Recreating the BBC Horror Double Bills

In my humble opinion, for we are Legion, if it's a tosser between doing it or not doing it, it's gorra be do it. We need a porpoise in this insignificant life of mine. What say the Soothmakers?

Any ideas on doing the 1975 season....?

Confirmation that that double bill was part of the season: https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/32cf79fa9ac444c98428e65125d7358d

Something seems to have gone a bit wrong with the Genome listing there though. See if you can spot the mistake...

It's a really mixed season, with the middle four films not being horror at all.

Wasn't there always some doubt as to whether or not ONE MILLION B.C. (or MAN AND HIS MATE as "we" know it) plus the silent NOAH'S ARK actually constituted part of the '75 season? Slap bang in the middle, but they don't appear on all lists. Maybe they weren't billed that weekend as "Fantastic Double Bill" in the Radio Times... Where is that man when we need him?

But yes sir, I would love to watch all those again. I might not have actually seen the Vic Mature lizard epic since 1975. And certainly not NOAH'S ARK. As regards THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI, there are so many different tints and music scores of that one out there that I'm not sure if I've rewatched the "right" one since. I don't think I've seen THE TELL TALE HEART since then either, or THE MAZE.

I think my list would look something like this:

1. Night of the Demon

2. The Beast Must Die

3. Legend of the Werewolf

4. From Beyond the Grave

5.The Ghoul

6. Dr. Terror's House of Horrors

7. Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter

8. The Beast with Five Fingers

9. Curse of the Werewolf

10. Paranoiac

11. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

12. Chamber of Horrors

13. The Bat

14. Night of the Lepus

15. The Mad Ghoul

16. The Devil Doll (1936)

17. The Skull

18. Tower of London

19. Daughters of Satan

And mal coincides with me on two titles! DR T in 5th place, and PARANOIAC in 8th! Don't forget - it's up to you individually to note and corralate (sp?) the snaps and bingos of other viewers. I'm only snapping and bingoing my own coincidences. Stay tuned, it can only get better.

But as an "interesting" global aside, looking at the bills and remembering my reaction to them, I can almost trace my childhood going into adolescence and later dotage. The '75 season (which we haven't covered - yet) was mind-blowing for me as a 14-15 year old. I was absolutely amazed by the silent CALIGARI, plus QUATERMASS II, THE TELL TALE HEART... The '76 season was stunning as well, so much so that I had my first and only published works eh published about the films in a fanzine. Michael Stotter's... Horror Appreciation Society? FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN! I was Marty Scorsese even before he was!

The '77 season... the big long Drac, Frank and friends... Loved them all. The '78 season didn't quite do the same for me. KING KONG then SUPERBEAST? My world was falling apart. I was 16-17 and had probably started boozing, looking for fleshy pleasures away from the telly...

The '79 season - We watched that just last year! I was still obsessed by the synthetic flesh of Blackpool's Pleasure Beach. I missed DR X because of her. But I got back on the rails shortly afterwards. And despite having said that, and despite 1980 being the year that the doublers made the cover of the Radio Times, I was once more slightly distracted from the films at the time - I can't recall why. Maybe it was that transvestite surprise in Calella. It was an odd season that one, the one we just watched.

1981 will be next year if we're still here. All those Val Luton-Bus films totally rekindled my love for those things. But that's another past, waiting to be told - in the future.

Hey man Crazy Man, I also positively rated the '36 DEVIL DOLL - in fact we both put it in 7th place. Our other bingo was NIGHT OF THE LEPUS in 17th! LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF went up considerably for you this time. Same with me - in fact I put it in 4th place compared to your 6th. The real surprise though for me - and everyone else in the world - was THE MAD GHOUL. 3rd place in my list!

Still hundreds of results to come in before we can start talking about tendencies.

Right then, after having thought out a complicated points system to review this season's fillums, I have decided to abandon the idea and just do a list of my personal best to worst. This is very similar to what CMM published on July 5, the difference now being that we have now seen (most of) the films recently. How much did you enjoy them? The truly interesting part of the game is that you can't rate two films equally. Nineteen films, nineteen degrees of enjoyabilty. Funny to see that CMM put THE BAT as the worst of the lot, going on memory. It's my worst of the lot too, below NIGHT OF THE LEPUS and DAUGHTERS OF SATAN. But without any more fannying around, I give you -

1) THE SKULL

2) NIGHT OF THE DEMON

3) THE MAD GHOUL

4) LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF

5) DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS

6) CAPTAIN KRONOS VAMPIRE HUNTER

7) THE DEVIL-DOLL

8) PARANOIAC

9) THE GHOUL

10) THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS

11) TOWER OF LONDON (39)

12) CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF

13) FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

14) THE BEAST MUST DIE

15) THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS

16) CHAMBER OF HORRORS

17) NIGHT OF THE LEPUS

18) DAUGHTERS OF SATAN

19) THE BAT

I mistookably watched the '62 TOWER OF LONDON instead of the right old one. That would come in quite high up the list, around the 5-and-a-half mark. CMM may choose to insert it wherever he likes, and moodie can do the same with the '64 Shonty DEVIL DOLL. I didn't see the correct DEVIL-DOLL this year, but my rating is based on a vague memory of a rabbit I did about it on Ye Olde Bored.

I can see gallons of giggles and fun to be had comparing ratings here. Anyone else put THE SKULL at the top and THE BAT at the bottom? Just think of the excitement when we see that someone has given the same rating for some films around the middle of the chart! In my case, if someone else gives a 12 to CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, I'll be literally dancing on the ceiling with amazement.

Let the fun commence!

Tower Of London (1962)

If this had been made in colour, as was intended before the penny pinching producer decided it would be shot in B/W to save money, it would probably be as well regarded as the Corman/Price/Poe cycle of films.

It's an engaging and enjoyable low brow mix of Richard III and Macbeth, with Price in fine fettle in another 'tormented nobleman' role heading a larger cast than was usual in his AIP films of the time. Daniel Haller does his customary magic in upping production values on a budget (plus a nice touch to add slime to the walls of the underground passages) and there's an effective score alternating between regal and courtly and creepy and sinister, which does wonders in heightening the effect of various scenes. The horror content is considerably greater than in the 1939 film, with ghastly tortures, ghostly manifestations and sorcery galore. The bloody weals on the back of Mistress Shaw after being whipped and her torment on the rack made me squirm and the rat-in-the-box punishment must have made many a stomach turn. The mid section of the film is fairly suspensefully handled. It all moves along at a good lick and the pace never flags. Aussie genre regular Michael Pate is Price's confederate in treason, essaying a sort of reprise of his evil aristo from The Black Castle (1952) in which he played alongside Karloff - thirty years later he'd appear in maestro of madness Philipe Mora's The Return Of Captain Invincible starring Christopher Lee.

The Beast Must Die (1974)

Amicus' last horror outing was one of their most entertaining genre efforts. Luckily for me, I never remember the identity of the werewolf between viewings - same with Howling V: The Rebirth (1989) which follows a similar plotline. Having recently seen Marlene Clark's terrific work in Lord Shango (1975) during my Voodoo Cinema season, I felt it was a shame she didn't get more to do here. When the 'twist ending' came I felt perplexed - what do you mean it wasn't any of the guests after all? And he'd never even suspected? But I'd forgotten (again) that the real twist was that there were two werewolves. Even when Cushing explained I still couldn't remember who the real culprit was apart from knowing it wasn't him. For some reason I'd always suspected it would turn out to be the other girl. Maybe because of all the 'hormone' business. Anyway, it's all very silly but enjoyable with it. I do like Anton Diffring and he's very good in this. The Cush plays it all in deadly earnest and I was glad to see he actually had much more screen time than I'd remembered. Poor old Charles Gray on the other hand didn't get much of a look in. Calvin Lockhart was just sort of there, not very good but not very bad. He were alright. A couple of things I noticed - the 'suspense music' is from the 'Vampire' segment in the previous year's Vault Of Horror (and probably some other Amicus stuff) and I recognised the bridge and riverside shack from Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD.

I have rather shot myself in the foot over the last couple of weeks by not watching two films around the midnight hour....if the whole idea was to recreate the experience of forty years ago. So this morning I watched Tower of London in instalments while cooking the lunch, leaving TBMD for siesta time.

I'll be late with my rabbits, too. We've just been lured out of confinement by some mates to go out for snifters and fodder.

The Skull (1965)

Well, like Jagger and co, I tried and I tried and I tried and the result was always the same. Can’t get no satisfaction from this film.

While I fully recognise all its merits, of which it has plenty, as you others have mentioned, (and I’m a country member of the Freddie Francis fan club), the overiding problem is that it just doesn’t add up to anything much at all. I’m sorry, Jerry, but there it is. I had to watch in two parts, because after forty minutes I’d already had enough. I felt no interest in, or empathy for, Maitland and zero concern for the fate of his barely glimpsed, carboard cut-out wife. The Skull-O-Vision sequences were just as daft as when FF repeated the trick in The Creeping Flesh. The only flicker of interest came with the spectacular demise of the seedy landlord and spotting the ‘Damballah’ mask that Marco must have stolen from Biff Bailey and sold to Maitland. Luckily Max'n'Milton quickly returned to the anthology format.

As I dropped off in the last five minutes of TOL (I know I shouldn't watch films in bed) and finished it this a.m. I haven't had time to watch The Skull yet. And now I have to go and make the missus happy (it's about time you cut that bloody grass!) so my musings will be delayed. Sorry for the inconvenience, I know how you're all waiting with bated breath.

WRONG RABBIT OF LONDON

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I remember enjoying this in 1980, at least I thought it was 1980. It wasn't. It was in February 1976 - Forty-four and a half years ago, when absolutely everything horrible was glorious. Surely today, as a jaded old curmudgeon, I would see it as the cheap bollox serious people say it is....

And to that I say, "A pox on them!", because Corman's admittedly cheap n' cheerful semi-remake of the one I "should" have watched is wonderful. It's definitely got that Corman stamp. Most of the usual crew is there, including Daniel Haller, and I'm very proud to say that I'd have known it was a Corman film even if I didn't know it. What an auteur he was, except on the ones he handed over to other crew and cast members.

So, although this was shot in the States, a lot of it looks like it could have come straight out of MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH or, looking back, PIT AND THE PENDULUM - despite the black n' white photography. And Corman has a very particular way of building up to the climax of a scene, which is very often just a slow tracking shot to a knowing expression on a character's face. He even almost does the obligatory dream sequence, but cuts it short.

I haven't seen The Right Tower, but I think that this one probably accentuates the horror aspect over the historical, probably to the film's advantage. There's a late battle scene though, which is actually from the '39 film. This one concentrates on murder, madness and torture though, so we already have more than a hint of USHER, PIT and MASQUE. And plenty of ghosts turn up to torture Vincent Price's conscience. His descent into madness is the core of the film, and it must be said that he's bloody awful in it. I think that his Richard III in THEATRE OF BLOOD was less hammy than this. Bloody awful acting, and just right.

One more thing I want to mention about this production - the extraordinarily strong music score. Corman's films of the period usually had good scores, but this one is rather unusual and something of an enigma. It was written by Michael Andersen, who studied under Miklós Rózsa but was much more productive doing concert music, symphonies and chamber pieces. Here his score is very much cut from the same cloth as any of the big-budget Hollywood epics scored by Rózsa himself. How could Andersen write all that in such a short time, and have it played by such a seemingly large orchestra? Andersen is credited as Music Director only... Could his score have been patched together from his cod-Rózsa library cues? Gene Corman was in charge of post-production, and Roger remembers very little about it, but I want to know.

So then, WRONG RABBIT OF LONDON - Absolutely splendid!

Tower Of London (1939). It's not a horror film per se and it's not Shakespeare, but it is an endearingly old fashioned pot-pourri of historical half truths, cinematic clichés and Hollywood spectacle. If you took this and added sex, gore, grime, celebrity cameos and eighty years you'd get Game Of Thrones or The Last Kingdom. Man Is the Monster.

I enjoyed the performances of Baz R, Boz K and Vinnie the P, and had to laugh at the Phibes-esque burning of the dolls after the removal of each of Richard's victims. Some of the broad(s') American accents ( the Queen and Lady Alice) were annoyingly distracting and the chimney sweep shennanigans a bit tiresome. But the plotting and planning and conspiring and conniving scenes are what it's all about and the plot thickens at the pace of quick setting cement - in fact, it belts along so much that it seems like much of the action takes place over the course of a few months instead of one and a half decades. The ultimately lethal drinking contest between Baz and Vinnie is a highlight and a nicely macabre detail is Richard's armour customised to accomodate his hump.

We tried. We got about 30 minutes into the 'Tower of Boredom'. before we realised that there were other things we could be doing with our Saturday night.

Next week there's only one film scheduled for some unfathomable reason (money?) so I propose to watch my own double bill - the Corman remake of Tower Of London followed by The Yeast Must Rise.

Jeezo, so the last time I'd seen the wrong Tower was apparently in February 1976!

Feckit! I watched the wrong Tower! Just as well it was brilliant. I'm not mentally prepared for the right Tower now. Been looking forward to THE SKULL (adequate quality on DailyMotion, and not pan n' scan), so I'll probably do my rabbits on the wrong Tower, and I hope the right Skull. That's the one with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee having their first snooker lesson, isn't it?

What's the colour remake? I'm watching the black and white remake.

An early viewing of Tower of London for me this weekend as there's football on when I'd normally be watching. I've no idea what Universal thought they were doing here. They look to have spent a fair bit on the film. With their prescient casting of Vincent Price alongside Rathbone and Karloff they assembled a great horror cast. But instead of making a horror film they made a yea verily, cod historical with some questionable supporting performances and bad dialogue. The DVD print I watched (in the Boris Karloff Collection) is so dark in the climactic battle scenes that it's hard to tell what happened to Basil and Boris. I'll say this for it though, it's a hell of a lot better than the colour remake.

Dunno why everything is underlined after I typed the archive thing... Even edited it out and it's still all underlined.

It's nearly tomorrow! I was just checking my "safe" options for watching the doubler (no DVDs of them on my shelf). Of the three main numbskull sites that dunderheids use and watch "on the computer", TOWER OF LONDON was, I had noted, only available on THAT ARCHIVE PLACE. Glad I checked, because now it isn't. But it is on DailyMotion. I think it's inferior visually to the YouTube upload (a fairly recent addition), but be careful - it's in a language a dinnae unnerston at all. THE SKULL is up too on DM, fairly fuzzy but not too bad.

Memories - Loved TOWER OF LONDON in 1980. Haven't seen it since.

Loved THE SKULL in about 1973, "liked" it in 1980, and LOVED it again about three years ago when it was up in a crisp copy on YT.

Your mammaries and expectations?

Cripes! I said that Roy Hudd was the Carry On Comedy in LEG END. It was Ron Moody. Was Roy Hudd in it? Roy Castle was, I know that. Rod Hull wasn't, or was he?

I just checked. Roy Hudd wasn't in it, Ron Moody was, Rod Hull wasn't, Roy Castle was. I shall not edit my original post. May it serve as a warning as to what might eventually happen to us all.

The Bat ... is a dog. I imagine septuagenarian director Crane Wilbur like some bored actor manager unenthusiastically dragging a hoary old chestnut of a play that should have been retired decades before through the provinces only this time he's stuck a camera in front of it and hoped for the best. Similarly, Agnes Moorehead is pushing 60 here and might as well have been sleepwalking through her role for 20-odd years. None of the rest of the performances are much good and Vinnie is totally wasted. It all looks really cheap and the jazz music over the titles is bewilderingly inappropriate. The worst thing though is the material itself. This sort of crime melodrama with old dark house overtones had been so done to death by the mid thirties, whether featuring crazed human cats, bats or gorillas, that the only way to do them was as pastiche or outright comedy. The Bob Hope version of The Cat and the Canary was released 20 years before The Bat tries to play the genre straight again. Unfortunately, the only entertainment I got out of it was unintentional, the scenes with the detective unsubtly hinting to the audience that Vinnie is the Bat feeling they could have been taken from an episode of Police Squad! or some other ZAZ spoof that pushed the material and performances only one notch further.

Legend of the Werewolf - see my comments here https://darrellpbuxton.wixsite.com/passthemarmalade/forum/the-films-1970s/legend-of-the-werewolf regarding the "making of" book and a few choice snippets that will be of interest. I'm glad to see some love for this movie, which I've always thoroughly enjoyed, much more so than CotW. It works well as a low-budget monster movie but it's Cushing who is the chief delight here. It's great to see him getting so much screen time and having the chance to put in a bit of comedy, such as in the brothel scene. I would have loved a whole series of Paul Cataflanque supernatural investigations. David Rintoul hasn't had many high-profile screen roles, although he did play the lead in the '90s version of Doctor Finlay. I was fortunate enough to see him in a production of Richard II opposite the great Derek Jacobi in the title role a long time ago and it's probably the best Shakespeare I've seen. Add me to the list of people who crave a BD of this.

And you are both spot on about the music, which I forgot to mention - I plead keyboard fatigue.

Legend Of The Werewolf (1975) Going Underground!

It’s no secret to anybody I’ve told before that I find most of Freddie Francis’ films more engaging than most of Terence Fisher’s. Here’s another case in point. Despite the cheap and tawdry look of the film (shot ‘on location and at Pinewood Studios’and I’m guessing the location was Black Park rather than Paris), there’s something about this one that helps it transcend the rather basic plot and leave Fisher’s Curse Of The Werewolf as an also-ran.

A similar comparison for me is John Gilling’s The Mummy’s Shroud, which has more going for it than Fisher’s original (notwithstanding Cushing and Lee). Both TMS and LOTW share the major drawback of starting with cringeworthily poor first acts, but once the story proper kicks in the rest is compellingly watchable despite budgetary constraints and some dodgy performances (David Buck in the former, Lynn Dalby as Christine in this).

For his second stab at the werewolf story (or reworking of the first) Anthony Hinds’ writing seems to have come a fair way in the 14 years since his Hammer screenplay. His characters seem more rounded, the story progression more cohesive, the period setting realistically rougher and with a touch more social commentary.

The previous times I’d viewed I always found Ron Moody’s portrayal rather buffoonishly exaggerated and one-note, whereas now I got an Albert Steptoe vibe – a sordid, sleazy old man but with an underlying pathos and vulnerability. Cushing is urbane, charming, resourceful and also pissed off with his superiors’ constant interfering and questionable motivations (and his despairing cry of ‘You fools! Blundering idiots! Must you always kill?’inevitably recalls similar laments from Baron Frankenstein). Marjorie Yates as the Madame is fairly credible in the usually overplayed ‘tart-with-a-heart’ role and the whole film reeks of poverty, misery, immorality, cruelty, hypocrisy, injustice and ultimately tragedy. All elements to be found in COTW to be sure, but somehow better handled here. The scene in which Étoile was forced to bash the brains out of the wolves was pretty hard to watch.

LOTW also easily beats COTW in the action stakes, with a satisfyingly high number of werewolf attacks and substantial body count. The sewers provide an atmospheric setting for a few scenes and the finale. The make up and transformation scenes are well done, although David Rintoul in human guise tends to be a bit insipid, certainly lacking the charisma of Oliver Reed. But then again, who doesn’t? Roy Castle’s small role adds a touch of black humour and helps pad out the running time.

Imagine if Hinds had written a third draft, bringing together the best from Curse and Legend. That could have been the dog's bollocks.

Summing up this weekend's event, my opinion of The Bat remains unchanged, while Legend Of The Werewolf has gone up slightly in my estimation. And would probably go up further if we ever get to see a decent print.

Not much love for The Bat then. It probably helped that I went in with zero expectations and must have been in just the right mood to enjoy an 'old dark house' style comedy, but I genuinely thought it was a fun little film, well written and acted. I don't know if I ever need to see it again, mind you, but I was expecting it to be a slog, and it wasn't.

THE BAT'S RABBIT

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I have to say that I had completely the opposite reaction to moodie's (ah, and now I see it, similar to CMM's). I found this to be stressfully irritating. It must have looked creaky and dated even in 1959. So a bunch of annoying old lesbian spinsters wander or just stand around in an old house and scream at absolutely everything (a noise, a mouse, the wind, a suit of armour, a killer). They're not all old lesbian spinsters actually. Three of them are, one of the younger ones is wee and dumpy, and there's even a good looking one - who's recently married and has therefore been shagged correctly. As for the others, no chance. In fact this film was so annoying that I can only imagine it appealing to old lesbians and people who get a thrill out of watching Angela Lansbury bugging the tits off everybody in Murder She Wrote. Moodie, do you identify with any of those groups?

Actually, there are a few positive aspects. Vincent Price is in it. There's one genuine chill (the only thing about the film which I remembered from 1980) when The Bat comes down the stairs quickly behind Wee Dumpy and kills her. The YouTube upload was very nice, bringing out one or two nicely photographed compositions of churrasco oscuro. And I'm now vaguely interested in seeing the earlier versions, just to see how they compare.

Nah, I think this has been the worst in a pretty variable bunch of doublers so far. I rate it lower than DAUGHTERS OF STAN.

The Bat (1959). Very noticeably based on a stage play, this overly talky and flatly made murder mystery was already antiquated in the 1950s. The plot was contrived and at the same time insipidly basic. There were no thrills, chills or suspense, and the culprit was obvious from the start. There are plenty more entertaining Old Dark House mystery/comedy films than this - eg The Bat Whispers (1930) with its dynamic, experimental cinematography, The Rogue's Tavern ( 1936) combining a real mystery with some enjoyable crosstalk routines, The Ghost Walks (1934) cleverly twisting the traditional formula and turning the expected into the unpredictable, Behind The Mask (1932) with a particularly sadistic mystery villain portrayed by Edward Van Sloan....Unfortunately The Bat offers none of these elements nor anything else of particular note.

Just about to start on the old Bat (Agnes Moorhead).

My copy of The Bat is on triple DVD titled '3 Classic Horrors Of The Silver Screen vol 3' with Little Shop Of Horrors and Bride Of The Monster. I suspect /half recall that it's the also ran of this particular trio.

My copy of Legend Of The Werewolf is on a bootleg DVD-R that someone sent me. I can't remember what I'd done to them.

I have nothing more to say about Night Of The Leapers. Maybe if they'd got Gerry Anderson to make it....

And those stupid little kids responsible for all the death and destruction should have had all their pocket money confiscated for the next twenty years. So much for "a precocious interest in science". Still, I bet the Chinese put them up to it.

I think I even sent one to that place where thee'n'me got banned from. You know the one where saddoes post selfies with old has-beens. And Veronica Carlson.

And I've got pictures.

All of us at the same time.

Well, we did spènd the night together.

Part 2. We only had breakfast, we didn't spend the night together.

Night Of The Lepus.

So how did this stand the test of time (43 years since I last saw it)?

It didn't. Maybe I wasn't in the mood or too sober or preoccupied with other things or too old etc, but I'm sure I thought it was a real hoot when we saw it at the School Film Club in 1977. Of course, Stuart Whitman was the Nick Cage of his generation and what's more the whole thing felt like a TV Movie Of The Week. And can you imagine everyone in a drive in following a lone cop's command to line up their cars in order to stop 'a herd of killer rabbits'? Still in 1972 there was still some respect for authority I guess, unlike today's 'I have the right not to wear a facemask and you can't make me'.

Incidentally I once had breakfast with Janet Leigh.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.

I only remembered the NY rampage and the rollercoaster finale, so it was a pleasant surprise (and the best bit of the whole film) to have the prelude set in the Arctic wastes for the creatively named "Operation Experiment". There's a bit of an atmospheric The Thing vibe, some tension and a surprisingly fast sighting of the Beast. Then the tedious, disbelieving authorities/ romantic subplot set off on their predictable course, only enlivened sporadically by some rather fun stop motion monster action. Otherwise the characters are bland and unmemorable and the 'military machine rumbling into action' unengaging (though well enough staged) with the climax being the most eventful ten minutes. I felt rather sorry for the Beastie. Apart from that, two things struck me; 1 platonic kissing on the mouth was still not taboo among Anglo Saxons, (it was unextraordinary even in the same family when I were a lad); 2 one of the fellows on board the ship lowering the diving bell seemed to have a plastic /Auton looking face.

Oh, and it was OK for filmakers to feed an octopus to a shark to get an 'action scene'.

I haven't read this week's rabbits because I fell asleep twenty minutes into TBF20kF. I woke up 38 minutes into NOTL just to switch off the tablet. Now I'm going to sit under the vine with a cuppa ( or possibly a glassa), a fresh pack of Luckies and watch them both. If I find myself nodding off ( digestion and all that) I'll take a dive dive dive in the pool to freshen up. My rabbits should be among you by eventide.

NIGHT OF THE RABBITS' RABBIT

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And so last night came to pass and I was shunted off to "the computer room" to watch this. No big telly, no big bed, but plenty of wine. This was a monumental occasion for me, because I had missed it 40 years ago, being in Calella getting pished and leaping from the twelfth-floor balcony onto the concrete pavement below time and time again. I never did hit the swimming pool from that distance. Besides, it was at the other side of the hotel. But I digress.

The film opens with some documentary footage of the over-population of rabbits since the days of black and white, all intoned earnestly by a scientific type. It was extremely Pythonesque. In fact, every time the word "rabbit" or "rabbits" was spoken throughout the film (about five billion times) I fell on the floor laughing. As the film progressed it became more and more like an episode of The Goodies, but unfortunately longer. Let's not beat about the Australian bush - this film is not great.

There's more than a hint of... what's the term for those SF films which address serious issues... a kind of "be careful what you do with nature" way? "Terrible Danger Films?" Anyway, this one put me in mind of TARANTULA in its set-up and in its use of rural landscapes, but totally lacking the poetry of Jack Arnold's vision. Other times it reminded me of the - what's the term... "Terrible Danger Films" (?) of early Cronenberg or early(ish) George Romero. But this one showed no sign of a talent to look out for in the future. It was nice to see DeForest Kelley though, even if with that moustache and not-Bones hair he looked more like Benny Hill doing either McCloud or Cannon, or both.

Monty Python, The Goodies, Benny Hill... the omens were beginning to show near the start. When we do get to see the big bunnies rampaging across train sets to the sound of horses galloping, it becomes almost endearing. And there's a little bit of gore! A man gets his arm chewed right off! It does seem to soon jettison the idea of making a political statement about "being careful with what we are doing to nature" ("Terrible Danger Film"?) and just move onto straight drive-in braindead territory. Not good even on that level. On the other hand I stayed awake and kept watching until the end but, overall this is an......

AWFUL WARRENING MOVIE.

Almost managed to watch both of these last night, but sleep overtook me towards the end of Lepus. However, I think I'd seen enough by that point to unleash my own rabbits... The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms - Enjoyable 50s monster movie, which adheres closely to the formula (maybe this is the film that established that formula?) - early sighting leads to lengthy investigation, with fleeting glipmses of the monster, building up to a rampaging finale. So it helps that the human cast who spend most of the running time debating whether the beastie exists then tracking it down are a likeble lot. I must have this mixed up in my head with 'It Came from Beneath the Sea' because I was surprised that Kenneth Tobey was only a secondary character here. Paul Hubschmid is fine as the leading man and I found myself wondering why I hadn't seen him in many other features. I'm guessing it was the accent. It was also lovely to see 'The Great Solvani' as the bumbling professor and Paula Raymond was fine as his assistant. You could probably argue that there's not enough creature action, but I have a strange issue with stop-motion effects so I wasn't that bothered. Good old 50s creature-feature hokum. Night of the Lepus - This is basically 'THEM!' but with bunnies instead of ants. And of course, the big problem is that bunnies just aren't scary, no matter how the film-makers cut around them. When they do show up, they're just cute, not scary. So it tends to make us root for the rabbits, and not for the humans who spend most of the film doing horrible things to the floppy-eared hoppers. The film doesn't seem to know that it's ludicrous and the tone is all wrong. So what fun there is to be had from the gory attacks is sunk when we see slow-mo bunnies hopping past miniature houses and cars. It's just a film with a fatally flawed central premise, and the only way you could theoretically make a good film about giant bunnies would be if it was a comedy, or at least had its tongue in its cheek. In the end, they bravely try to take it seriously, but it's impossible for us to do the same. I'm just left wondering what they were thinking, and how this ever got made. I'm glad it did, I just wish it was more fun to watch.

Playing RT catchup, starting with Sherry Morley's reviewlettes of our week 2 presentations. It's easy to forget in our always online age that reviewers might, not having seen the film, need to revert to the blandest of plot descriptions. But Phil the Jenks always seemed to have a witty bon mot to hand in such circumstances that his successor lacks.

The meat in the horror sandwich this week is some fairly tedious Brass Tacks viewer feedback stuff that makes you wonder what substance programme schedulers were abusing to come up with this; even supposing you were interested, would you wait up until just shy of midnight on a Saturday night for it? Makes me long for the dulcet tones of Mr Benaud, R.

And in the general spirit of catchup (and just in case no-one has posted Radio Times snippets already) this is what Sheridan Morley had to say about the first double-bill pairing.

Sherry is not one to wear his research lightly on his sleeve, basically admitting to cribbing his piece on THE GHOUL out of the MFB - money for old reviewing rope.

I've turned up late for the double-bill shindig with a warm party can of Watney's Red Barrel & some Monster Munch only to discover everyone else has been here for hours and are somewhat tired and emotional.

Never mind - I watched THE MAD GHOUL recently courtesy of Scream(!) Factory's Universal Horror Collection (aka Law of Diminishing Returns) series Vol. 2. Not bad - GZ and EA are good value as always, and David Bruce is a pretty good ghoul. Nowhere near as toe-curlingly tedious as the gems on offer in later volumes (yes, Captive Wild Womain, I'm talking about you).

As for DR TERROR, its still my least favourite portmerrion, due to the wildly uneven quality of the episodes therein; definitely a touch of Longfellow's little girl about it.

I've watched From Beyond The Grave over the last couple of days because I'd loaded it onto my tablet at some point and as the wifi connection down the end of my garden is iffy, it was that or go indoors...

I still think it's pretty mediocre quite frankly. Despite some interesting ideas, decent camera moves, and good performances, the stories all feel a bit rushed, the sets cramped and the exterior locations tawdry. I found Cushing's role a bit insipid and a bit pantomime-like (heading for Abner Perry/Dr Who territory). Maybe Geoffrey Bayldon would have made a good cranky antique shop proprietor instead, if that's what they were aiming for. And Lesley-Anne Down was a total non-entity in the last story.

Oh! I posted last night but it doesn't seem to have saved.

Paranoiac I enjoyed very much. As with so many of Freddie Francis' films it really benefits from being seen on great big telly. I only have the DVD but that looked splendid, even the process work which normally stinks (the bad cgi of its day). The choirboy provides what I think is Hammer's best (only?) jump scare and that mask is awfully creepy. It's not as good as Taste of Fear but it's among the next tier of the mini-Hitchcocks - and it's particularly refreshing that it's not another "homage" to Les Diaboliques.

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter I had to end up watching on Hammer's YT channel (over 1.6m views for CK:VH). I was already familiar with the character from House of Hammer before I ever saw the film so I was aware that it was intended as a sort of time-hopping franchise. It's a pity that never happened because there's potential there that is let down by the execution. I love the idea of a Clint Eastwood type vampire hunter; I love the idea of different types of vampires with their own ways of feeding and of being destroyed. Sadly, the film looks very cheap with poor production design, bland photography, under-powered action sequences and mostly weak performances. Laurie Johnson's score is great though. The weird shadow cross looks to me like a combination of sloppy editing and a shot being missing. They really ought to have binned it because it doesn't work as it stands.

CAPTAIN KRONOS: RABBIT HUNTER

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Now this I do like. Having read Higgy's comments I feel guilty about liking it. But I must be true to my own nincompoopery. Okay, so it's not top-drawer Gothic Ham from the golden era at Bray. It may not even be top-drawer '70s Ham, but it's enjoyable, engaging and likeable. It also strives for originality, to some degree of success. I was all happy and comfy watching it on the big TV screen, me sat sitting there on my big bed with a gottle of red on the bedside table. That helped.

True, it has a somewhat TV feel to it. Brian Clemens stuff usually did, even his big screen work. Here I was sometimes reminded me of "Thriller", perhaps due to Laurie Johnson's Herrmannesque score. Actually , there's a kind of schoolboy humour to much of it. It's almost like a Robert Fuest film, but the humour here may be even more schoolboyish. Maybe that's why I like it so much. It's on my level. Loved the sets, the lighting, the photography, the architecture of the houses (sorry Paul), the John Cater character, the toads or frogs, the jokes ("Toad in the hole", "And...mate".), the scenes in the pub, the insults (sorry Paul) - Those pub scenes are greatly entertaining, and although it's a small role for Ian Hendry I think it's one of his best performances. He never looked "relaxed" enough in his performances. He always looked like he wanted to be somewhere else, but he's wonderbra in this. Oh, and the prolonged death of John Carson. Brilliant. Caroline Munro filled her costumes nicely, and I even found Horst an appealing character. I wish I could go back in time and have long hair and muscles and sit smoking big long smoky things. Cool guy, even today I believe.

There's even a certain poignancy in the theme of the search for eternal youth and perpetual beauty. One minor problem was that whatsername who played Shane Briant's sister was a dog. But that's a very uncharitable thing for me to say about someone who is probably very nice in real life, and it doesn't spoil what is for me a most entertaining romp.

Paranoiac - Reasonably entertaining stuff, with plenty of twisty bits and a cracking performance from Ollie. But to be honest, the main appeal for me is in terms of pure eye candy. The Eureka Blu-ray just looks bloody gorgeous, almost distractingly so! I found that the main pleasure for me was in simply marveling at the textures of peoples' jackets and the details of the wallpaper! I don't know if that suggests that the film itself wasn't sufficiently engaging or if it's just a testament to Arthur Grant's glorious widescreen black & white cinematography, Bernard Robinson's production design, and the joys of HD presentation. Possibly a bit of both. Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter - Again, reasonably entertaining stuff, although the HD presentation is less kind to this one, tending to betray the threadbare production, especially when seen next to the gorgeous Paranoiac! This looks more like an episode of 70s telly than a feature film, and the fact that most of the action takes place in the woods reminded me of similarly impoverished productions like Hawk the Slayer. It's cheaper to have your action unfold in a patch of trees, because then you don't have to build many sets. This was obviously supposed to be a bit of a swash-buckler, but I always find the action scenes a bit lacking. I found myself wishing for the sort of attention to fight choreography and stunts that we see nowadays. So the action scenes are lacking in ooomf, but thankfully there's some interesting stuff about a new kind of vampire, and the procedures involved in finding out how to destroy it. The cast are fine although I always find it distancing when one of the central roles is dubbed. However, it's nice to see Caroline Munro get to use her own voice for a change, and she looks stunning, as always.