13 - Dead of Night (1945)
Explicit content warning
07/06/21 • 90 min
Dead of Night is a 1945 black and white British anthology horror film, made by Ealing Studios, was their sole attempt at making a horror movie.
It Featured the following stories
- The Hearse Driver, based on "The Bus-Conductor" by E. F. Benson
- The Christmas Party
- The Haunted Mirror
- The Golfer's Story, based on "The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost" by H. G. Wells
and
- The Ventriloquist's Dummy
The individual segments were directed by by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer.
The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring Michael Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.
Dead of Night is a rare British horror film of the 1940s; horror films were banned from production in Britain during the war. It had an influence on subsequent British films in the genre. Both of John Baines' stories were reused for later films and the possessed ventriloquist dummy episode was adapted into the pilot episode of the long-running CBS radio series Escape.
The circular plot of Dead of Night inspired Fred Hoyle's steady state model of the universe, developed in 1948.
Mario Livio in Brilliant Blunders cites the impact of a viewing of Dead of Night had on astrophysicists Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi, and Thomas Gold. "Gold asked suddenly, "What if the universe is like that?' meaning that the universe could be eternally circling on itself without beginning or end. Unable to dismiss this conjecture, they started to think seriously of an unchanging universe, a steady state universe.
In the early 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films. Dead of Night placed at number 35 on their top 100 list. Director Martin Scorsese placed Dead of Night 5th on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.
Writer/director Christopher Smith was inspired by the circular narrative in Dead of Night when making his 2009 film Triangle.
Something Horrific:
Censor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrhXjH1M70
HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR The Mark of Satan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKjizivKRU
Help my House is Haunted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPpZOb0svC0
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Dead of Night is a 1945 black and white British anthology horror film, made by Ealing Studios, was their sole attempt at making a horror movie.
It Featured the following stories
- The Hearse Driver, based on "The Bus-Conductor" by E. F. Benson
- The Christmas Party
- The Haunted Mirror
- The Golfer's Story, based on "The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost" by H. G. Wells
and
- The Ventriloquist's Dummy
The individual segments were directed by by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer.
The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring Michael Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.
Dead of Night is a rare British horror film of the 1940s; horror films were banned from production in Britain during the war. It had an influence on subsequent British films in the genre. Both of John Baines' stories were reused for later films and the possessed ventriloquist dummy episode was adapted into the pilot episode of the long-running CBS radio series Escape.
The circular plot of Dead of Night inspired Fred Hoyle's steady state model of the universe, developed in 1948.
Mario Livio in Brilliant Blunders cites the impact of a viewing of Dead of Night had on astrophysicists Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi, and Thomas Gold. "Gold asked suddenly, "What if the universe is like that?' meaning that the universe could be eternally circling on itself without beginning or end. Unable to dismiss this conjecture, they started to think seriously of an unchanging universe, a steady state universe.
In the early 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films. Dead of Night placed at number 35 on their top 100 list. Director Martin Scorsese placed Dead of Night 5th on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.
Writer/director Christopher Smith was inspired by the circular narrative in Dead of Night when making his 2009 film Triangle.
Something Horrific:
Censor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrhXjH1M70
HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR The Mark of Satan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKjizivKRU
Help my House is Haunted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPpZOb0svC0
$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$
Just in case anyone has too much money and wants to give a bit to us to help with our hosting n stuff. It would be amazing if you fancied sending us some pennies - thank you.
https://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders
$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$
Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders.
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Previous Episode
12 - Hellraiser (1987) by Clive Barker
Hellraiser is a 1987 British supernatural horror film written and directed by Clive Barker based on his 1986 novella The Hellbound Heart. The film marked Barker's directorial debut. Its plot involves a mystical puzzle box which summons the Cenobites, a religious sect in Hell known as the ‘Order of the Gash’, describing themselves as "explorers in the further regions of experience", and granting sadomasochistic pleasures to those who call upon them. The leader of the Cenobites is portrayed by Doug Bradley, and identified in the sequels as "Pinhead".
Filmed in late 1986. Barker originally wanted the electronic music group Coil to perform the music for the film, but on insistence from producers the film was re-scored by Christopher Young. Some of Coil's themes were reworked by Young into the final score.
Since its release in September 1987, the film has divided critics but generally received praise; initial reviews ranged from Melody Maker calling it the greatest horror film made in Britain, to Roger Ebert decrying its "bankruptcy of imagination". It was followed by nine sequels, the first seven of which featured Bradley reprising his role as Pinhead. A remake is currently in the works
Something Horrific
PJ Harvey
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6v3zljSKKxioPywlGXs3-Q
Housebound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji8Tsuj3u0c
Blood on Satans Claw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RMySPyhMUY
https://www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk/film/the-demonic-in-british-horror-cinema/
https://www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review-devils-advocates-the-blood-on-satans-claw/
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Just in case anyone has too much money and wants to give a bit to us to help with our hosting n stuff. It would be amazing if you fancied sending us some pennies - thank you.
https://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders
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Next Episode
14 - The Omen (1976)
Released on the 6th day of the 6th month in the year 1976, the week The Wurzels ‘Combine Harvester’, became number one in the UK (coincidence?)...
The Omen, which was originally considered by Warner Bros, who thought it might be ideal for Oliver Reed, is an American-British supernatural horror film directed by Richard Donner, written by David Seltzer, and eventually starred Gregory Peck, Lee Remick and David Warner.
One of Richard Donner's first requests to screenwriter Seltzer was to remove all suggestions of the supernatural, such as cloven-hoofed demons and witches' covens. The idea was that there should be some degree of doubt over whether or not Thorn was deranged.
The films follows Damien Thorn, a young child replaced at birth by an American ambassador unbeknownst to his wife, after their biological child dies shortly after birth. As a series of mysterious events and violent deaths occur around the family and Damien enters childhood, they come to learn he is in fact the prophesied Antichrist.
The Omen received mixed reviews from critics but was a commercial success, grossing over $60 million at the U.S. box office and becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the year. The film earned two Oscar nominations, and won for Best Original Score for Jerry Goldsmith, his only Oscar win.
The film spawned a franchise, starting with Damien: Omen II, released two years later, followed by a third installment, Omen III: The Final Conflict, in 1981, and in 1991 with Omen IV: The Awakening. A remake was released in 2006.
Something Horrific:
Relic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgSXwlcIvtg
In The Earth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lqkfo7IymU
L.T.C. Rolt - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._T._C._Rolt
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Just in case anyone has too much money and wants to give a bit to us to help with our hosting n stuff. It would be amazing if you fancied sending us some pennies - thank you.
https://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders
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Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders.
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