I posted reviews of all twenty episodes and an overview of this series on the BHF board some five years ago. Now it seems apparent that they have vanished into unreachable cyberspace for all time. Anyway, as part of the current Voodoo Season I checked out the corresponding entry in the saga, and here's a brief review wot I wrote:
She-Wolf Of London – Voodoo Child (1990)
This is the thirteenth episode of the highly entertaining UK/US horror-comedy TV series - an addition to the rather scant canon of British screen werewolf productions. No 13 deals with Voodoo, - though not as in the Haitian real deal, rather in the accepted pop culture meaning of any sort of ‘ethnic’ or ‘tribal’ ritual magic. In this case we have one Greg Cutler (Keith Edwards), an American student misfit in the sociology class of Dr Ian Matheson (the underrated Neil Dickson) practising ‘Brazilian Guaraní’ sorcery with a trio of undergraduates.
The opening scene is typical of the show’s blend of fun and frights, showing a couple snogging in a car, the boy attempting to go ‘all the way’ with his less than enthusiastic girlfriend. ‘I’m hot, I’m really hot!’ he tells her and suddenly rushes out of the car, runs a few yards and goes up in flames, the result of matches applied to his voodoo effigy.
Matheson’s cute student protegée Randi Wallace (played to the hilt by Kate Hodge) – the titular werewolf – finds herself at one of Cutler’s sessions, where he gets a glimpse of her lupine alter ego. With some strands of Randi’s hair he fashions the corresponding voodoo doll and using a needle with a full moon shaped head is able to trigger her transformations at any time and manipulate the beast to kill his enemies. One has to wonder why he’d bother, as his ability to cause death at a distance has been well established. Maybe it’s just a case of ‘because I can’, or perhaps just for the sake of variety. Predictably, when Cutler begins to suspect that Matheson is on to him, he puts the man in a zombie trance and has him unshackle the captive Randi and then chain himself up in the cellar with her and throw away the key….
The success of the episode (and the series as a whole) is the wonderful interplay between Dickson and Hodge, who have a terrific chemistry. The humourous parts are funny and the dramatic scenes effective because although we know that the two leads will always survive, they are both such well played, rounded and likeable characters that we feel for them when they’re having a horrific time with the 'monster of the week'. Likewise the tender moments are touching because the actors seem to be sincere in their concern for each other, and the music in these scenes (a kind of slow tempo, ‘smokey blues’) adds to the effect.
Keith Edwards also is very good in his role, managing to convey ‘the loneliness of evil’ as well as the arrogant weirdo facet of his somewhat clichéd character.
Of course, the "exotic black magic cult operating in peaceful England" scenario also brings to mind Hammer’s Plague Of The Zombies and The Reptile. Another link to previous triumphs of British Gothic horror is the presence of Christopher Benjamin (of ‘Talons Of Weng Chiang’ fame) playing a creepy comedy dentist. Oh, the horror!
(This revisit has whetted my appetite for a rewatch of the whole series in running order. Watch this space.....)
