I'm excited by the Horror Channel's Saturday night Hammer films- even though I own them all on dvd- and I even had one guiser: my colleague's wee boy in his homemade Davy Jones outfit.
On Hallowe'en itself, I finally saw Stranglers of Bombay, after a false start accidentally buying a VHS copy on ebay. Some months ago, I was dismayed by the transphobic bullying of Dr. Elizabeth Sandifer from prominent members of Dr. Who fandom. To their distaste, she had forcefully pointed out how racist 1977's Talons of Weng-Chiang is and this late 50s Hammer movie is in the same mould. It's more engaging than the similar ( and notorious) Terror of the Tongs but its cult of Kali is led by DW's Eric Klieg ( George Pastell) and the original Master, Roger Delgado. It's historically interesting but still culturally insensitive, to put it mildly.
On my last visit to Glasgow, I bought volume 1 of the Bronze Age Swamp Thing. I've read some of these stories before, in a mid- 80s miniseries, but my first encounter with DC's muck-encrusted mockery of a man was forty years ago, in Challengers of the Unknown. This was an early example of Keith Giffen's work and co-featured another hero from DC's macabre nouvelle vague- Deadman.
Re-reading the original tales from Len Wein and Berni Wrightson ( with later instalments by Nestor Redondo), over Hallowe'en, I wasn't hugely thrilled or impressed. As the series progresses, the Universal-inspired imagery decreases while the plots become increasingly silly. I also found the Bronze Age dialogue and narration quite ripe:
"And hit 'em they do..."
"Of God's poor, forsaken children, why my girl Ruth?"
and in the jarring Batman encounter, Swampy somehow has metatextual insights into the Dark Knight's personality: "Sorry, hero, but your blind dedication to duty can sometimes make you most annoying".
At least it wasn't " hero-man".
Even the story I most enjoyed, a Wolf Man pastiche on the "Scottish Moors" with a "Squire", was derivative and corny. I prefer Mike Ploog's grotesqueries to Wrightson's, except perhaps on the Lovecraftian adventure with the "pulsating cancer" M'Nagalah. I think I'd like to re-read the murky Alan Moore/Stephen Bissette phantasmagoria of "Sophisticated Suspense".
My walk to work this week has been soundtracked by The Phantom of the Opera from the Big Finish Classics range. I had very much enjoyed the epistolatory Dracula the last time I lived on Victoria Crescent and a few months ago, I bought Frankenstein.
Arthur (Rory Williams and Rip Hunter) is icily calculating as Victor and Georgia Tennant(The Doctor's Daughter) is the doomed Elizabeth. Geoffrey Beevers, who oozes malevolence as BF's Master, plays the ineffectual patriarch. The aforementioned Hammer studio's Curse of Frankenstein was the first I ever saw as a child, so a villainous Victor is my preference. However, the 90s Branagh movie was a big deal for me when my touring colleague from Romeo and Juliet was hired as Ken's body double.
But what about that 1880s Opera Ghost- the "O.G"? I've seen the movie of the Lloyd Webber show and its maniacal set-pieces ("Sing for me, my Angel of Music! Sing for MEEEEEEE!!!") but my first exposure to Gaston Leroux's 1910 story was the 1943 Claude Rains version. I've seen both the Hammer Herbert Lom take and the silent Lon Chaney Sr. version but remember little of either ( except for the scene immortalised in Aurora model kit advertised in late 60s DC comics).
Peter Guinness growls sepulchrally as Erik and Alexander Siddig (TV's Dr. Bashir and Ra's al Ghul) plays the mysterious Persian from the Phantom's past. I really enjoyed this ripe and often hilarious adaptation: where the 70s comic book flavour seems stale, here the most arch of lines was delivered with a poker face-
"Sorry to keep you sir, I was stuffin' a capon".
"Will you show us this organ of yours?/I'd be delighted!".
"Horror! Horror!"
Narrated in part by the acidic Mme Giry- the late Anna Massey from the 70s Amicus EC tribute, Vault of Horror - this is a campy blend of mystery, obsession, romance and farce. It's a reminder that Dr. Who spin-offs aren't the be-all and end-all of BF's output. In fact, in their Hallowe'en sale this week, I ordered the audio of The Night of the Triffids, Simon Clark's 2001 sequel.
November is a busy month with a series of parents nights coming up for me but future posts might include The Night Stalker; Marvel's Quasar; more River Song and the Savage Sword of Kull.
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