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Episode 88 Occupied by Tim Rich Tim Rich reads ‘Occupied' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness. https://media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/content.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/88_Occupied_by_Tim_Rich.mp3 This poem is from: Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets Available from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK Occupied by Tim Rich We buttered the cat's pawsand baked bread in borrowed tinsto make the unfamiliar speak of pleasureand our intentions to remain All that first daythe house talked to itselfabout us Later than I expected, light withdrew across our table, unopened cratesback through thin glasstowards tomorrow So the room released its formand we sat among one anothergiving our ears to the conversation:inner doorways muttering behind flat hands; oak floors—masonic in their black treacle gloss—deciding whether to settleunder our presence Later still, in bed, I stared sideways into an unlit universe, absentlymindwalking the bounds,relocking iron door-bolts like an old rifle, drawingdrawn curtains a little closer,charting the evaporating pathbehind that plane's descent In time, each stray thought went to its home, leaving this accommodation to take place: the air held here sighing gently,like contented tortoise breaths; the softening percussion of bodies sleeping; the punctuating crack and hiss as fresh eggs are brokeninto a smoking pan; someoneopening a window Interview transcript Mark: Tim, where did this poem come from? Tim: So, almost always for me, poems just emerge out of some sort of inner dusk. I'm not someone that can go to their desk with a plan to write about a particular message or topic or piece of content. The poem just presents itself to me. And actually I don't really have any choice in the matter. I'm sort of just forced to be a transcriber in that moment. And I was looking at the sea the other day, and I had this moment when I just thought my poems are a bit like strange sea creatures that live on the seabed. And at a particular point in their life, they decide that they just want to go to the light and they start floating up through the murky water and explode in bubbles on the surface. And, you know, hopefully I'm there sitting in the poet's boat ready to haul them on board. So, that's almost always how poems start for me. And this poem very much began that way. I was at home on a winter's evening, and it just began to come through me, as it were. And the context for that was that after many years of living in the same house, my wife and I were starting to think about the possibility of moving. And, you know, it was a really exciting prospect but also it definitely was stirring up the sediment of my unconscious. I'm someone that really feels the need for a settled home, a settled place, and this unsettled me. So, I think that that was what was giving the raw energy to the content. And there was something else, which is what informed the scenery of the poem, if you like, which is this idea of light withdrawing from a space and what that does within the space. And when I was 11, I was living just with my dad, and he would come home from work later than I would get home from school. So, for the first year or so, he arranged for me to go to some elderly neighbours on the way home from school. So I was, sort of, watched, and we would sit in their front room, and they would load up their coal fire. And through the windows, the sun would set slowly, and they were so calm. They would hardly speak. When they did speak, it was about these, kind of, wonderful domestic details like, you know, what needs to be chopped for dinner, or are there any windfalls in the garden that we can harvest tomorrow? It was very, very calm. And, you know, the coals in the fire were glowing red, but the rest of the room just lost its light. And I remember the shape of their very heavy old furniture, and the picture frames, and the curtains all began to disappear. And that must have just lodged somewhere deep within me, because that's very much, as the poem came out, where I was also taken to in my mind. Mark: So, I like this. So, I mean, to put it bluntly, it's not like you moved into a house and then you wrote this. You were thinking about moving and then a house emerged from your unconscious, from memories of other houses and so on. Tim: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Mark: And I think that's kind of a salutary thing to hear because… And this is a poem that really you read it and you totally believe it. It feels like a first-hand account of, well, we did this and this is what happened. And yet you're, kind of, pulling the rug from under our feet here, which is a nice thing in poetry. I think that you can't necessarily take it literally or face value. Tim: Well, we moved house… Yeah, we moved house about six months after I wrote the poem. So, I went through the experience of living the poem, which seems to be quite a good way around. Mark: Did you conjure the house, Tim? Tim: Actually, it was wonderful because it confirmed to me part of what motivated the poem, which is that I think we can all become a little bit… I don't know. Complacent seems to be too loaded a term, but we get so used to how our houses speak that we stop hearing them. And actually, there's this kind of wonderful symphony going on the whole time, you know, radiators making those strange percussive noises, and the way that the door squeaks, or suddenly, you know, how your staircase gets to a particular temperature in the middle of the night and decides to squeak. And they're constantly making these noises. And when you're living there, you stop hearing them. But when you move to somewhere for the first time, or sometimes if you go and stay in a haunted Airbnb in the woods, that first night particularly, everything's coming to you fresh. So, I think there's a strong sense of what's it like when a person moves into a space for the first time and that space has a character, and an energy, and a being of its own. Mark: So, really it's that state of heightened awareness, isn't it? You know, apparently this is how the mind works. If you've got a constant stimulus, the mind will tune it out. It's that Heaney line, you know, ‘The refrigerator whinnied into silence,' which is just that moment of… You only hear the fridge when it stops. Tim: Yeah. Mark: And what you're describing is the reverse of that. When you're in the house for the first time and everything is new and you're on hyperalert for the voices of the house. Tim: Yeah. And we're listening to our houses right now because there's a 1066 Line train from Hastings that's just gone into the tunnel over there. But we probably can't quite hear it on the microphones, but it's in the air and it's just touching elements of the house. And we're surrounded by this the whole time. And I think it's important to say, as soon as the poem had laid itself out on the page for the first time, it was clear to me that this poem was about people moving into a home for the first time, but it is also quite a vivid description, I think, of what was going through me at the time in terms of that unsettled nature. You know, I was quite surprised by the nature of the metaphors that my unconscious had presented me with. I mean, it's quite a portrait of anxiety to double-check the curtains, to lock a bolt as if it's an old rifle. You know, this is partly a portrait of an unsettled, anxious mind, which is, I think, something that I was going through at the time. Mark: And you've got some great similes, you know, the iron door bolts like an old rifle. And there's this lovely bit where you talk about ‘drawing drawn curtains'. And if you look on the website, then you can see that there's a line break after drawing, so it's drawing, line break, drawn curtains, which really just emphasises it's already drawn. You don't need to do it. This is the OCD kicking in, which really speaks to that anxiety you're describing. And I really love the second section where you say, ‘All that first day, the house talked to itself about us,' which is just a wonderfully unsettling idea that we are the intruders and the house has an opinion. Tim: Yeah, I definitely wasn't being sort of whimsically mystical about infrastructure and materials. It was definitely the feeling that there is an exchange when animals, human and other, come into a space. There's a change in energies and temperatures and sound and smells. And, you know, the dynamism of creatures come into a space that has been unoccupied, which is what generally most houses are, you know, sometimes for days, sometimes for months, and years before the new occupants come in. And I was just really taken with that idea that the house also needs to find its way of settling under these new occupants. And that seemed like a moment of 24 hours of the two parties eyeing each other and listening to each other and wondering about, ‘Who is this that I need to live with for these next years?' Mark: And it's quite a humbling poem, isn't it? Because, you know, when you think of owning the house or occupying the house, it's like you're the one in charge. But this poem just kind of subverts that idea that it's the house that's weighing us up, as in the people in the poem. It made me think of that TV series David Olusoga does, A House Through Time, where he gets an old house, and he goes through the records, and he looks at all the people who lived in the house and tells their story. And there's quite a lot of them, like, much more than I would have expected. You know, each episode goes on and on and on, and you just realise the house is staying there. The house is constant. These people, they're temporary. They might think they're the owners, but we're just passing through. Tim: We are passing through. It is a reminder of our mortality and our houses often way outlive us. Also, in recent years and decades, there's been an increase in the way in which people work from home, but that isn't a new thing. So, I wrote this poem in the house we lived in before, which was built to be a weaver's cottage, a live/work weaver's cottage. And, you know, they would find their living accommodation in quite modest corners of the house because a lot of it, at different times in the process, was given to equipment and storing material and a very intense version of live/work and working from home. And, you know, I think that part of when people suddenly a whole generation through particularly lockdowns but also just this change in working habits are spending much more of their life within the home quite often and what that means in terms of their relationship to the space and how the house relates to that. Tim: I think, just as I'm speaking, it occurs to me that perhaps also part of the influence of the atmosphere in the poem is around some of the fiction that I enjoy. And I haven't thought about this until we were talking now, but I like an M. R. James novel, or, you know, The Haunting of Hill House has just come to mind, and buildings and atmospheres that speak, as sort of some of the atmospheres you get in a Robert Aickman type horror novel. So, some of the classic British horror novels and that type of fiction. And just as we were talking about that, and I was also casting my eyes down the poem, there's some of the dusk that you get with those places, which is in this poem. And it's great, isn't it, coming back to one of your own poems quite a while after you wrote it, and you perhaps see some of the reasons for its being in a slightly different way. Mark: I mean, that's the basic premise of the haunted house is that the house is alive. I mean, you've not gone full Hammer Horror with this one. It's maybe a little more subtle, but you've definitely got some really wonderfully suggestive details. I loved ‘inner doorways muttering behind / flat hands, oak floors – masonic / in their black treacle gloss'. And that's so true. There are so many of these old houses. It's like, what happens to the wood? How does it get to be like treacle? And there's that heaviness and that opacity about it that you convey really well. Tim: Yeah. I was taken with the idea of the house being almost quite an august figure in some ways. It would be wrong to say it's proud of itself, but deciding whether to settle under our presence is quite… Mark: It's not aiming to please, is it? Tim: It's not. It's not easily won over. I mean, you know… Yeah, let's see what these new occupants are like. You know, what do they get up to? What are their tastes? What do we think of the prints that they put up on the wall? Mark: Yeah. Will they get it? Will they behave themselves? So you've got this lovely line in the third paragraph, ‘So the room released its form / and we sat among one another.' Well, thinking about the form of the poem, how close is this to, say, the first draft when you were hauling the sea creature out from the depths over the side of your poetic boat? Tim: Yeah, when the poem came out onto the page, it actually made a demand of me. It said, ‘I don't want you to put me into very organised type measures. I don't want to be sorted into regular stanzas. And also, I want you to be quite careful about any linguistic bells and whistles.' It just was a bit like the house. It had almost a sort of slightly stern feeling to it as a poem. It was very clear, and it was saying each of these stanzas, or scenes maybe, has to be as long as it wants to be. ‘I don't want you to spend time evening things up or creating consistency.' And there are many other poems that I've written where, of course, I'm deliberately very measured, very consistent. At the moment, a lot of the poems I'm writing have a lot of half rhymes but particularly a lot of internal rhymes. And, goodness, audaciously, you know, I even have a rhyming couplet in a poem that I'm working on at the moment. But this poem just said, ‘I don't want any of that.' Now, that's not to say that there aren't some half rhymes or suggestions of rhymes, and certainly some lovely withholding with words at the end of the line that only resolve as you move through into the next line, the enjambment of the word and the meaning falling over into the next line. Definitely that happens. But I tried to edit this into different shapes. I probably tried it five different ways, and each time it just felt wrong quite quickly actually. I tried to give it a consistent number of lines per stanza, and it repulsed me as a poem. It just said, ‘No, I need to be this free form.' And also, I had to accept that it's probably a little bit messier than I normally feel comfortable with. And it was good. I was like, ‘Actually, you know, just stop fighting. Just stop fighting it.' Sometimes your poems can be more irregular, more free, less obviously organised. And I think it has its rhythms that hold it together. It does for me. And listeners will decide, when they hear it, whether those rhythms are actually holding it together. Mark: Well, for me, it feels a bit like one of those old houses where you go in and there's not a right angle in sight. You know, the floors are sloping. The doors have to be a kind of trapezium to open and close, which I think is obviously true to the spirit of the thing. And it's like the house itself. It's not trying too hard. You can read it quite quickly, and it seems quite plain-spoken and spartan. But when you look, you notice the little details. Like, you know, there's the door bolts like a rifle, and the ‘nasonic', a wonderful adjective. And I've just noticed now, as we were talking, in the final verse, ‘In time, each stray thought / went to its home, leaving this / accommodation to take place'. And that's a lovely reframing of ‘accommodation', because the everyday sense is a place where you go and live, but it's an accommodation in the sense of a mutual alignment, almost like a negotiation or getting used to each other, which I think is really delightful. Mark: Okay, Tim, so I have to ask, looking again at the poem, what on earth is going on with buttering the cat's paws at the beginning? Tim: So, buttering the cat's paws is a bit of folk wisdom. And the idea is that when you move to a new house, if you have a cat or cats, that you actually put lovely, creamy butter on their paws and that they, you know, as cats do, will then spend time licking and licking and licking. And it means that more of their scent is put into the floor and the grounds of the place so they feel at home quicker and sooner. So they're sensing the place much more actively sooner. Now, I don't think there's any scientific evidence to suggest it works. But, you know, if anyone has any experience with this, I would love to hear it. But I don't really care, because the whole image of spreading beautiful, creamy butter onto the paws of the cat and that somehow just inviting them to feel that this place is home is more than enough for me. And I'd heard the phrase years and years and years before. And again, I think it was just the very first phrase that came out as the poem emerged. I think it was opening the doorway to the poem, and it felt very natural for it to be the beginning of the poem. I wonder now, looking back, whether there's something to do with the eye opened with an animal spirit. And so much of this poem really has come up from the unconscious. And I'm not starting with a very measured, conscious human, you know, activity or… I'm not saying, you know, ‘we made the decision to move'. It's not a person-led piece in the sense that, okay, we're doing the buttering, but it's the cat that's front and centre in that open line. And that's not something that I particularly thought about consciously at the time. But looking back, I think there's a hint there that we're not just talking about a straightforward human, rational response to living in a place. There are animal spirits too. Mark: Yeah, and it feels like a wonderful piece of folk magic. I mean, cats are magical creatures like witches' familiars. And, you know, maybe there's a magical aspect to that. It's a little ritual, isn't it? Tim: It is. I had a question for you, but it just came out of part of my experience of this poem going out into the world, which is that I've just been surprised, in a wonderful way, by how diverse and often surprising people's responses are to poems, how I can never really tell what it is about a poem someone's going to pick up and come back to you about. You know, for example, someone has given copies of this poem to friends when they move house. Mark: Oh, lovely. Tim: …as a housewarming present, a printed letterpress, which is very, very beautiful. Someone else said that they really loved sort of, what did they say, the soft absurdity around the house being almost this grand piece. And others have responded in different ways. And I think it's one of the wonders of poetry, maybe something that doesn't get talked about quite so much, which is that we interrogate the meaning for ourselves. And if you work with your editor and sometimes reviewers, meaning is discussed. But actually, my experience, when poems go out into the world, is it's just incredible how broad the range of response is and what people pick up on. And I suddenly think, well, is that just my experience? So what's it like for you? Are you constantly surprised by what people pick up and come back to and focus on with your poems? Mark: Yeah, it's a little bit like a Rorschach test, isn't it? People see themselves in it to a degree, or they see something that will resonate for them. And to me, it's the sign of a real poem if it can do that, if different people see different things in it. If it was too obvious and too, you know, two-dimensional, then that's fine, but it's not really a poem. And I think this is part of the magic of why poems can persist over time. Society is shifting all around them. Maybe a few of the houses are constant, but the poem still inhabits the space, and people still relate to it for decades or hundreds or even thousands of years sometimes. Tim: Yeah, I think there's an important point for poets that you have to maintain your confidence in ambiguity and what might feel like potential confusion. Of course, you need to think through how you're writing it and avoid unintended, poor consequences. But there's also a point in which I think you have to protect some of the messiness of meaning and not try to pin things down too much. Of course, there are different types of poets, and some poets need to be very clear and very message-driven. But I'm thinking, for me, there are sometimes moments when I think, ‘Am I just leaving this hanging and ambiguous and a bit dusky in terms of meaning?' And that's the point at which I think, ‘No, quite often just trust that people will find their own way into the poem.' Mark: Yeah, absolutely. And this is something I've seen a lot in classes, and it certainly happened to me very often. You know, the teacher will say you can cut the last line because we already get it. You don't need to underline the message of the poem. Sometimes we feel a bit nervous just leaving it hanging. And you've absolutely had the confidence to do that with the wonderful ending of this, where you talk about ‘the punctuating crack and hiss / as fresh eggs are broken / into a smoking pan. Someone / opening a window' – and that's it. I mean, tell me about that ending. How did you arrive at that? And did you go back and forth? Did you think, ‘Can I leave that window open, that line?' And by the way, listener, there is no full stop either to hang on to at that point! Tim: Yeah. I have to say, I do find myself clearing away more and more of the furniture of the poems. And there is a very deliberate lack of a full stop there. It was all there in the first draft that came out. It wasn't a constructed or reconstructed ending later on. Again, the poem seemed to want to open into something rather than close itself down and make a point. I think that in the action of the poem, we've moved through this dusky night, including a sort of bout of insomnia, of staring into the darkness. And then morning is coming, and it's full of new things. And there is something about that morning of waking up in a new house. What a moment in someone's life that is. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tim: It's just extraordinary. And there's a natural link there into the egg as a symbol. Something new, something is being born. And yeah, there may be many reasons why that window needed to be open. The smoke from the pan is one thing, which is all about the… Mark: Right, right. Setting the smoke alarm off! Tim: Yeah, it goes off in our kitchen quite often. And of course, the cooking is, again, this thing of humans being in a house and occupying it and all of the energy and dynamics. And how are you most going to make a new home your own? You're going to get out and start cooking and making a mess and eating together and getting things moving. I have no idea who the someone is, and I don't know what their motivation is for opening a window. And I like that. Mark: Okay. Well, let's have another listen to the poem and maybe, you know, each of us, as we listen to this this time, just see what associations come up for you. You know, houses you've lived in, places you've been, memories it conjures up. Thank you very much, Tim. What a lovely space to explore with this poem. Occupied by Tim Rich We buttered the cat's pawsand baked bread in borrowed tinsto make the unfamiliar speak of pleasureand our intentions to remain All that first daythe house talked to itselfabout us Later than I expected, light withdrew across our table, unopened cratesback through thin glasstowards tomorrow So the room released its formand we sat among one anothergiving our ears to the conversation:inner doorways muttering behind flat hands; oak floors—masonic in their black treacle gloss—deciding whether to settleunder our presence Later still, in bed, I stared sideways into an unlit universe, absentlymindwalking the bounds,relocking iron door-bolts like an old rifle, drawingdrawn curtains a little closer,charting the evaporating pathbehind that plane's descent In time, each stray thought went to its home, leaving this accommodation to take place: the air held here sighing gently,like contented tortoise breaths; the softening percussion of bodies sleeping; the punctuating crack and hiss as fresh eggs are brokeninto a smoking pan; someoneopening a window Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets ‘Occupied' is from Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets, published by Paekakariki Press. Available from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK Tim Rich Tim Rich grew up in the woods of Sussex and now lives and writes by the sea in Hastings. His poems have been published in numerous anthologies and journals, including Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets (Paekakariki Press) and Poet Town (Moth Light Press). The Landfall series – exhibited at the Bloomsbury Festival, London — brought together his poetry and photography. He has five poems in the anthology Family Matters, a collection of poetry about family, to be published in 2026. Alongside poetry, Tim writes, edits and ghostwrites books. timrich.com Photograph by Maxine Silver A Mouthful of Air – the podcast This is a transcript of an episode of A Mouthful of Air – a poetry podcast hosted by Mark McGuinness. New episodes are released every other Tuesday. You can hear every episode of the podcast via Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favourite app. You can have a full transcript of every new episode sent to you via email. The music and soundscapes for the show are created by Javier Weyler. Sound production is by Breaking Waves and visual identity by Irene Hoffman. A Mouthful of Air is produced by The 21st Century Creative, with support from Arts Council England via a National Lottery Project Grant. Listen to the show You can listen and subscribe to A Mouthful of Air on all the main podcast platforms Related Episodes Occupied by Tim Rich Episode 88 Occupied by Tim Rich Tim Rich reads ‘Occupied' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness.This poem is from: Dark Angels: Three Contemporary PoetsAvailable from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK... 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Philip's here with the first feature episode of 2026 and it's a chance to look into cats, village life and folk horror whilst supposedly discussing a 60 year old film intelligently with Adam, Cev and Smokey. Just Smokey. Cast him a spell of good luck...“The House Of Hammer Theme” written and produced by Cev MooreArtwork by Richard Wells All the links you think you'll need & more! https://linktr.ee/househammerpod
Send us a textWoHos!Chrissy Champagne, host of the podcast, Residue, joined us and brought along one doozy of a film.We watching DON'T GO TO SLEEP, a 1982 made-for-tv horror movie starring Valerine Harper and Dennis Weaver. It is full of 80's fun.Please follow Chrissy and check out her podcast. Here is her Instagram!Next up on the main show, Mac and I discuss Guillermo del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN as well as Hammer Horror's first horror film in color, the amazing THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN from 1957.Thanks, as always, for your support. It means the World of Horror™ to us, truly.Remember, WoHos, we love you, and DON'T go into the basement! Gerry Entriken: WoHo Outro ThemeSupport the showOpening Theme "Bucket" by Gerry EntrikenClosing Theme "Mop" by Gerry Entriken Interstitial Musicalso by Gerry Entriken. We love you, Gerry!Subscribe to the Podcast for a Special shout-out!World of Horror's InstagramMom's InstagramMac's InstagramDonate to Translifeline
Unearthing the Undead: Celebrating Hammer Horror's “The Plague of the Zombies”! This week on the Scary Spirits Podcast, we dig up something sinister from the grave—Hammer Horror's chilling classic, The Plague of the Zombies (1966). As the film's 60th anniversary approaches on January 14th, join hosts Karen and Greg as they peel back the rotting layers of this undead masterpiece. Expect eerie insights, spine-tingling trivia, and a cocktail that's as dark and twisted as the Cornish moors themselves—the Voo Dew Cocktail. If you crave zombie lore, Hammer Horror history, and a drink that bites back, this episode is your invitation to the graveyard. Tune in… before the dead walk again. Voo Dew Cocktail • 4 oz Mountain Dew®• 1 oz coconut rum• 1/2 oz silver rum• 1 oz pineapple juice• 1 pineapple wedge, grilled• ice as needed Instructions: Fill rocks glass with ice. Add coconut rum, silver rum, pineapple juice, and top with Mountain Dew®. Stir and garnish with grilled pineapple. Source: pepsicopartners.com A Brief Synopsis: A medical professor and his daughter link a Cornish epidemic to a village squire’s voodoo. Some of the topics discussed and highlights of this episode include: Karen gives us the history of mining tin in England. We learn about Voodoo the religion, as well as the zombie lore. Greg makes a reference to the band Ghost. Our rating of the film: This movie was OK. It took us 3 cocktails to get through it. Take our online survey! We want to know more about you! Please take our survey. All questions are optional and you can remain completely anonymous if you prefer. Tell us what you like or would like to hear more of! All music on the Scary Spirits Podcast is provided by the band “Verse 13”. Please check them out. You can listen to all their music on their Bandcamp page. Get social with us! Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram Subscribe on YouTube to watch Greg attempt to make all the featured cocktails Follow @ScarySpiritsPod Questions, comments or suggestions? Shoot us an email at info@scaryspirits.com As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small percentage of qualifying purchases through our links.
Happy Hallo - no, wait - Happy Holidays! Ring in the new year with the ghosts of hosts past, as we play games, talk monster movies, and reveal the first 12 episodes of 2026! Please let us know what you're most excited for! Or, maybe most afraid of? Either way, THANK YOU for listening and supporting!You can follow for more on patreon.com/campkaiju, leave a rating and review, follow on Instagram, send an email at campkaiju@gmail.com, or leave a voicemail at (612) 470-2612.We'll see you next time for another Poverty Row roundup before kicking off 2026 with... Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993).SHOUT OUTS & SPONSORSSubstack Film Criticism by Matthew Cole LevinePlays by Vincent S. HannamZack Linder & the Zack Pack Big Mecha But Not Huge podcast with Sean ChildersCamp Kaiju: Monster Movie Podcast. Announcing Season (2025). Hosted by Vincent Hannam, Matthew Cole Levine © 2025 Vincent S. Hannam, All Rights Reserved.
Happy holidays horror heads! Today we chat with the singer, guitarist and founder of thrash legends Kreator. We discuss the band, horror and Suspiria. Let's do Kristmas with the 'Krushers of the World'.KREATOR NUCLEAR BLAST
343 Hammerama Ep 31: Curse of the Werewolf Welcome to Hammerama! Hammerama is a subsidiary series of the DieCastMovie Podcast. Please join Alistair Hughes and Steven Turek as they analyze the wonderful movies of Hammer Films, from opposite ends of the world! Please send feedback to DieCastMoviePodcast@gmail.com.Al is the author of Infogothic: An Unauthorized Graphic Guide to Hammer Horror. A special thanks to Reber Clark for allowing us to use his music! You can purchase Mr. Clark's music at reberclark.bandcamp.com.
EPISODE 139: Blair Mowat is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning composer with over 200 projects and nearly two decades of experience across film, television, and theatre. Credits include Class (a spin-off from Doctor Who), McDonald & Dodds, Hammer Horror's Doctor Jekyll, Russell T Davies's Nolly (TV BAFTA-nominated score and Camille Award winner), The Guest, After the Flood, and The Age of Disclosure, an explosive and record breaking documentary that, since release, has entered the global news conversation. blairmowat.co.ukContact us: makingsoundpodcast.comFollow on Instagram: @makingsoundpodcastFollow on Threads: @jannkloseJoin our Facebook GroupPlease support the show with a donation, thank you for listening!
As Hammer are nearing their final film of 1966, here's a film with William Castle that's originally from Halloween 1963.Confused?That's just the start of it...Cev takes you through this particular Old Dark House while Smokey has a funny feeling and Philip has a look around some other gloomy properties“The House Of Hammer Theme” written and produced by Cev MooreArtwork by Richard Wells All the links you think you'll need & more! https://linktr.ee/househammerpod
Curse of Frankenstein It’s a little bit of horror in December as we welcome back, friend of the podcast, Ryan Bijan from Cowtown Movie Classics. Brandon and Ryan are discussing the 1957 Hammer Horror classic, Curse of Frankenstein. You can find what Ryan is up to at https://linktr.ee/CowtownMovieClassics Don't forget to follow/reach us at: Website: https://linktr.ee/FrontRowClassicsTwitter: @FRNCLASSICSEmail: classicsfrn@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefrontrownetwork/Instagram: frontrowclassicspod
Hammer Horror’s Atomic Terror: X the Unknown (1956) – Reviewed! Hear my words, and tremble… This week, on the Scary Spirits Podcast, the unyielding crusade continues. Your devoted host, Greg, dives deep into the hallowed (and often bloody) vaults of Hammer Film Productions, selecting a true relic from the atomic age: the chilling 1956 science fiction masterpiece, X the Unknown. Forget your quaint ghosts; this is a reckoning of pure, primordial energy. Join your guides through the shadows, Karen and Greg, as they meticulously dissect this early Hammer horror landmark. We shall explore every creeping dread, every unnerving implication of this British cinematic classic. What unspeakable, radioactive menace emerges from the depths of the earth? We shall tell you! But fear not the void, for we have libations! Our hosts shall calm their nerves (and perhaps yours) with a meticulously crafted, themed beverage: a potent and electrifying “Atomic” Cocktail. Listen now if you dare to confront the unknown… This is essential listening for every fan of classic horror film reviews, Hammer Films, and the spine-tingling terror of 1950s sci-fi movies. Atomic Cocktail • 1 1/2 oz sparkling wine• 1 1/2 oz cognac• 1 tsp dry sherry• 1 1/2 oz vodka Instructions: Stir cognac, vodka and sherry in a mixing glass. Pour in a cocktail glass. Add champagne. Source: abc.virginia.gov A Brief Synopsis: A creature made of a radioactive mud-like substance escapes from the centre of the Earth and terrorises a Scottish village. Some of the topics discussed and highlights of this episode include: We learn a little about the Geiger counter. Is there such a thing as “harmless” radiation? Dr. Karen tells us about radiation burns. We learn about tritium and cobalt-60. Greg reminisces about Julie Newmar. Our rating of the film: This movie was so bad that it took us 4 cocktails to get through it. Take our online survey! We want to know more about you! Please take our survey. All questions are optional and you can remain completely anonymous if you prefer. Tell us what you like or would like to hear more of! All music on the Scary Spirits Podcast is provided by the band “Verse 13”. Please check them out. You can listen to all their music on their Bandcamp page. Get social with us! Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram Subscribe on YouTube to watch Greg attempt to make all the featured cocktails Follow @ScarySpiritsPod Questions, comments or suggestions? Shoot us an email at info@scaryspirits.com As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small percentage of qualifying purchases through our links.
In this week's episode, I rate the movies and streaming shows I saw in Autumn 2025. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store: GHOSTS2025 The coupon code is valid through December 1, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 278 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November 21st, 2025, and today I am sharing my reviews of the movies and streaming shows I saw in Fall 2025. We also have a Coupon of the Week and an update my current writing, audiobook, and publishing projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off all the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store, and that is GHOSTS2025. And as always, we'll have the link to my Payhip store and the coupon code in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through December 1, 2025, so if you need a new ebook for this fall, we have got you covered. Now for my current writing and publishing projects: I'm very pleased to report that Blade of Shadows, the second book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, is now out. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. By the time this episode goes live, all those stores should be available and you can get the book at any one of them and I hope you will read and enjoy it. I'm also 15,000 words into what will be my next main project Wizard-Assassin, the fifth book in the Half-Elven Thief series, and if all goes well, I want that to be out before Christmas. I'm also working on the outline for what will be the third book in the Blades of Ruin series, Blade of Storms, and that will hopefully, if all goes well, be the first book I publish in 2026. In audiobook news, as I mentioned last week, the audiobook of Blade of Flames is done and I believe as of this recording, you can get at my Payhip store, Google Play, Kobo, and I think Spotify. It's not up on Audible or Apple yet, but that should be soon, if all goes well. That is excellently narrated by Brad Wills. Hollis McCarthy is still working on Cloak of Embers. I believe main recording is done for that and it just has to be edited and proofed, so hopefully we'll get both audiobooks to you before the end of the year. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:08 Main Topic of the Week: Autumn 2025 Movie Review Roundup Now on to this week's main project, the Autumn 2025 Movie Review Roundup. I watched a lot of classic horror movies this time around. The old Universal black and white monster movies from the '30s and '40s turned up on Prime for Halloween and I hadn't seen them since I was a kid, so I watched a bunch of them in October and November, which seemed an appropriate thing to do for Halloween. They mostly held up as well as I remembered from when I was a kid, which was a nice surprise. As ever, the grades I give these movies are totally subjective and based on nothing more than my own opinions and thoughts. With that, let's take a look at the movies from least favorite to most favorite. First up is The Other Guys, which came out in 2010 and this is a parody of the buddy cop/ cowboy cop movie along with a heavy critique of the reckless and corrupt culture of late 2000s Wall Street. "Dumb funny" movies I've noticed tend to fall on either side of the "dumb but actually funny" or "dumb and not funny" line. And this one definitely landed on "dumb but actually funny". Danson and Highsmith, played by The Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, are two maverick popular detectives who never do paperwork. Their paperwork is always done by Allen Gamble, who's played by Will Ferrell and Terry Hoitz, played by Mark Wahlberg. Gamble is a mild-mannered forensic accountant, while Hoitz desperately wants to be as cool as either Danson or Highsmith, but since he accidentally shot Yankees player Derek Jeter (in a recurring gag), he's a pariah within the New York Police Department. However, Danon and Highsmith's plot armor suddenly run out and they accidentally kill themselves in a darkly hilarious scene that made me laugh so much I hurt a little. Hoitz wants to step into their shoes, but Gamble has stumbled onto potentially dangerous case and soon Hoitz and Gamble have to overcome their difficulties and unravel a complicated financial crime. This was pretty funny and I enjoyed it. Amusingly in real life, someone like Gamble would be massively respected in whatever law enforcement agency he works for, since someone who prepares ironclad paperwork and correct documentation that stands up in court is an invaluable asset in law enforcement work. Overall Grade: B Next up is Fantastic Four: First Steps, which came out in 2025. I like this though, to be honest, I liked Thunderbolts and Superman 2025 better. I think my difficulty is I never really understood The Fantastic Four as a concept and why they're appealing. Maybe the Fantastic Four are one of those things you just have to imprint on when you're a kid to really enjoy or maybe at my age, the sort of retro futurism of the Four, the idea that science, technology, and rational thought will solve all our problems does seem a bit naive after the last 65 years of history or so. Additionally, the idea of a naked silver space alien riding a surfboard does seem kind of ridiculous. Anyway, the movie glides over the origin story of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm and gets right into it. To their surprise, Reed and Sue find out that Sue is pregnant, which seemed unlikely due to their superpower induced genetic mutations. Shortly after that, the Silver Surfer arrives and announces that Earth will be devoured by Galactus. The Four travel in their spaceship to confront Galactus and realize that he's a foe far beyond their power, but Galactus offers them a bargain. If Reed and Sue give him their son, he will leave Earth in peace. They refuse and so it's up to the Four to figure out a way to save Earth and Reed and Sue's son. Pretty solid superhero movie all told, but it is amusing how in every version of the character, Reed Richards is allegedly the smartest man on Earth but still can't keep his mouth shut to save his life. Overall Grade: B The next movie is Superman, which came out in 1978. After seeing the 2025 version of Superman, I decided to watch the old one from the '70s. It's kind of a classic because it was one of the progenitors of the modern superhero film. Interestingly, it was one of the most expensive films ever made at that time, costing about $55 million in '70s-era dollars, which are much less inflated than today. A rough back of the envelope calculation would put 55 million in the '70s worth at about $272 million today, give or take. Anyway, this was a big gamble, but it paid off for the producers since they got $300 million back, which would be like around $1.4 billion in 2025 money. Anyway, the movie tells the origin story of Superman, how his father Jor-El knows that Krypton is doomed, so he sends Kal-El to Earth. Kal-El is raised as Clark Kent by his adoptive Kansas parents and uses his powers to become Superman- defender of truth, justice, and the American way. Superman must balance his growing feelings for ace reporter Lois Lane with his need for a secret identity and the necessity of stopping Lex Luthor's dangerous schemes. Christopher Reeve was an excellent Superman and the special effects were impressive by the standards of 1978, but I think the weakest part of the movie were the villains. Lex Luthor just seemed comedic and not at all that threatening. Unexpected fun fact: Mario Puzio, author of The Godfather, wrote the screenplay. Overall Grade: B Next up is Superman II, which came out in 1980. This is a direct sequel to the previous movie. When Superman stops terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb by throwing it into space, the blast releases the evil Kryptonian General Zod and his minions from their prison and they decide to conquer Earth. Meanwhile, Superman is falling deeper in love with the Lois Lane and unknowing of the threat from Zod, decides to renounce his powers to live with Lois as an ordinary man. I think this had the same strengths and weaknesses as the first movie. Christopher Reeve was an excellent Superman. The special effects were impressive by the standards of the 1980s, but the villains remained kind of comedic goofballs. Additionally, and while this will sound harsh, this version of Lois Lane was kind of dumb and her main function in the plot was to generate problems for Superman via her questionable decisions. Like at the end, Superman has to wipe her memory because she can't keep his secret identity to herself. If this version of Lois Lane lived today, she'd be oversharing everything she ever thought or heard on TikTok. The 2025 movie version of Lois, by contrast, bullies Mr. Terrific into lending her his flying saucer so she can rescue Superman when he's in trouble and is instrumental in destroying Lex Luthor's public image and triggering his downfall. 1970s Louis would've just had a meltdown and made things worse until Superman could get around to rescuing her. Overall, I would say the 1978 movie was too goofy, the Zac Snyder Superman movies were too grimdark, but the 2025 Superman hit the right balance between goofy and serious. Overall Grade: B Next up is Dracula, which came out in 1931, and this was one of the earliest horror movies ever made and also one of the earliest movies ever produced with sound. It is a very compressed adaptation of the stage version of Dracula. Imagine the theatrical stage version of Dracula, but then imagine that the movie was only 70 minutes long, so you have to cut a lot to fit the story into those 70 minutes. So if you haven't read the book, Dracula the movie from 1931 will not make a lot of sense. It's almost like the "Cliff's Notes Fast Run" version of Dracula. That said, Bela Lugosi's famous performance as Dracula really carries the movie. Like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and The Mummy (which we'll talk about shortly), Bela Lugosi really captures the uncanny valley aspect of Dracula because the count isn't human anymore and has all these little tics of a creature that isn't human but only pretending to be one. Edward Van Sloan's performance as Dr. Van Helsing is likewise good and helped define the character in the public eye. So worth watching as a historical artifact, but I think some of the other Universal monster movies (which we'll discuss shortly) are much stronger. Overall Grade: B Next up is The Horror of Dracula, which came out in 1958. This is one of the first of the Hammer Horror movies from the '50s, starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Count Dracula. It's also apparently the first vampire movie ever made in color. Like the 1931 version of Dracula, it's a condensed version of the story, though frankly, I think it hangs together a little better. Van Helsing is a bit more of an action hero in this one, since in the end he engages Dracula in fisticuffs. The movie is essentially carried by the charisma of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and worth watching as a good example of a classic '50s horror movie. Overall Grade: B Next up is The Wolf Man, which came out in 1941. This is another one of the classic Universal horror movies. This one features Lon Cheney Jr. as Larry Talbot, the younger son of Sir John Talbot. Larry's older brother died in a hunting accident, so Larry comes home to reconcile with his father and take up his duties as the family heir. Larry is kind of an amiable Average Joe and is immediately smitten with the prettiest girl in the village, but when he takes her out for a walk, they're attacked by a werewolf, who bites Larry. Larry and everyone else in the village do not believe in werewolves, but they're about to have their minds changed the hard way. The transformation sequences where Larry turns into the Wolfman were cutting edge of the time, though poor Lon Chaney Jr had to stay motionless for hours as they gradually glued yak hair to him. I think Claude Rains had the best performance in the movie as Sir John and he's almost the co-protagonist. Overall Grade: B Next up is Jurassic World: Rebirth, which came out in 2025, which I thought was a perfectly straightforward but nonetheless enjoyable adventure film. After all the many disasters caused by various genetic engineering experiments in the previous movies, dinosaurs mostly live in relatively compatible ecosystems and tropical zones near the equator. No one's looking to create a theme park with dinosaurs or create bioengineered dinosaurs as military assets any longer. However, the dinosaurs are still valuable for research and a pharmaceutical company is developing a revolutionary drug for treating cardiac disease. They just need some dinosaur blood from three of the largest species to finish it, and so the company hires a team of mercenaries to retrieve the blood. We have the usual Jurassic Park style story tropes: the savvy mercenary leader, the scientist protesting the ethics of it all, the sinister corporate executive, the troubled family getting sucked into the chaos. And of course, it all goes wrong and there are lots and lots of dinosaurs running around. It's all been done before of course, but this was done well and was entertaining. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is The Thursday Murder Club, which came out in 2025, and this is a cozy mystery set in a very high-end retirement home. Retired nurse Joyce moves into Coopers Chase, the aforementioned high end retirement home. Looking to make new friends, she falls in with a former MI6 agent named Liz, a retired trade unionist named Ron, and psychiatrist Ibrahim, who have what they call The Thursday Murder Club, where they look into cold cases and attempt to solve them. However, things are not all sunshine and light at Coopers Chase as the two owners of the building have fallen out. When one of them is murdered, The Thursday Murder Club has to solve a real murder before Coopers Chase is bulldozed to make high-end apartments. A good cozy mystery with high caliber acting talent. Both Pierce Brosnan and Jonathan Price are in the movie and regrettably do not share a scene together, because that would've been hilarious since they were both in the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies in the '90s with Brosnan as Bond and Price as the Bond villain for the movie. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is The Creature From the Black Lagoon, which came out in 1954 and is one of the last of the black and white classic horror movies since in the '50s, color film was just around the corner. When a scientist finds the unusual half fish, half human fossil on a riverbank in Brazil, he decides to organize an expedition upriver to see if he can find the rest of the fossil. The trail leads his expedition to the mysterious Black Lagoon, which all the locals avoid because of its bad reputation, but a living member of the species that produce the fossils lurking the lagoon while it normally doesn't welcome visitors, it does like the one female member of the expedition and decides to claim her for its own. The creature was good monster and the underwater water sequences were impressive by the standards of the 1950s. Overall Grade: A- Next up is The Invisible Man, which came out in 1933, and this is another of the classic Universal black and white horror movies. Jack Griffin is a scientist who discovered a chemical formula for invisibility. Unfortunately, one of the drugs in his formula causes homicidal insanity, so he becomes a megalomaniac who wants to use his invisibility to rule the world. This causes Griffin to overlook the numerous weaknesses of his invisibility, which allow the police to hunt him down. The Invisible Man's special effects were state of the art at the time and definitely hold up nearly a hundred years later. It's worth watching as another classic of the genre. Claude Rains plays Griffin, and as with The Wolf Man, his performance as Griffin descends into homicidal insanity is one of the strengths of the movie. Overall Grade: A- Next up is The Mummy, which came out in 1932, and this is another of the original Universal black and white horror movies. Boris Karloff plays the Mummy, who is the ancient Egyptian priest Imhotep, who was mummified alive for the crime of desiring the Pharaoh's daughter Ankh-es-en-Amon. After 3,000 years, Imhotep is accidentally brought back to life when an archeologist reads a magical spell and Imhotep sets out immediately to find the reincarnation of his beloved and transform her into a mummy as well so they can live together forever as undead. Edward Van Sloan plays Dr. Mueller, who is basically Edward Van Sloan's Van Helsing from Dracula if Van Helsing specialized in mummy hunting rather than vampire hunting. This version of the Mummy acts more like a Dungeons and Dragons lich instead of the now classic image of a shambling mummy in dragging bandages. That said, Boris Karloff is an excellent physical actor. As he does with Frankenstein, he brings Imhotep to life. His performance captures the essence of a creature that hasn't been human for a very long time, is trying to pretend to be human, and isn't quite getting there. Of course, the plot was reused for the 1999 version of The Mummy with Brendan Fraser. That was excellent and this is as well. Overall Grade: A- Next up is The Wedding Singer, which came out in 1998, and this is basically the Adam Sandler version of a Hallmark movie. Adam Sandler plays Robbie, a formerly famous musician whose career has lapsed and has become a wedding singer and a venue singer. He befriends the new waitress Julia at the venue, played by Drew Barrymore. The day after that, Robbie's abandoned at the altar by his fiancée, which is understandably devastating. Meanwhile, Julia's fiancé Glenn proposes to her and Robbie agrees to help her with the wedding planning since he's an expert in the area and knows all the local vendors. However, in the process, Robbie and Julia fall in love, but are in denial about the fact, a situation made more tense when Robbie realizes Glenn is cheating on Julia and intends to continue to do so after the wedding. So it's basically a Hallmark movie filtered through the comedic sensibilities of Adam Sandler. It was very funny and Steve Buscemi always does great side characters in Adam Sandler movies. Overall Grade: A Next up is Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, which came out in 2025. This movie was sort of a self-indulgent victory lap, but it was earned. The writers of the sitcom Community used to joke that they wanted "six seasons and a movie" and Downton Abbey got "six seasons and three movies". Anyway, this movie is about handing off things to the next generation. Lord Grantham is reluctant to fully retire as his daughter goes through a scandal related to her divorce. The next generation of servants take over as the previous ones ease into retirement. What's interesting is both the nobles and the servants are fully aware that they're sort of LARPing a historical relic by this point because by 1930, grand country houses like Downton were increasingly rare in the UK since World War I wiped out most of them and crippling post-war taxes and economic disruption finished off many more. Anyway, if you like Downton Abbey, you like this movie. Overall Grade: A Next up is Argo, which came out in 2012, a very tense thriller about the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. During that particular crisis, six Americans escaped the embassy and hid out at the Canadian Ambassador's house in Tehran. For obvious reasons, the Canadian ambassador wanted them out as quickly as possible, so the CIA and the State Department needed to cook up a plan to get the six out while the rest of the government tried to figure out what to do about the larger group of hostages. Finally, the government comes with "Argo." A CIA operative will create a fake film crew, a fake film company, and smuggle the six out of Tehran as part of the production. The movie was very tense and very well constructed, even if you know the outcome in advance if you know a little bit of history. Ben Affleck directed and starred, and this was in my opinion one of his best performances. It did take some liberties with historical accuracy, but nonetheless, a very tense political thriller/heist movie with some moments of very dark comedy. Overall Grade: A Next up is The Naked Gun, which came out in 2025, and this is a pitch perfect parody of the gritty cop movie with a lot of absurdist humor, which works well because Liam Neeson brings his grim action persona to the movie and it works really well with the comedy. Neeson plays Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the original Frank Drebin from The Naked Gun movies back in the '80s. After stopping a bank robbery, Drebin finds himself investigating the suicide of an engineer for the sinister tech mogul Richard Cane. Naturally, the suicide isn't what it appears and when the engineer's mysterious but seductive sister asks for Drebin's help, he pushes deeper into the case. Richard Cane was a hilarious villain because the writers couldn't decide which tech billionaire to parody with him, so they kind of parodied all the tech billionaires at once, and I kid you not, the original Frank Drebin makes an appearance as a magical owl. It was hilarious. Overall Grade: A Now for my two favorite things I saw in Autumn 2025. The first is the combination of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, which came out in 1931 and 1935. These are two separate movies, but Frankenstein leads directly to Bride of Frankenstein, so I'm going to treat them as one movie. Honestly, I think they're two halves of the same story the way that Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame would be two halves of the same story 90 years later, so I'll review them as one. Frankenstein by itself on its own will get a B. Colin Clive's performance is Dr. Henry Frankenstein was great, and Boris Karloff gives the Creature a suitable air of menace and uncanny valley. You really feel like he's something that's been brought to life but isn't quite right and still extremely dangerous. The movie does have a very pat ending that implies everyone will live happily ever after, with Dr. Frankenstein's father giving a toast to his son. But Bride of Frankenstein takes everything from the first movie and improves on it. It's one of those sequels that actually makes the preceding movie better. In Bride, Henry is recovering from his ordeal and swears off his experiments of trying to create artificial humans, but the Creature survived the fire at the windmill at the end of the last movie and is seeking for a new purpose. Meanwhile, Henry receives a visit from his previous mentor, the sinister Dr. Pretorius. Like Henry, Pretorius succeeded in creating artificial life and now he wants to work with Henry to perfect their work, but Henry refuses, horrified by the consequences of his previous experiments. Pretorius, undaunted, makes an alliance with the Creature, who then kidnaps Henry's wife. This will let Pretorius force Henry to work on their ultimate work together-a bride for the Creature. Bride of Frankenstein is a lot tighter than Frankenstein. It was surprising to see how rapidly filmmaking techniques evolved over just four years. Pretorius is an excellent villain, more evil wizard than mad scientist, and the scene where he calmly and effortlessly persuades the Creature to his side was excellent. One amusing note, Bride was framed as Mary Shelley telling the second half of the story to her friends, and then the actress playing Mary Shelley, Elsa Lancaster, also played the Bride. So that was a funny bit of meta humor. Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein combined is one of my two favorite movies of Fall 2025. Overall Grade: A+ And now for my second favorite movie of Autumn 2025, which as it turns out is also Frankenstein, but Guillermo del Toro's version that came out in 2025. And honestly, I think Guillermo del Toro's version of Frankenstein is the best version put to screen so far and even does the rarest of all feats, it improves a little on the original novel. Oscar Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein as a brilliant, driven scientist with something of a sociopathic edge. In other words, he's a man who's utterly inadequate to the task when his experiment succeeds and he actually creates an artificial human that have assembled dead body parts. Jacob Elordi does a good job as the Creature, playing him is essentially a good hearted man who's driven to violence and despair by the cruelty and rejection of the world. The recurring question of the Frankenstein mythos is whether or not Victor Frankenstein is the real monster. In this version, he definitely is, though he gets a chance to repent of his evil by the end. Honestly, everything about this was good. The performances, the cinematography, everything. How good was it? It was so good that I will waive my usual one grade penalty for unnecessary nudity since there were a few brief scenes of it. Overall Grade: A+ So that was the Autumn 2025 Movie Roundup. A lot of good movies this time around. While some movies of course were better than others, I didn't see anything I actively disliked, which is always nice. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.
Step into late November with This Week in Horror History, the horror podcast that digs into the spooky anniversaries hiding between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In this episode, we dive into a full week of genre milestones for November 18–25, from cult slashers and gothic ghost stories to Stephen King adaptations, survival horror gaming, and a haunting cannibal romance.We kick things off at summer camp with Sleepaway Camp (1983), the infamous 1980s slasher movie whose shocking final twist made it a cult legend on VHS and a must-watch for every serious horror fan. Then we ride into the fog with Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999), a stylish gothic horror film packed with headless-horseman mayhem, Hammer Horror vibes, and one of Johnny Depp's most beloved spooky roles.From there, we lock the supermarket doors and let The Mist (2007) roll in. This Stephen King horror movie traps terrified townspeople in a grocery store surrounded by Lovecraftian monsters and religious hysteria, building to one of the bleakest endings in modern horror cinema. We also pick up a controller for Condemned: Criminal Origins (2005), a grim Xbox 360 survival horror game that turned a next-gen console launch into a nightmare of crime scenes, jump scares, and first-person brutality.Our Deep-Cut Spotlight sinks its teeth into Salem's Lot (1979), Tobe Hooper's terrifying Stephen King TV miniseriesthat made an entire generation afraid to look out their bedroom windows. We talk small-town dread, the iconic window-scratch scene, and how this vampire story helped shape everything from Fright Night to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Midnight Mass.Along the way, we roll through horror birthdays (including icons connected to The Silence of the Lambs, The Thing, and indie horror favorites), revisit the legacy of Universal's Frankenstein in a Then & Now segment, and close with a Weekly Recommendation: Luca Guadagnino's Bones and All (2022), a melancholic cannibal road movie that plays like a twisted, emotional Thanksgiving watch.If you love horror history, Stephen King adaptations, Tim Burton gothic horror, 80s slasher movies, Thanksgiving horror, and deep dives into cult classics, this episode is your cozy, creepy guide to late-November genre viewing.Subscribe to This Week in Horror History on the Weekly Spooky network so you never miss a horror anniversary, hidden gem, or nightmare from the vault.Sleepaway Camp (1983)Streaming: Currently streaming on Peacock and available via Prime Video (depending on region/packaging).Physical: Recent Blu-ray restorations from boutique horror labels are in print and easy to hunt down for collectors.Sleepy Hollow (1999)Digital: Available to rent or buy digitally on the usual suspects, including Prime Video and Apple TV.Physical: Long-standing Paramount Blu-ray and DVD releases are widely available.The Mist (2007)Streaming: Streaming on Peacock and Paramount+, often as part of their Stephen King / horror lineups.Physical: Blu-ray editions are easy to find, including releases that feature Frank Darabont's preferred black-and-white cut.Condemned: Criminal Origins (2005 – game)Digital: Recently delisted from major digital storefronts, so it's not a simple click-to-buy anymore.Physical / Legacy: Best found as a physical Xbox 360 disc or as remaining PC keys from reputable sellers that still activate on Steam; expect some tinkering on modern hardware.Salem's Lot (1979 miniseries)Streaming: Shows up on free-with-ads streamers like Tubi and on horror-centric services such as AMC+ and Shudder from time to time, though availability shifts.Physical / Digital: There are solid DVD and Blu-ray editions in circulation, and it's typically available to rent or buy digitally on major VOD platforms when it falls out of flat-rate streaming.Bones and All (2022)Digital: Available digitally on Prime Video.Streaming: Also popping up on cinephile-focused streamers such as The Criterion Channel and MUBI, making it easy to slot into a late-night double feature.This episode of This Week in Horror History is brought to you by Savorista Coffee. If you love big spooky flavors without the jitters, head to Savorista.com and use promo code SPOOKY at checkout for 25% off your order. Every purchase supports the show directly — treat yourself to better coffee and help keep our horror history rolling.
Frankenstein evades execution and starts his experiments anew as "Dr. Stein" we watch and analyze the sequel to Hammer Horror's Frankenstein, The Revenge of Frankenstein!
332 Hammerama Ep 30: Prehistoric WomenWelcome to Hammerama! Hammerama is a subsidiary series of the DieCastMovie Podcast. Please join Alistair Hughes and Steven Turek as they analyze the wonderful movies of Hammer Films, from opposite ends of the world! Please send feedback to DieCastMoviePodcast@gmail.com.Al is the author of Infogothic: An Unauthorized Graphic Guide to Hammer Horror. A special thanks to Reber Clark for allowing us to use his music! You can purchase Mr. Clark's music at reberclark.bandcamp.com.
We're joined by Producer Kimberly's twin sister Wendy Willming to talk the 1971 Hammer Horror cult classic Twins of Evil & settle the score on who is in fact the evil twin. Find us on Instagram!
Eric and Will are joined by Bruce Graver and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, authors of the book Peggy Webling and the Story behind Frankenstein for a screening of the UK's first film take on Frankenstein, Hammer Horror's The Curse of Frankenstein!
It's Mike D's birthday, and you know what that means - it's time for a Birthday By-Law episode, where he gets to select any movie he wants to talk about! And this year, Mike has selected the 1968 Hammer Horror picture THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, starring Christopher Lee and directed by Terence Fisher!
Mindframes Podcast: Frankenstein (2025) Directed by: Guillermo del Toro Written by: Guillermo del Toro, based on the novel by Mary Shelley Starring: Oscar Isaac (Victor Frankenstein), Jacob Elordi (The Creature), Christoph Waltz (Von Klemper), Mia Goth (Elizabeth/Claire Frankenstein), Charles Dance, Ralph Ineson, and David Bradley Cinematography: Dan Laustsen Release: 2025 (Netflix) IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1312221/
Episode 226: The final week of our Stop It's Hammer Horror Time theme is upon us. Yes, it is bitter sweet, but such is life. Unless you are the The Man Who Could Cheat Death from 1959. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!Next month take a bite out of our Nosvember coverage as we cover 4 Nosferatu films, starting with 1922's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/a-cut-above-horror-review--6354278/support.
At the end of 1965, Variety previewed Dracula, Prince Of Darkness with a damning faint praise stating that " After a slowish start, some climate of eeriness is evoked but more shadows, suspense and suggestion would have helped. Christopher Lee, an old hand at the horror business, makes a latish appearance but dominates the film enough without dialog."Philip's here to guide you through this creepy old house while Cev finds the Keys and Adam sits by the fireside.Will the lads (along with a special guest) beg to differ with Variety? There's only one way to find out...“The House Of Hammer Theme” and incidental music - written and produced by Cev MooreArtwork by Richard Wells All the links you think you'll need & more! https://linktr.ee/househammerpod
Send us a textSteve Rogers and Mark Stanborough of Hammer Films tell us about the resurgence of physical media releases from Hammer this year, along with an update on the new ownership and the new company priorities.We then detail how The Curse of Frankenstein became a definitive 4K release, along with the Warner Archive, pairing archival rigor with fan-first features. You will hear about the restoration process, the new optional 5.1 audio, and the entertaining new extras included in the various Deluxe UK and US releases. This is a podcast horror and specifically Hammer Horror fans don't want to miss.US Curse of Frankenstein 4K Purchase linkGet information on the DELUXE UK Edition at the Hammer Films WebsiteThe Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog Group As an Amazon Affiliate, The Extras may receive a commission for purchases through our purchase links. There is no additional cost to you, and every little bit helps us in the production of the podcast. Thanks in advance. Otaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. tim@theextras.tv
Episode 225: Week three we round out the Stop It's Hammer Horror Time theme with a guest in Adam (friend of the show) to help remove The Curse of Frankenstein from 1957. Check us next week for our final week of Hammer Horror films, in 1959's The Man Who Could Cheat Death.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/a-cut-above-horror-review--6354278/support.
Episode 223: This week we kick off our Stop It's Hammer Horror Time October. An entire month of Hammer films. Starting with 1959's The Mummy.Tune in next week for our second dose of Hammer Horror, with the oh so scary The Lady Vanishes from 1979.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/a-cut-above-horror-review--6354278/support.
[School of Movies 2025] "Adapting is like marrying a widow; You respect the memory of the husband, but at some point you gotta get it on." - Guillermo del Toro. In preparation for GDTs long-awaited take on Frankenstein we delved into some of the most significant onscreen versions of Mary Shelley's book. Taking our cues from the excellent piece by Overly Sarcastic Productions we recruit Gothic enthusiast Willow and together as a family talk you through the story, referencing different movies regarding how closely they cleave to the source novel, and how and why they choose to deviate. Many of the elements people take for granted, lightning, green skin, bolts in the neck, flat head, tendency to talk like a caveman all seem to stem from the 1931 James Whale film and its 1935 sequel starring Borris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester. Turns out that the monster, the creation or as he is sometimes called, "Adam" was, as-written a great deal more complex, something some films have expressed in the interim near-century, nearly all of the most significant we talk about, including the 1994 Kenneth Branagh version, the 2011 stage version with Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller, the Hammer Horror versions with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, Frank Roddam's The Bride from 1985, Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, and a surprisingly great two-part TV miniseries from 2004. Accompanying, we have a Cutting Class episode releasing this weekend with a bunch of other adaptations we talked about here but were trimmed out for time and focus, and we will of course be back to talk about Del Toro's version very soon.
Baron Frankenstein is up to his old tricks in this Hammer Horror film. Ashley & Matt discuss The Revenge of Frankenstein in this episode.
This week, Tim Kirk returns, this time as a guest host. And we're going all the way back to the OG grave robbers, William Burke and William Hare, two guys who really existed and really killed for fun and profit. But what happens when a semi-disgraced American film director gets access to an impressive cast of great British actors, both iconic and up-and-coming? You get a true story of murder and mayhem, Animal House style! Join us for all sorts of hijinks and a cameo list that includes Hammer Horror great Christopher Lee, monster maker extraordinaire Ray Harryhausen, AND Charles MFing Darwin, baby! All His Damned Mother's Sons is out now! You can purchase it at https://pelekinesis.square.site?cc=FRANKENCAST or just go to pelekinesis.com and enter code FRANKENCAST at checkout. And you can always find more from Tim at tim2kirk.com! Please rate, review, and tell your fiends. And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future installments. Join us on Patreon at patreon.com/thefrankencast. Find all of our various links atlinktr.ee/frankencast or send us a letter at thefrankencast@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!Your Horror Hosts: Anthony Bowman (he/him) & Eric Velazquez (he/him). Cover painting by Amanda Keller (@KellerIllustrations on Instagram).
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) was chosen by Dave, and it's a wild blend of classic British gothic horror and Hong Kong martial arts cinema, a true oddity even by Hammer Films standards. By the early 1970s, Hammer was struggling to keep its brand of horror relevant, as audience tastes shifted toward more modern and visceral scares. Looking to revive interest in their iconic Dracula franchise, the studio teamed up with Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers, who were at the height of their popularity in the kung fu boom. The result was an ambitious Anglo-Chinese co-production that brought together Hammer regulars like Peter Cushing and a full roster of Shaw Brothers talent, hoping to merge Eastern action with Western horror spectacle.The production was shot largely at the Shaw Brothers' studios in Hong Kong, with additional second-unit work in England. Directed by Hammer veteran Roy Ward Baker, with martial arts choreography overseen by Shaw Brothers action specialists, the film was one of Hammer's most visually adventurous projects, complete with elaborate sets, ornate costumes, and an energetic fusion of filmmaking styles. However, cultural and creative differences between the two studios led to a somewhat chaotic production. Despite its uneven tone and limited success at the box office, the film has since developed a cult following, celebrated for its eccentric charm and its experimental East-meets-West ambition.If you enjoy the show, we have a Patreon, so become a supporter here.Referral links also help out the show if you were going to sign up:NordVPNNordPassTrailer Guy Plot SummaryFrom the misty mountains of Transylvania, to the deadly temples of the Far East, evil has a new address.When the curse of Dracula reaches across continents, only one man can stop the rise of the undead, Professor Van Helsing! With ancient legends, martial arts mayhem, and seven bloodthirsty vampires, it's horror meets kung fu in the wildest crossover of the 1970s.The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, where Hammer Horror meets high-kicking heroics.Fun FactsA co-production between Britain's Hammer Films and Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers Studio, marking the only collaboration between the two legendary film houses.It was Hammer's 9th and final entry in their Dracula series, though Christopher Lee declined to return, ending his long association with the role.Peter Cushing reprised his role as Professor Van Helsing for the fifth and final time in the Hammer Dracula series.The movie was directed by Roy Ward Baker, known for Quatermass and the Pit (1967), with fight choreography handled by veteran Shaw Brothers action directors.Hammer wanted to cash in on the 1970s kung fu craze following the global success of Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon (1973).Filming took place primarily at the Shaw Brothers Studio in Hong Kong, with lavish temple sets and hundreds of local extras used for large-scale action scenes.Two versions of the film exist — the full-length international version and a shorter U.S. cut titled “The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula.”Despite its cult appeal today, the film was a commercial disappointment upon release, contributing to Hammer's financial decline in the mid-1970s.The movie features an entirely new actor as Dracula — John Forbes-Robertson, though his screen time was significantly reduced in the final cut.Over the years, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires has become a cult favorite among horror and martial arts fans, praised for its bizarre East-meets-West energy and campy charm.thevhsstrikesback@gmail.comhttps://linktr.ee/vhsstrikesback
324 Hammerama Ep 29: The DamnedWelcome to Hammerama! Hammerama is a subsidiary series of the DieCastMovie Podcast. Please join Alistair Hughes and Steven Turek as they analyze the wonderful movies of Hammer Films, from opposite ends of the world! Please send feedback to DieCastMoviePodcast@gmail.com.Al is the author of Infogothic: An Unauthorized Graphic Guide to Hammer Horror. A special thanks to Reber Clark for allowing us to use his music! You can purchase Mr. Clark's music at reberclark.bandcamp.com.
As Hammer are all about that wacky doctor and his constantly failed experiments, Ben's here to to have all the best fun, as far as the rules will allow, with the idea of bringing back the dead...“The House Of Hammer Theme” written and produced by Cev Moore Artwork by Richard Wells All the links you think you'll need & more! https://linktr.ee/househammerpod
The House of Horrors is still in England and we are stuck in it discovering more Hammer Horror with our good mate Jon. Vampires and big breasted women stand no chance when the Captain is on the job. Season 4 of Scary Larry's House Of Horrors continues it's U.K. sojourn.
"It was a headless horseman!" For Episode 379, Brandon and David continue CineNation's series on Folk Horror with a mainstream version of the genre, SLEEPY HOLLOW. Listen as they discuss the history of Washington Irving's original story, how the film was originally going to be a low-budget slasher film, why Tim Burton became involved in the project, why the movie ended up filming in England over the US, how they broke new ground with their creation of the Headless Horseman, how Paramount used an early version of online marketing for the film, and more! Also, don't forget to join our Patreon for more exclusive movie content: Opening - One Battle After Another - (00:00:10) Early Thoughts on Sleepy Hollow (00:08:02) Recap of Folk Horror Movies (00:10:14) Intro to Sleepy Hollow (00:13:52) How Sleepy Hollow Got to Production (00:23:32) Favorite Scenes (00:44:55) On Set Life - (01:09:42) Aftermath: Release and Legacy (01:23:18) What Worked and What Didn't (01:30:40) Film Facts (01:35:15) Awards (01:35:54) Final Questions on the Movie (01:41:50) Wrapping Up the Episode (01:46:45) Contact Us: Facebook: @cinenation Instagram: @cinenationpodcast Twitter/X: @CineNationPod TikTok: @cinenation Letterboxd: CineNation Podcast
Even though The Plague Of The Zombies packs a lot into its story and is considered by many to be a favourite, it is also one of those rare beasts in Hammer horror: the one and done. What will the lads dig up? Will it be just another empty casket?All will be revealed along with cocktails, a potted history of the undead and giddy new levels of Morell love!“The House Of Hammer Theme” and incidental music - written and produced by Cev MooreArtwork by Richard Wells All the links you think you'll need & more! https://linktr.ee/househammerpod
Hammer Heroes is a semi-regular feature of The House Of Hammer that takes a look behind the curtain of the people that made the studio what it was.In this particular case, Cev shines a light on one of the studio's more well known luminaries: Jimmy Sangster.“The House Of Hammer Theme” and incidental music - written and produced by Cev MooreArtwork by Richard Wells All the links you think you'll need & more! https://linktr.ee/househammerpod
In this episode of the show we are beginning a brand-new monthly retrospective and this time we are setting our sights on one Stuart Gordon and his debut feature Re-Animator. Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about Stuart Gordon's beginnings, how his debut draws from exploitation cinema and how it anchors itself in literary connections to H.P. Lovecraft and Mary Shelley. We also talk about Gordon's splatter horror and its place between Italian masters, Troma, Roger Corman and Hammer Horror, the film's own self-awareness and playfulness and much more!Tune in and enjoy!Hosts: Jakub Flasz & Randy BurrowsIntro: Infraction - CassetteOutro: Infraction - DaydreamHead over to uncutgemspodcast.com to find all of our archival episodes and more!Follow us on Twitter (@UncutGemsPod), IG (@UncutGemsPod) and Facebook (@UncutGemsPod)Buy us a coffee over at Ko-Fi.com (ko-fi.com/uncutgemspod)Subscribe to our Patreon! (patreon.com/uncutgemspod)
Today we follow Dracula to the UK and Hammer Horror in The Horror of Dracula. We discuss the differnce seeing Dracual in saturated colors brings, the feral predator vampire portrayl of Christopher Lee's Dracua, and making Van Helsing a worthy adversary. Hammer filled Dracula with new blood, joining in drinking it deep from this vein. Synopsis: When Jonathan Harker rouses the ire of Count Dracula for accepting a job at the vampire's castle under false pretenses, his friend Dr. Van Helsing pursues the predatory villain. Starring: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough Directed by Terence Fisher Youtube: https://youtu.be/MwmoaU4bLm0 Help us make our first feature length Messed Up Movie: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mr-creamjean-s-hidey-hole-horror-comedy-movie#/ Support the show on the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/messedupmoviespod Watch our newest short film Sugar Tits Now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz7leFqqo4g
It's All Horror October, and we love this time of year. The first entrée in our month-long horrorthon is a dive into Hammer Horror, the British studio that redefined gothic chills in the mid-20th century with lush sets, vivid color, and a young Christopher Lee baring his fangs. Adam Beam joins us to talk through Horror of Dracula (1958), Lee's first outing as the Count, and The Vampire Lovers (1970), Hammer's more sensual, blood-drenched take on the vampire myth—where David, true to form, falls head over heels for the lead lady vampire. This month we're pairing every fright with an Oktoberfest, starting with Yuengling's Oktoberfest. For the second half, we switch it up with Martin House Brewing's Saint Gria, a bloody-red beer with a bite.
It's time for one of those huge episodes. Well, it's a two parter anyways. 1961 was not the most ground breaking year for horror movies, well, as far as the big hitter films are concerned anyways. The highs are really high & the lows are few & far between. But, what do I think was the very greatest horror movie that came out during 1961? Well, here we have the top 3. A slew of also rans. Some special guests. Several pints of beer and over 2 hours of running time split over 2 episodes. This is 1961, A Year In Horror.0.33 - Shadow of the Cat5.40 - Curse of the Werewolf10.53 - Taste of Fear AKA Scream of Fear17.31 - The Innocents (John Tantalon)59.28 - Outro
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), Quatermass 2 (1957), Quatermass and the Pit (1967) Everyone knows the name Hammer Films (at least, we hope they do!) but most people associate it with gothic horror, particularly their reimagining of the Universal classic Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). Yet Hammer had been around long before Peter Cushing breathed life into that first stitched-together corpse. Founded in the 1930s as a distribution company, the studio gradually moved into producing films, often adapted from popular TV and radio series. In 1953, the BBC aired a six-part serial, The Quatermass Experiment. Hammer quickly recognized its potential, adapted it into a feature film, and in doing so set itself firmly on the path toward becoming “the studio that dripped blood.” In this episode, we cover all three Quatermass films. While they lean more toward science fiction than Hammer's later gothic output, they are steeped in horror... and we think they're well worth your time. Films mentioned in this episode: And Now the Screaming Starts (1973), Asylum (1972), Brides of Dracula (1960), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Curse of the Werewolf (1961), Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), The Gorgon (1964), Horror of Dracula (1958), I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958), The Incredible Melting Man (1977), Inhumanwich! (2016), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), It Came from Beneath the Sea (1953), It Conquered the World (1956), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974), Masque of the Red Death (1964), Monster Club (1981), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954), Pit Stop (1969), Quatermass Xperiment (1955), Quatermass II (1957), Quatermass and the Pit (1967), Rasputin the Mad Monk (1966), Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), Scars of Dracula (1970), The Stone Tape (1972), The Vampire Lovers (1970), Vault of Horror (1973), X – The Unknown (1956)
This week, we're taking a look at another HAMMER film, from 1971 it's Countess Dracula. This fillm is HAMMER'S re-imagining of the true-life tale of Countess Elizabeth Bathory who, according to legend, bathed in the blood of young virgin girls to help maintain her youthful appearance! The always beautiful Ingrid Pitt plays Countess Elizabeth who accidentally discovers that, after the blood of one of her servant girls gets splashed across her face, she begins to look younger. Soon she is enlisting the help of her lover, Captain Doby and her nurse, Julie to procure more and more young virgin girls. As the bodies begin piling up, the people of the village suspect foul play in the castle. Listen in and find out what we thought.
It's time for one of those huge episodes. Well, it's a two parter anyways. 1961 was not the most ground breaking year for horror movies, well, as far as the big hitter films are concerned anyways. The highs are really high & the lows are few & far between. But, what do I think was the very greatest horror movie that came out during 1961? Well, here we have the top 3. A slew of also rans. Some special guests. Several pints of beer and over 2 hours of running time split over 2 episodes. This is 1961, A Year In Horror.0.00 - Intro13.59 - Also Rans18.12 - Sci-Fi Corner21.03 - The Day the Earth Caught Fire (w/ Kevin Lyons)1.01.15 - Mother Joan of the AngelsA Year in Horror Patreon is HERE
Hammer horror reaches peak gothic chills with The Plague of the Zombies (1966), a Hammer Film Productions classic that defines British horror cinema. Shot at Bray Studios from 28 July 1965 and filmed back-to-back with Hammer's The Reptile (see episode 19), it used the same eerie Cornish village set designed by Hammer's celebrated production designer Bernard Robinson. Director John Gilling – the so-called “gentleman pig farmer” behind The Shadow of the Cat and The Mummy's Shroud – stages a story of graveyards, curses and the undead that became a template for Hammer zombie horror. Writer Peter Bryan, who joined Hammer Film Productions in 1948 as a camera operator before turning to screenwriting, provided the script and left the studio shortly after completing A Challenge for Robin Hood in 1967. When The Plague of the Zombies was submitted to the BBFC it was heavily trimmed: André Morell's Sir James Forbes originally decapitated a zombie with four shovel blows in the graveyard sequence, reduced to one for the censors. Heatherden Hall at Pinewood Studios doubles as the Forbes mansion, better known to James Bond fans as SPECTRE Island from From Russia With Love. Diane Clare, cast as Sylvia, had been one of the best-paid child “film babies” of the 1940s, appearing in The Ghosts of Berkeley Square and The Silver Fleet before leading roles in Hammer horror such as The Haunting, Witchcraft and The Hand of the Night. Her entire performance in The Plague of the Zombies was dubbed by South African actress Olive Gregg without her knowledge, a practice Hammer repeated when re-voicing Ingrid Pitt in Countess Dracula. André Morell himself had turned down both The Quatermass Experiment and Quatermass II on television before finally playing Professor Bernard Quatermass in the BBC's Quatermass and the Pit. When Hammer Film Productions made the feature version the role went to Andrew Keir. Morell also played O'Brien opposite Peter Cushing's Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Dr Watson in Hammer's Hound of the Baskervilles, voiced Elrond in Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings and appeared in Doctor Who. Quiz fans: Morell appeared in three films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar – can you name them? John Carson, born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), plays Clive Hamilton. He spent time in Australia and New Zealand before settling in Britain, later featuring in Doctor Who's Snakedance, Tales of the Unexpected and Hammer House of Horror. IMDb longlists even connect him to Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (episode 39) though he got none of the roles. With this episode we complete a Hammer horror hat-trick of his films: Captain Kronos (episode 51), Taste the Blood of Dracula (episode 60) and now The Plague of the Zombies. He later emigrated to South Africa with his second wife, Luanshya Greer – formerly Pamela Greer, who became a TV writer for Dixon of Dock Green, Thriller and Triangle. Dr Peter Tompson is played by Brook Williams, a lifelong friend of Richard Burton who appeared with him in Where Eagles Dare, The Wild Geese and The Sea Wolves. Michael Ripper appears as Sergeant Swift; Hammer's most prolific supporting actor with 33 Hammer Film Productions credits, seven films alongside Peter Cushing and nine with #BigChrisLee. Ripper also starred in all four original St Trinian's films, . For a deeper dive into Jacqueline “Servalan” Pearce, check back to our episode on The Reptile (episode 19). This discussion of The Plague of the Zombies cements its place as one of Hammer horror's boldest British horror releases of the 1960sSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
New from the EOH Network, Hammer Time: A Hammer Horror Podcast! Subscribe to Hammer Time on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to Hammer Time on Spotify Subsribe to the Hammer Time RSS Feed From The Curse of Frankenstein to Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, from Dracula to Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, Hammer was the leading production company in British horror from the mid 1950s to the 1970s. Join film critic and Hammer newbie Becky Darke and Hammer expert Kevin Lyons as they watch and discuss every horror film in Hammer's back catalogue! It's Hammer Time. Hosted by Becky Darke & Kevin Lyons Produced & Edited by Mike Muncer Drop us an email: hammer@evolutionofhorror.com Check out the full list of films being covered on evolutionofhorror.com/hammer Part of the Evolution of Horror Network Follow EOH Network on Instagram Follow Becky Darke on Instagram and BlueSky Check out Kevin Lyons' websites, EOFFTV and EOFFT Reviews Follow Kevin Lyons on X and Facebook Follow Mike Muncer on Instagram and BlueSky
We're about a month away from Halloween so we thought it was the perfect time to take a look at Hammer's Scars Of Dracula. This film, the fifth sequel to Hammer's landmark 1958 film Horror of Dracula, finds a young man on the run from the law, named Paul, who is murdered while seeking refuge for the night at Count Dracula's castle, prompting his older brother Simon and his girlfriend, Sarah, to come to look for him. Unfortunately all signs lead to Dracula's castle where they come face to face with the sadistic Count himself. We, along with friend of the show, Dean Calusdian, take a look at this Hammer Horror classic. Listen in and find out what we thought.
As the nights are getting longer and Halloween is drawing ever closer, why not join us on FRIDAY 26th for our online screening of Dracula: Prince Of Darkness at 7.30pm?This will be the subject of the Halloween 2025 episode so don't miss this opportunity to join in with the hell-bound high jinks and either see it for the first or the hundredth time!All the links you think you'll need & more! https://linktr.ee/househammerpod
The 1960s saw a range of different anxieties, from nuclear annihilation to the terror of teen street gangs. This week, we watch a film that brings these anxieties together in THE DAMNED (1961, Losey)! Adapted from H.L. Lawrence's novel THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT (1960), Hammer Horror tries to make their own VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, unfortunately while relying on a director and writer more interested in philosophical ideas... Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 39:17; Discussion 1:02:08; Ranking 1:29:17
Cinematic Sound Radio - Soundtracks, Film, TV and Video Game Music
Sadly, and without much fanfare, we lost another dedicated film music fan and a very good friend, Tom Kiefner. November 2, 1947 – June 13, 2025. He was a gentle soul, a passionate baseball fan and a skilled photographer. I initially met Tom in the early 2000s when I joined a message board on scorereviews.com, which is now maintitles.net. There, I read Tom's enthusiastic postings about melodic, orchestral Golden Age scores, and classical music. He would wax poetic about Korngold, Rozsa, Waxman, Herrmann, Tiomkin, Newman and Hugo Friedhofer who peened his favourite score of all time, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. He would often express his admiration for early television shows and the music composed for them including Lalo Schifrin's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and Morton Stevens' HAWAII-FIVE-O. I befriended Tom, and we talked about film music and his other interests, such as photography and baseball. He once told me that he casually chatted with Wayne Gretzky, whose son played for one of the teams Tom was photographing that day. The discussions would continue to include Hammer Horror films, Les Baxter, Charles Gerhardt, and Tom's dream of starting a website dedicated solely to Golden Age scores. I thought it was a great idea. He then offered me money to create the website for him. Even if I could… I don't have the skills to do so… I would never take Tom's money. I then suggested he contact Bregt De Lange, who designed the maintitles.net website. GoldenScores.com launched in 2006. After the site closed a few years later, Tom moved his film music essays and reviews to his new WordPress blog, Film and Classical Music: Neglected Art. There, Tom's writings, which began in 2006, are archived. His last review was on May 4, 2022. In 2010, Tom accepted an invitation to guest-host his own episode of Cinematic Sound Radio. I told him he could play whatever he wanted, as long as it was Golden Age-themed. These are the original show notes. FILM MUSIC MIX | GOLDEN AGE SCORES with guest host TOM KIEFNER from FILM MUSIC: THE NEGLECTED ART On this edition of FILM MUSIC MIX guest host Tom Kiefner from the film music blog, FILM MUSIC: THE NEGLECTED ART, will take us on a journey through the wonderful sounds of Hollywood's Golden Age. You will hear music by Bernard Herrmann from the film HANGOVER SQUARE featuring the Concert Macabre. You'll also hear a couple of selections from THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES by Hugo Friedhofer (Tom's favorite score) and a spectacular suite from HORROR OF DRACULA by James Bernard. Afterwards, enjoy the Americana sounds of Aaron Copland with THE RED PONY and finish off with the tune that got Tom into film music; the up tempo theme from PETER GUNN by Henry Mancini. So, on today's very special episode, and in honour of one of the great champions of film music and my friend, we proudly rebroadcast Tom's show, which first premiered on September 3, 2010. Rest in peace, my friend! —— Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Matt DeWater, David Ballantyne, Joe Wiles, Maxime, William Welch, Tim Burden, Alan Rogers, Dave Williams, Max Hamulyák, Jeffrey Graebner, Don Mase, Victor Field, Jochen Stolz, Emily Mason, Eric Skroch, Alexander Schiebel, Alphonse Brown, John Link, Andreas Wennmyr, Matt Berretta, Eldaly Morningstar, Jim Wilson, Glenn McDorman, Chris Malone, Steve Karpicz, Deniz Çağlar, Brent Osterberg, Jérôme Flick, Sarah Brouns, Aaron Collins, Randall Derchan, Angela Rabatin, Michael Poteet, Larry Reese, William Burke, Rudy Amaya, Stacy Livitsanis, Rick Laird, Carl Wonders, Nathan Blumenfeld, Lee Wileman, Daniel Herrin, Scott Bordelon, James Alexander, Brett French, Ian Clark, Ron, Andy Gray, Joel Nichols, Steve Daniel, Corey O'Brien, John Leggett, Mim Williams, Grace Hamilton, Rob Kemp. —— Cinematic Sound Radio is fully licensed to play music by SOCAN. Support us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/cinematicsoundradio Check out our NEW Cinematic Sound Radio TeePublic Store! https://www.teepublic.com/stores/cinematic-sound-radio Cinematic Sound Radio Web: http://www.cinematicsound.net Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cinsoundradio Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cinematicsound Cinematic Sound Radio Fanfare and Theme by David Coscina https://soundcloud.com/user-970634922 Bumper voice artist: Tim Burden http://www.timburden.com
313 Hammerama 28 - Frankenstein Created WomanWelcome to Hammerama! Hammerama is a subsidiary series of the DieCast Movie Podcast. Please join Alistair Hughes and Steven Turek as they analyze the wonderful movies of Hammer Films, from opposite ends of the world! On this episode, we are joined by author and Hammer enthusiast Dominique Lamssies!Please send feedback to DieCastMoviePodcast@gmail.com.Al is the author of Infogothic: An Unauthorized Graphic Guide to Hammer Horror.A special thanks to Reber Clark for allowing us to use his music! You can purchase Mr. Clark's music at reberclark.bandcamp.com.
As a tribute to a friend of The House Of Hammer, here's a chance to listen to a conversation between the respected Egyptologist & Cultural Historian, John J. Johnston and Cev. It was much longer and far reaching than could be used in the intended episode about the Mummy itself and covered some of the pet obsessions the both of them often chatted about.Jan 23rd 1965 - Aug 29th 2025Vale! John.
Send us a textWe announce a special collaborative 4K UHD release of "The Curse of Frankenstein" from Warner Archive and Hammer Films, coming October 14th. This landmark partnership brings together both companies' archival resources to create the definitive presentation of this horror classic that established Hammer as a leading force in the genre.• Warner Archive and Hammer Films partnering on a deluxe release of The Curse of Frankenstein• 4K UHD edition ($34.99) includes three aspect ratios: 1.66, 1.85, and open matte 1.37• Comprehensive special features including new commentaries and a nostalgic Super 8mm abridgment• Separate three-disc Blu-ray edition also available ($29.99) with extensive bonus content• Original mono audio preserved with new Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround sound optionsPre-orders are not yet available.The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog Group As an Amazon Affiliate, The Extras may receive a commission for purchases through our purchase links. There is no additional cost to you, and every little bit helps us in the production of the podcast. Thanks in advance. Otaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. tim@theextras.tv