British TV horror help wanted...

[JamesC]

Horror double bills would definitely get a vote from me.
I remember watching a double of Night of the Demon and (I think) Dead of Night.

I also wish they'd bring back Moviedrome. I'm always going on about this - I would always set the timer on the video and watch Moviedrome with Alex Cox followed by whatever movie (or movies) had been featured. Such a great way to be introduced to some cult classics.

[Dandontdare]

Oh yeah, couldn't';t agree more - just look at the incredible list of films he showcased: https://letterboxd.com/sizemore/list/moviedrome-the-alex-cox-years-1988-1994/

[Colin YNWA]

On a similar vein I remember (badly it would seem) on early Channel 4 there was a series of horror and B-Movies that had introductions and the screenings where interlaced with amusing captions and commentry....

... did I dream this?

I specifically remember they showed 'Robot Monsters' and had regular captions showing the temperature inside the suit... well it was the early (to mid) 80s weird stuff seemed funny then.

Anyway anyone else remember these and what the series was called?

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

Oh yeah, couldn't';t agree more - just look at the incredible list of films he showcased: https://letterboxd.com/sizemore/list/moviedrome-the-alex-cox-years-1988-1994/

Wow, great list of stuff. I really must watch Yojimbo again!

[I, Cosh]

On a similar vein I remember (badly it would seem) on early Channel 4 there was a series of horror and B-Movies that had introductions and the screenings where interlaced with amusing captions and commentry....

... did I dream this?

I specifically remember they showed 'Robot Monsters' and had regular captions showing the temperature inside the suit... well it was the early (to mid) 80s weird stuff seemed funny then.

Anyway anyone else remember these and what the series was called?

I don't recall the captions or comment but I was coming to mention The Incredibly Strange Film Show, wherein Jonathan Ross introduced me to Godzilla vs the Smog Monster!

[Colin YNWA]

In my head it was on before 'The Incredibly Strange Film Show" and the whole film was shown after an introduction?

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

I've done me research. That sounds like 'The Worst of Hollywood' season on ch4 in 1983, of which I have fond memories.

This is the best thing I've found online about the history of horror films being shown on British TV.

http://www.smguariento.com/invitation-terror-horror-films-british-television-1970s-80s-sim-branaghan/

SBT

[Colin YNWA]

I've done me research. That sounds like 'The Worst of Hollywood' season on ch4 in 1983, of which I have fond memories.

This is the best thing I've found online about the history of horror films being shown on British TV.

http://www.smguariento.com/invitation-terror-horror-films-british-television-1970s-80s-sim-branaghan/

SBT

That's it... christ only knows how I discovered that. I assume it was my brother and we must have recorded them as I was only 11!

Thanks for that Steev... to YouTube...

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

No problem, sir. Give that linked essay a read and you'll be straight down the rabbit hole. But don't even try to find footage of the melting rotating Peter Cushing bust lit by a lurid green light, that was the ident for the 'Peter Cushing- Master of Terror' 1981 series of films- it doesn't seem to be anywhere!
All this talk has unexpectedly led me to a mental landscape of half-remembered film showings and TV anthologies of the seventies and eighties. Plus all the associated ephemera that kind of goes with the territory.

Friends In Space' (ITV Playhouse, 1980). Doesn't seem to exist anymore.
'Nationwide' feature on the Hexham Heads, Feb 1976- I know the filmed interview footage no longer exists, but what about the location footage, and the filmed werewolf-on-the-stairs sequence?

There's a good thing on British TV horror anthologies-
http://www.thehalloweeninn.com/2014/08/british-tv-horror-anthologies.html?m=1

that people may find also leads them down that bunny burrow on YouTube, etc.

SBT

[Mattofthespurs]

Horror double bills would definitely get a vote from me.
I remember watching a double of Night of the Demon and (I think) Dead of Night.

I also wish they'd bring back Moviedrome. I'm always going on about this - I would always set the timer on the video and watch Moviedrome with Alex Cox followed by whatever movie (or movies) had been featured. Such a great way to be introduced to some cult classics.

I've still got one of the Moviedrome printed programmes you could send off to the BBC for. Loved that show.

[Mattofthespurs]

I've done me research. That sounds like 'The Worst of Hollywood' season on ch4 in 1983, of which I have fond memories.

This is the best thing I've found online about the history of horror films being shown on British TV.

http://www.smguariento.com/invitation-terror-horror-films-british-television-1970s-80s-sim-branaghan/

SBT

That's an excellent piece. Thanks for alerting us to it.

[Pyroxian]

I also wish they'd bring back Moviedrome. I'm always going on about this - I would always set the timer on the video and watch Moviedrome with Alex Cox followed by whatever movie (or movies) had been featured. Such a great way to be introduced to some cult classics.

Yeah, I watched many great films on Moviedrome, or on Jonathan Ross's The Incredibly Strange Film Show.

[Hawkmumbler]

I recall as part of Movidromes Godzillathon a special documentary featuring newly filmed footage of a ropy as shit Godzilla suit destroying London.

Gorgo it was not. 

[M.I.K.]

I remember the 1980s BBC double bills, (one of which coincided with a party/barbecue/bonfire that was going on around the back of the farm cottages I lived in at the time which somehow resulted in me and my little brother sitting quietly on the settee watching it with a bunch of bikers), and the channel 4 "Worst of Hollywood" stuff, (which is where I first saw Godzilla Vs The Smog Monster, as well as things like The Thing With Two Heads and Santa Claus Conquers The Martians).

There was also a Sci-Fi season on BBC2 at some point, (possibly a tuesday night), with things like Invaders From Mars and War of The Worlds, and they'd also show horror films on ITV on a sunday night, which we'd switch over to after That's Life went off.

There was a lot of made for TV guff among the ITV films like Curse of The Black Widow, but I also remember stuff like the 1979 Dracula, (unfortunate timing of one scene put me off having jam in my rice pudding for a while), Alien and The Fog.

When The Fog was first shown, my mum thought it might be a bit too scary for my little brother to watch, although somehow fine for me even though I wasn't much older. She didn't want to upset my brother though, so she pretended that I wasn't allowed to watch it either and we both went through to our bedroom and, as usual, I climbed into the top bunk bed and my brother went into the bottom bunk. My mum then came through into our bedroom when the film was starting and lifted a bundle of 'washing' off the top bunk and carried it through into the living room.

It was about an hour later when my brother asked me a question, got no response, discovered I wasn't there and came through to the living room to find me watching the end of The Fog and eating a haggis supper from the chippy. He wasn't very happy, but did get some chips.

[Andy Lambert]

Oh, how I fondly remember all those horror/sci-fi seasons from my early youth. I remember the old Universal classics on BBC 2's Horror Double Bill, but I clearly remember seeing "Quatermass And The Pit", "Them!", "It Came From Outer Space" and "The Incredible Shrinking Man". The film that scared the hell out of me though at that time was "Bug" which involved pyro-powered insects.
I also remember BBC 2's sci fi season during the early weekday evenings - I think that was the fist time I saw the Peter Cushing Dalek movies. The Worst Of Hollywood was hilarious - "Plan 9 From Outer Space", "The Creeping Terror" and "Godzilla Vs The Smog Monster" are the films I remember the most from that. Incidentally, does anyone remember the Godzilla season that was shown over Christmas around 1989/1990?

I remember "The Curse Of The Black Widow" when it was shown late on a Monday night - I loved it at the time! I also recall those Sunday night ITV movies such as "Phase IV" and "Snow Beast".

I can also remember my regional ITV station of the time, Tyne Tees Televison, showing a season of horror films on a Friday night called "Fear On Friday" but I can't find a single mention of it online. Every week, just before the film began, there was a spooky graveyard in a studio, with mist and eerie music as the camera slowly panned in on a headstone that bore the words "Fear On Friday" in a red, bloodied scrawl. I remember seeing "I, Monster" and "Doctor Jekyll And Sister Hyde" here. Unless there's someone else who watched Tyne Tees at the time and remembers seeing this, I'll have to assume I either saw this alone and have somehow made it up.