A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss

[mark meakin]

aye, was better this week, though sister hyde??? Brides didnt hold up to me memory sadly, though the climax (the branding & the windmill crucifix) still held me to the end. am praying the film isnt NOTLD next week haha.

No it's the 140 minute cut of Dawn Of The Dead which was cut on it's very first BBC screening,but should be intact now.

[mark meakin]

Then it's Witchfinder General, and I quite fancy that Poe documentary as well.

I doubt they will be showing the lovely restored print available from MGM on the Midnite Movies label though.

[claire]

Following on from Dawn of the Dead, it looks like the last film to accompany the series will be "Scanners" on 27th.

[mark meakin]

Following on from Dawn of the Dead, it looks like the last film to accompany the series will be "Scanners" on 27th.

Surely they could've made the season last till Halloween !.

[Myersfan73]

Really enjoyed the 2nd episode and can't wait for the next. Nice to here from people involved in the making of these films. Next weeks should be really good.

Strange it's been shoved on BBC4 though. More worthy of being shown on 1 or 2, way better than the main stream shite they show on those!

[Mark Y]

Some of these films look incredibly colourful and vivid now in modern transfers.

Nice to see Barbara Steele - I'd like to see a full length documentary just about her. Anyone know where those on-set Hammer clips came from? (not Dracula POD or Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed obviously).

Seeing Gatiss picking up House Of Hammer magazine and recalling how he was banned from watching horror stuff as a kid - those were my experiences too. Not fun at the time but I can laugh about it now.

[tobiaswragg]

I first got bitten (so to speak) by the Hammer/horror bug at the age of 7. The first film that I was allowed to watch was Dracula Prince of Darkness at age 8. Not long after I got a tape recorder and was so obsessed by these things that I started recording the soundtracks (this was long before the video boom), much to the bemusement of my parents, the first being Masque of the Red Death. Naturally House of Hammer was an integral part of my youth, as was its forerunner Monster Mag. I haven't watched this programme yet, but I'll be interested to learn if Gatiss was as ghoulish and weird as myself as a child.

[Mark Y]

I turned down a date with a colleague at the HMV shop I was working at when Masque Of The Red Death played on TV in '81. Thought I might get another chance at a date but I wasn't sure when I'd get to see Masque again.

I was wrong about the date, and of course I've seen Masque numerous times since and now own the film. If only I'd known...

[Mark Y]

I doubt they will be showing the lovely restored print available from MGM on the Midnite Movies label though.

Just watching Witchfinder now - it's the version Redemption released on tape, with just the lower grade restored inserts rather than whole scenes as per the UK DVD. They've stuck a BBC Four logo in the middle of the picture though and squeezed the end credits to advertise tomorrrow's History Of Horror

Still one of my all-time favourite Brit horrors

p.s. do the DVD versions include the acknowledgment card after the end credits as per tonight's broadcast? I can't remember without checking.

[Mark Y]

Nothing very revelatory on tonight's show and I think it only skimmed the surface (no LHOTL?) but it was nice to see Tobe Hooper on camera and I do like the scenes of Gatiss revisiting the old film locations. Shame it couldn't have been longer.

Dawn of the Dead looks to be uncut (I only watched the start).

[thehamish]

indeed. nice to hear someone go on about Martin though....

[viva la gore]

The last part was the best imo. Hopefully he will do something like this again.

[Johnny_Alucard]

This series has been an enjoyable, if rather predictable and selective trawl through the history of the genre....probably of interest to less hardened fans than those on here...and let's face it, to do what MG did and get paid for it, you've got to be a bit envious! Gatiss seems ubiquitous at the moment, with his 'Poirot' Halloween special on ITV later in the week..plus a cameo in the new 'Psychoville'...also heard that thanks to his success with the awful updatings of 'Dr Who' and 'Sherlock Holmes' (the new 'Sherlock' was the stuff of nightmare!) that he was involved with, he's finally in talks with the BBC to adapt his brilliant and hilarious 'Lucifer Box' books for them, after they'd previously had cold feet...

[thehamish]

and dont forget bbc7 are repeating Nebulous as well...if you havent heard this v funny scifi spoof (written by Graham Duff) well worth it for David Warner's 2 cameos alone "...i am NOT a clown!!!.."

[Dave Jay]

Sorry, but what exactly was the point of this programme? I saw the HAMMER episode and that was okay... but the '70's horror instalment was a complete bust IMO...

At the start of the programme, Mark talks about a collection of movies that are supposedly considered to be for hardcore horror fans only, which HE thinks should have a wider audience. Okay, I'll go with that... and what films does he then highlight? Well, only some of the most successful horror movies of all time! PSYCHO, ROSEMARY'S BABY, NOTLD, THE EXORCIST, TEXAS CHAINSAW, THE OMEN, DAY OF THE DEAD, HALLOWEEN... man, even filmgoers who profess to hate horror movies would probably have seen a few of these in their time. And as a suppsedly 'personal' view we learnt nothing about Gattis himself and his relationship with horror (apart from a couple of quick asides). And the interviewees once again rolled out the same stories we've heard from them a thousand times - even they looked bored by the process.

This just smacked of being a superficial vanity project greenlit to keep Gattis happy at the BBC... of no real merit at all to even the most cursory of horror lovers.

[thehamish]

ok Dave, i do see that point..even though i did enjoy all 3..the sense of deja vu that set in during the first one was slightly annoying i.e. ah the universal-hammer-romero trilogy again..but until say, eg alan jones or Marc does something about euro/ p walker/coffin joe et al horror on national tv(and yes i remember Eurotika)...we'll just have to re-view all those films that we love, does it detract from them, no. so what if you have to explain who Franco is to civillians....i enjoy the looks on their faces personally...ahem.

[CountFilth]

I watched all 3 of these on iplayer over the last couple of days. Unfortunately, I didn't really get anything out of it or see the point of the series. I also found it strange that the second episode ended with the theme music to Suspiria (looking to the next episode) then the last episode completely ignored Italian / Euro horror. Also, as Dave says above, I was stunned that these films for "hardcore horror fans only" turned out to be standard commerical fare.

To be honest, from the start it just looked like a jolly on the licence payer's expense for someone who really has little interest in the horror genre.