult robes and I'm sure he had no idea what he was even acting in here. It is rather sad that Bloodbath at the House of Death was the last British horror film that Price ever appeared in. You also get Sheila Steafel, John Fortune, and David Lodge. There is a palpable desperation to some of the performances in the film. You sense that the cast knew this was a stinker as they gamely mug their parts to no avail.Bloodbath at the House of Death spoofs all manner of films to little effect. Slasher films, An American Werewolf in London, Alien, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Wicker Man, E.T. There's a bit of Carry On to the film at times with the innuendo but if you want that you'd be much better off just watching a Carry On film. The film attempts (endlessly) to mine comedy from things like Pamela Stephenson's character having a speech impediment or Kenny's character having a metal leg but none of this is funny. Kenny Everett was a pretty big star in Britain when this film was made and is considered to be something of a genius when it came to radio presenting and radio comedy. His comedy television sketch show was also a very big deal at the time (though unavoidably dated today with its reliance on special effects and scantily clad women). On the evidence of Bloodbath at the House of Death you'd have to say that Kenny's shtick does not translate into a feature length comedy film. Maybe he was just better in smaller doses. If you take something like The House in Nightmare Park (a film we'll discuss in this book), that works better than Bloodbath at the House of Death as a horror spoof because it is well made in the style of the sort of film it is seeking to parody. The House in Nightmare Park also works better as a horror spoof because you have Frankie Howerd at the heart of it. Howerd has enough presence and talent as a screen comic to take command of The House in Nightmare Park and mask some of its flaws. The same can't be said of Kenny Everett in Bloodbath at the House of Death. You wouldn't even miss Dr Manderville if he vanished from this film whereas you WOULD miss Frankie Howerd if his Twelvetrees character suddenly vanished from The House in Nightmare Park. Bloodbath at the House of Death devolves into a series of unfunny comedy sketches (which you could probably show in any order without it making a difference) with terrible editing and wooden performances. By the way, look out for former page 3 girl Debbie Linden as the topless girl at the start. Debbie Linden was in many comedy shows  and also stuff like The Wildcats of St Trinians and Bergerac. She sadly died of a drug overdose at the age of thirty-six. Barry Cryer, the writer of this film, has a cameo at the start as a police officer. Sadly, I'm not even joking when I say that Barry gives one of the best performances in the film! And one more thing, before I move on from Bloodbath at the House of Death, at one point the characters in the spooky house have nothing for dinner but then find a pie which has been conveniently left by someone. I wonder if this inspired a similar moment in the amusing Danny Dyer horror film Severance? BLOODSTREAM (1985)The prolific zero budget filmmaker Michael J. Murphy churned out a great many films - some of which were lost or never finished. His legacy lives and you can even buy a Michael J. Murphy box-set these days - which is worth a look for the scrappy but amusing horror films which lace the Murphy oeuvre. Bloodstream is one such scrappy horror film. These days anyone can make a zero budget film using their phone but Murphy didn't have that luxury back in 1985. He had to do things the hard way. Bloodstream revolves around a struggling filmmaker named Alistair Bailey (Patrick Oliver) who has just made a cheap horror film called (you guessed it) Bloodstream. The film is screened for William King (Mark Wells) - that is to say he watches it on video in his office. King is a distributor of bargain basement video nasties and sexploitation films. He has a moustache and cigar and is rude to everyone. Bailey, who is flat broke, has high hopes for Bloodstream but is dismayed when King tells him that the film is a load of old cobblers unworthy of his time. He tells Bailey to sling his hook. Bailey points out that he is owed money and has a contract but King, the crafty and crooked businessman that he is, has this covered and tells Bailey that the small print of the contract (clause 25 to be precise) stipulates that he can terminate their contract at any time should he deem the film to be a load of cobblers. As he has literally just done that, Bailey, in legal terms, doesn't have a leg to stand on. Mr King did not get where is by being nice. That's for sure. Bailey goes home to his grotty flat to mope and watch horror films. There is a twist because King has swindled him. In reality, King thinks that Bloodstream could be a nice little earner. King distributes the film without telling Bailey - thus keeping the money for himself. However, King's long suffering secretary Nikki (Jacqueline Logan) tells Bailey what has happened and together they devise a grisly horror film themed revenge...Bloodstream is very rough around the edges (which is obviously to be expected) and the acting is terrible (which is also to be expected). The story was apparently inspired by Michael J. Murphy being ripped off by a distributor himself. Making this film must have been rather cathartic you'd imagine. Bailey dresses up as a masked killer from his horror film and basically murders everyone connected to King - including his wife, mistress, brother-in-law, and daughter. King's dog even buys it too - which I didn't appreciate too much. Keep dogs out of these films please. What is most fun about Bloodstream is the little clips from horror films we get when Bailey watches videos at home. Some of these are from Murphy's own films. The mash-up of all this weird stuff is not unlike the frazzled style of the V/H/S anthology franchise which is quite popular today. The 'films within a film' gimmick of Bloodstream is by far its biggest trump card and these little clips are an enjoyably mixed bag of horror tropes. Some are amusing, some are hokey, some are gruesome, some are silly. There's even a smidgen of soft-porn thrown into the blender. There's an Exorcist rip-off with green vomit, zombies, a man ripping his face off, gladiator fights, a hunchback, a werewolf, vampires. My favourite clip by far is where some suave cannibal killer is having dinner with a woman and, when she inquires as to what she is eating, he calmly tells her she is dining on her husband's bottom. Bailey shoots the murders he commits on a camera in order to create the ultimate 'real' horror film. Peeping Tom is obviously the biggest touchstone for Murphy in terms of his concept here. There is a fun amount of gore in Bloodstream and the most graphic death comes when a woman gets a knife down her throat. Having said that though there's a nasty bit in the Exorcist knock-off where the priest ends up with electrodes in his eyes. The basic premise of Bloodstream is fun and while Michael J. Murphy is not Wes Craven and was working here with a budget that wouldn't even stretch to a packet of Wotsits and a can of pop, this film is fun too for the most part. I'm not entirely convinced there is quite enough story and mayhem here to justify a feature length running time and Bloodstream is not without a few dull stretches but it is fascinating and enjoyable nonetheless to be taken back in time to the world of low-budget British horror filmmaking aimed at the video market during the video nasty era. Murphy seems to have a few points to make about the impact of screen violence but the main subtext of this film seems to be that poverty, getting ripped-off, and frustration turn people bad - not cheap horror films. One criticism I would add in relation to the film is that the incessant synth score in Bloodstream makes it very difficult to pick up all of the dialogue. You do find yourself straining at times to decipher what someone has just said. There is a bit of a twist at the end of Bloodstream which you will probably see coming. Murphy has fun in the last shot by paying homage to Psycho. Bloodstream is not by any stretch of the imagination a good film. It is badly made and has terrible acting. But it is fun and quite inventive in its own strange way. The melange of strange images becomes quite compelling in the end and you admire the plucky effort of everyone involved. Murphy, before he sadly passed away, did a new version of this in which the dubbing of the actors was improved. Murphy also redubbed the part of the sleazy distributor character himself. Bloodstream is easy to stream these days so worth a look if you are curious. In fact, the last time I checked you could even watch this on YouTube. BLOODY NEW YEAR (1987)Bloody New Year (aka Time Warp Terror) was directed by Norman J. Warren and written by Frazer Pearce. Warren is best known for films like Prey and maybe Inseminoid. Bloody New Year, which was the last feature length film Warren made, is fairly obscure by comparison although it has appeared on Talking Pictures quite recently. This film was not a happy experience for Norman J. Warren. He complained that the producer had no interest in horror films and was also unhappy about the musical score (featuring songs by Magnus and Chas Cronk's band Cry No More). If his later interviews are anything to go by, Warren had pretty much disowned Bloody New Year and didn't think too much of it at all. Anyway, what is the plot of this film? That's a very good question. A group of teenagers (all of whom, in traditional horror film fashion, look a bit long in the tooth to be teenagers) are at the seaside and rescue an American tourist named Carol - who is being pestered by thugs. To escape, the group end up, as you do, taking to a boat and aimlessly drifting out into deep water. The gang run ashore on a place named Grand Island. On the island, which seems devoid of people, they find a hotel. Things become stranger yet because the hotel is empty. Not only that but the hotel seems to be frozen in time. Everything in the hotel is in the style of the 1950s. Despite it being the middle of summer the hotel is full of New year's Eve banners and decorations. Having an empty hotel all to yourself doesn't sound too bad but things quickly go pear shaped for our suspiciously mature looking teenagers. Apparitions, zombies, disembodied voices, snowstorms. They should have just stayed at the seaside and played Out Run in the arcade. You could probably describe Bloody New Year as something of a missed opportunity if you were being very generous. It feels like Warren just wanted to make a crazy horror film in a spooky location but a horror film with a big concept. A sort of Evil Dead meets The Shining meets The Twilight Zone. The frozen time concept is quite interesting though hardly original. Rod Serling's Twilight Zone would have had this concept done and dusted in twenty-five minutes. Bloody New Year, unlike The Twilight Zone, has ninety-three minutes to fill and plainly struggles to do this. We take a bit too long to reach the spooky hotel section of the story if you ask me. The film that Bloody New Year seems most inspired by is Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. The Beyond, like Bloody New Year, is incoherent and eccentric, but it is better directed, has a better cast, and is more fun to return to and watch again. The lack of recognisable names in the cast of Bloody New Year is perhaps one explanation for why the acting is hit or miss, well, mainly miss if we are being honest. The only person I recognised was Mark Powley as Rick. Powley played P.C Melvin in 88 episodes of The Bill. Suzy Aitchison, who plays Lesley, is the daughter of June Whitfield and has appeared in many comedy shows. The acting in this film is pretty terrible if truth be told. There is a slapdash and amateurish quality to Bloody New Year - especially in its early scenes. This is probably not surprising given that it had a minuscule budget of £60,000. The lack of a budget leads to some very poor practical effects at times. The film does perk up when the crazy hotel shenanigans kick in and there are some moments of gore and one or two inventive scenes. The hotel cinema (which is showing Fiend Without a Face) having someone walk through the screen (Purple Rose of Cairo style) to murder a character is quite a nice touch. Bloody New Year bites off a bit more than it can chew in the end with all the crazy horror stuff at the hotel. It doesn't have the budget, competence, or cast to pull off the rollercoaster sort of horror film it wants to be. While parts of the film are quite diverting there isn't much atmosphere so it rings a bit hollow ultimately. The characters are rather bland too so it is difficult to invest in them very much. One disappointing aspect to the film is that Norman J. Warren had intended it to be much bloodier but had to make it tamer to get a lower certificate. Bloody New Year may have mitigated a few more of its obvious flaws if it had a lot more gore and some more memorable deaths than the ones we get in the film. It is difficult to be too harsh about a film made for sixty grand over three odd weeks but Bloody New Year never quite clicks for me - despite its promising premise. Bloody New Year is one of those films that you want to like more than you actually do. The shoestring budget is all too apparent and the cast are fairly hopeless. I'm sure this film must have fans though so it might be worth a go if you've never seen it - purely for Norman J. Warren completest purposes. The one thing about the film I did like was the frozen time concept because I love films and television shows where characters are trapped somewhere and whatever they do they can't leave. Bloody New Year was shot in Barry Island and even made some use of the Butlin's camp (which closed in 1996) there. So while this might not be a very good film it did make a small piece of cinema history because it's hard to imagine any other horror films were ever shot at Butlin's Barry Island. By the way, the building used as the hotel in the film is Friar's Point House, Paget Road, Barry Island. The property was first built in 1858 by Francis Crawshay. THE BRAIN (1962)The Brain was directed by Freddie Francis and based on Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak. The Brain was the third film adaptation of this story (after 1944's The Lady and the Monster and 1953's Donovan's Brain) so this particular type of story (while not approaching Monkey's Paw levels) was already becoming a staple for horror filmmakers. This was actually the first horror film that the great Freddie Francis directed. In the years to come he would direct another twenty-seven billion of them. You could probably call The Brain something of a forgotten film in that few people ever watched it and even those who did probably forgot about it quite quickly. This is one of those films that rarely - if ever - got shown on television. Even if it had been on the telly a lot I don't think The Brain would have built up much of a following among vintage horror fans. If you are looking for lurid brain in a jar capers here you might disappointed. For most of its running time The Brain doesn't feel much like a horror film - despite the well worn concept which underpins the story. In the film, scientist Dr Peter Corrie (Peter van Eyck) has been conducting experiments on how to keep a brain alive after death. He has an unexpected chance to test this on a human being when wealthy businessman Martin Holt (Jeremy Spenser) is seriously injured in a plane crash. Dr Corrie manages to remove the brain before Holt dies and keeps it in a chemical tank. The brain proves to be a lot more active and lively than he had anticipated. Not only that but Holt's brain begins to exert a hypnotic mental control over Dr Corrie. Holt's brain, with Dr Corrie under his control, seems intent on trying to find if the plane crash was a murder...This film is unavoidably dated today but it is modestly watchable after a rather dull early section of Dr Corrie and his colleague Dr Shears in the lab. I can't say though that I ever found The Brain to be an especially gripping or interesting film. It seems to have its fans but you wouldn't call this some lost forgotten gemstone in the British horror film landscape. There isn't much scope to the film and most of it plays out in some fairly constrictive interior sets and rooms. This is quite a dreary looking film that doesn't have a huge amount of panache about it. There isn't much in The Brain that lodges in the memory and stands out too much. I suppose, as far as old horror films go, you would probably describe this as something of a potboiler. The same year that The Brain came out saw the release of horror films like the trippy Carnival of Souls and the colourful Tales of Terror so even in 1962 The Brain was veering dangerously towards old hat territory. Dr Shears is played by Bernard Lee and this film came out the same year that Lee secured his most famous role - that of M in the James Bond franchise. Bernard Lee was pretty good in horror films because he was one of those actors where you could give him the most ridiculous dialogue safe in the knowledge that he would play it straight and bring a modicum of (usually much needed) gravitas to your film. The Brain turns into more of a crime mystery than anything in the end and plays a bit like a middling episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This is not the most exciting film in the world and clearly didn't have much of a budget (look at that plane sequence) but it does at least have a decent sense of atmosphere. How much you enjoy The Brain will probably depend on how much you enjoy old crime/thriller melodramas. Anne Heywood, already well established by now, is the female lead and the German actor Peter van Eyck brings a committed performance to the film as Dr Corrie. There are a couple of familiar faces in small roles in the film. Bryan Pringle, who I always remember as the miserable pub landlord in the second series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, as a dance hall MC and Patsy Rowlands, several years before she became a Carry On regular, in an uncredited part as a woman at a dance. You'll recognise John Junkin in a very small part and also Allan Cuthbertson. Allan Cuthbertson was in many things but his most famous role was that of the posh colonel with a twitch in the Gourmet Night episode of Fawlty Towers. I think a problem with The Brain is that you go into it expecting more science fiction and horror scenes than you actually get and so you sort of have to adjust and accept this film is not going in that direction of shocks and copious scenes of a brain with electrodes in a goldfish bowl. The thriller it devolves into is not without its rewards but it isn't something that isn't going to captivate an audience very much or have them praising this fairly forgettable film to the rafters. The Brain is probably not something you will feel compelled to return to again but it is a piece of horror history with the Freddie Francis connection. Given that this was his first horror film The Brain is probably worth at least one watch purely for historic horror reasons alone. Just don't expect too much traditional horror though because The Brain is more of a crime mystery than anything. COLD LIGHT OF DAY (1989)There have been endless biopics about serial killers in film and on television and countless films that take inspiration from real life killers. The horror genre is naturally something that lends itself to inspiration from grisly real life killers. These serial killer inspired productions run the full spectrum from prime time prestige TV to grubby exploitation or straight to DVD clunkers. Cold Light of Day was directed by Fhiona-Louise - who was only twenty-one when she made this. I gather she was studying acting at the time. Cold Light of Day began as a short film but was expanded into an eighty minute feature. Cold Light of Day is a 16mm film based on the crimes of the serial killer Dennis Nilsen. This is one of the most obscure British horror films ever made. Dennis Nilsen was from Aberdeenshire in Scotland and later moved to London. He was in the army catering corps when he was young and always tormented by the fact that he was gay. He was actually a police officer too for a short period in the early 1970s. Nilsen eventually confessed to murdering fifteen men and said he tried to kill others. His spree took place from 1978 to 1983. At the time he was a civil servant and worked in a Job Centre in central London. The victims were usually gay men of no fixed abode. He would often strangle the victims while they were asleep and sometimes drowned them in the bath. There was necrophilia too because that was Nilsen's thing. What made Nilsen so disturbing was the way he came across as completely calm and highly articulate and thoughtful in interviews. If you met him you would have no idea that he was so dangerous. Dennis Nilsen, once they decomposed, chopped up his victims and stuffed them in the floorboards of his flat. One can only imagine how that place must have smelled. On one occasion he used a patch of communal grass out the back of his building to burn some victims on a bonfire. Nilsen had to throw some tyres onto the bonfire in a desperate attempt to mask the odour of burning flesh and organs. Nilsen would bathe the bodies of his victims in the bath after he had killed them. Dennis Nilsen was captured because a plumbing company was called out to unblock the drain outside his building. Nilsen had been trying to flush body parts and bones down the toilet. Tests on the bones and remains blocking the drain found that they were human and the drainpipe led directly to Nilsen's flat. When the police searched Nilsen's flat they encountered a nightmarish scene. Nilsen had body parts and torsos hidden all over the place. He even had bags containing the heads of some of his victims. Nilsen killed his victims because he was frightened they would leave him. This was more or less the same explanation the American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (also a keen necrophile) later gave for his own crimes. Serial killers are, by their very nature, all odd, but even by the standards of serial killers Dennis Nilsen was pretty weird. A number of notorious serial killers have indulged in necrophilia but Nilsen took this grisly hobby to absurd lengths. Nilsen would put a dead body in a chair next to him and watch television with it. He would talk to dead people as if they were still alive. Nilsen would even sit down with a corpse and have dinner with it. Nilsen did this for about five years before he essentially doomed himself by blocking up his drain with human flesh. If he'd been the villain in an episode of Columbo, Nilsen would have posed no challenge whatsoever to the raincoated detective. Hollywood often depicts serial killers as elusive criminal masterminds who are always two steps ahead of the police. The reality is very different. Many serial killers are of average or below average intelligence and not exactly impossible to catch. Dennis Nilsen was definitely no criminal mastermind. In fact, Nilsen didn't really seem to care whether he would be caught or not. His actions strongly suggest that he wanted to be captured in the end.