Now before we begin, I don’t want to hear any giggling from the back, and I certainly won’t entertain any demands to investigate my download history…

But, in all serious, it does continue to surprise me that more films haven’t been made about the subject of pornography. As an industry it’s always struck me that it simply has to have potential drama seeping (surely not spurting) from its every pore – love, emotion, atypical human relationships, money, abuse – it seems to have the lot. Films that do attempt to tackle this still admittedly rather taboo topic, however, seem to fall into one of three camps; they’re either overly occupied with authentic aesthetic (Boogie Nights), morbidly explicit (Lukas Moodysson’s A Hole in My Heart), or worryingly giddy and accepting of their subject (The Girl Next Door, I Want Candy and several other pretty shameful teen sex comedies).

Easily the best film I’ve ever seen that concerns itself with the business of pornography is Shohei Imamura’s in-turns absurd and philosophical social satire The Pornographers. The great Japanese filmmaker here bypasses the pitfalls that undermined the work of both Paul Thomas Anderson and Moodysson by refusing to show even the slightest flicker of any onscreen action and instead focus on what’s going on behind the camera. The film’s central character is the affable if inevitably slovenly smalltime porn peddler Mr Ogata, who sees his life dive into tailspin after his widowed landlady lover takes ill and leaves him juggling the care of a pair of selfish, rapidly maturing teenagers with the daily grind of his disreputable and increasingly dangerous line of work.

The Pornographers is largely powered along by Shohei Imamura’s highly distinctive direction; in fact, in the big Oscar ceremony that’s occasionally going on in my mind, he’s always a sure-fire contender for best director for his work here alone. Imamura spends most of the film carefully placing his camera behind curtains, slightly ajar doors, windows, and in several instances a fishtank with a stonking great carp in it (which Mr Ogata’s landlady believes is the ghost of her dead husband, but that’s another story), with each inspired set-up giving his story a perfect, voyeuristic framework. Another notable technique he employs is that of filming most of the drama in fixed long-shots, only allowing the camera to move in a scarce handful of scenes – it’s worth noting that for all his stylistic complexities, Imamura once served as an assistant to Yasujiro Ozu, and through its lack of movement The Pornographers also manages to invoke that master director’s hypnotic, gentle rhythms, all amounting to a vivid and endlessly fascinating whole.

You can watch the opening sequence from The Pornographers below. No subtitles, I’m afraid, but I’m sure you can guess what’s going on. Stay tuned for some wonderfully weird-y music, too.

Trish Keenan 1968 – 2011

Since it’s exactly a year to the day that Trish Keenan tragically passed on, I thought it would be nice to roll out a few Broadcast videos to listen to, watch and enjoy.

I have to admit to still not really having come to terms with Trish’s untimely death, on perhaps a purely selfish basis, as Broadcast were at that time my single favourite contemporary band and positively the only one I actively looked forward to releasing albums and touring. They rank very highly among my favourite bands of all time (Top 5, defo) and The Noise Made By People, Haha Sound and Tender Buttons are three of my favourite albums of all-time. Without doubt their summer 2006 performance at Bush Hall in West London is the single greatest gig experience of my life… After it was over, I wasn’t quite sure where I was anymore – that’s how mesmerising they were that night.

By all accounts, Trish Keenan was a quite wonderful person, and Days Are Numbers is heartened to hear that her partner (both in life and music) James Cargill is planning to release a new Broadcast album consisting of material recorded before she passed away.

The first Broadcast song I ever heard (courtesy of the Austin Powers soundtrack!), this is early single ’The Book Lovers’ from an MTV session in 1997.

‘Message From Home’ recorded at the same session. Like ‘The Book Lovers’, this single was released as part of the compilation Work and Non Work.

One of the few official videos Broadcast ever made, ‘Papercuts’ was just one of many outstanding tracks from their fully-fledged debut The Noise Made by People.

From the same album came the single ’Come On Let’s Go’, one of the group’s more poppy and life-affirming moments.

Second album Haha Sound is perhaps Broadcast’s masterpiece. A heady brew of intoxicating, hypnotic music, both tender and hard-edged, lyrically it drew inspiration from films such as the 60s Czech folk-horror cult classic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, prompting the quite brilliant fan video below.

Haha Sound also boasted one of Broadcast’s most moving ballads ‘Winter Now’. The below performance is from Canadian television.

Simply astounding is this homemade video for ‘Black Cat’. One of the best cuts from the dark, electro-tinged third album Tender Buttons, Trish directed this perfect visual accompaniment herself.

From the same album, a personal favourite of mine, ‘Corporeal’ performed in session.

A similar release to Work and Non Work, 2006′s The Future Crayon rounded up various non-album singles, b-sides and oddities. A mesmerising extended take on ‘Unchanging Window’ – performed below on Jools Holland – is a real highlight.

Also featured on that compilation was ‘Where Youth and Laughter Go’ – recorded here for France’s legendary Black Sessions.

Broadcast’s final release during Trish’s lifetime was the stunning Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, a collaboration with The Focus Group. You can check out a couple of incredible video clips below.

Hello and welcome to Director of the Month, your cut-out-and-keep guide to the very finest auteurs in filmland…

This Month: Ken Russell

Nationality: English

D.O.B: 03/07/1927 Died: 27/11/2011

Years active: 1964 – 2002

Number of films (as director): 19

Do say: “You are quite possibly the most easily identifiable and wildly original British filmmaker of all-time, in terms of uniqueness of style and grandiosity of vision… Yes, more so than Michael Powell and Alfred Hitchcock, even.”

Don’t say: “Calm down, dear… It’s only a commercial!” – He’s NOTHING like Michael Winner!!!

Who Hell He? When Ken Russell passed away at the end of last year, we here at Days Are Numbers were genuinely really rather upset. You see, Aneet and I had always referred to the great man as “Uncle Ken” (as did many others!), which is perhaps an odd moniker for a shamelessly bold and provocative film director responsible for a handful of the most controversial films ever made in this country. But then there was something genuinely avuncular about Ken Russell, as much of an enfant terrible as he undoubtedly was. I suppose this “uncle” tag most likely stemmed from Russell’s many appearances on British television over the last three or four decades (culminating in a stint on Celebrity Big Brother!), and the fact that he always came across as cheerily good-natured, despite having been dished out some truly rotten hands by the film biz. But I also like to think it’s because we’re all more than a little bit proud of Ken…

Come on, then! Name some great – truly great - British filmmakers? You’ve got the aforementioned Powell and Hitchcock (the latter making most of his great films in America), Charlie Chaplin (who made all of his great films in America) and admittedly a fair few others besides (I’d like to give a nod here to my own personal favourite, Bill Forsyth)… But how many of them could claim to possess the same jaw-dropping panache, visual bravura and the bleary, cheery way of manhandling life, love and death that good old Uncle Ken had? Let’s face it, UK-based British filmmakers (with the exception of Michael Powell) have never fully managed to tear themselves free from the constraints of their social-realist roots in quite the way that their French and Italian counterparts have, so thank God for Ken Russell. Through the 60s and 70s, and even into the 80s, he acted as an unbendingly forthright agent provocateur, making the sort of risque, bedazzling and outlandish cinema that had never been filmed on this soil before, and probably never will be again.

Six of the best:

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

For his first big-budget film, Ken Russell took on what may initially seem to be a somewhat unsuitable assignment; the third motion picture outing for Len Deighton’s anti-007, not-so-super spy Harry Palmer. But what we have here is one of the most impressive films of the Cold War era, and that’s as much down to its tour-de-force direction as it is the source material’s Bond-baiting complexities. The plot sees speccy anti-hero Palmer (played to perfection by, you guessed it, Michael Caine) aiding Soviet Russia against an attempted coup by a right-wing American terrorist group (!), and Russell keeps it slipping and sliding along nicely, before capping it all off with an ice battle tribute to Eisienstein’s Alexander Nevsky. You won’t see that kind of thing in Octopussy!

Women in Love (1968)

Some films you can’t really talk about without referring to that scene, and yes, the Oli Reed vs. Al-bo Bates nude wrestling match in Women in Love is an absolute hoot. It’s also perhaps the most distinctly Russell-esque moment in his entire canon, but let’s not let it distract from the fact that this is one of the most beautifully crafted and haunting films of the 60s. In turns vulgar, pastoral, visceral and poetic, this is a note-perfect transference of D.H. Lawrence from page to screen, and if anyone can think of a more perfect combination of writer and director, then please let me know.

The Music Lovers (1970)

The first of three barmy big-screen biopics of the lives of the great composers that Ken Russell would helm, this is also by far the best. A swaggeringly provocative - and not strictly accurate - telling of the tale of Tchaikovsky, The Music Lovers depicts the legendary Russian as a driven and devilish genius - a closet homosexual who ultimately pushes his neglected, nymphomaniac wife into the abyss of insanity. The musical-fantasy sequence in which several Tchaikovsky rivals – and even friends and relatives – are decapitated by cannon fire to the bombast of the ’1812 Overture’ is once seen, never forgotten.

The Devils (1971)

Not only the most controversial film Ken Russell ever made (no mean feat as we’ve already seen), but also his greatest and perhaps even the greatest British film of the 1970s - it is impossible to imagine that the intense, warped grandiosity of The Devils could have been pulled off by any other director. Ever. Uncle Ken favourite Oliver Reed is also on top form here as a preening but ultimately noble priest, who inadvertently becomes the eye of the storm when political maneuvering in plague-ridden, medieval France leads to some of the lewdest, most blasphemous mayhem ever committed to celluloid. However, as shocking as these scenes are (even today!), The Devils is also a very heartfelt and even poignant film, as devout Catholic Russell unflinchingly investigates the savage actions an all-too-powerful organised religion can sometimes drive its followers into taking.

Savage Messiah (1972)

From Ken Russell’s most controversial film, to his most underrated; another biopic, but this time ditching the great composers to focus on the life of French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Naturally enough, our hero had more than his fair share of sexual hang-ups and Savage Messiah centres on his doomed relationship with a Polish governess almost twice his age. Russell manages to capture the burning intensity of the artists’ notoriously nocturnal working life, and along with some very fine set design from Derek Jarman (taking it down a notch or two from his work on The Devils), we are also rewarded with the most sourly witty closing exchange in film history (but you’ll have to watch it to find out what that is).

Tommy (1975)

From classical composers and French sculptors, to rocking out with The Who! If it cried out for a flamboyant rendering with a quasi-religious slant, producers in the 70s knew who to call. A bit of a hodge-podge of an album, if truth be told, this seminal 60s rock opera gets a bombastic boost from Russell’s archly theatrical staging, psychedelic shock-tactics (Ann-Margaret drowning in baked beans!) and cheeky humour. The most mindbending marriage between rock ‘n’ roll and the movies ever, this is also strangely moving too.

What about the rest?: At first glance French Dressing (1964) may seem like a fairly run-of-the-mill British seaside comedy, but upon closer inspection many distinctly Russell-ian traits are already in place (including several quite stunning sequences set to classical music)… The Boy Friend (1971) is a tad overlong and suffers from some rather pedestrian plotting - but it also boasts some of Uncle Ken’s most infectiously joyous direction, and a showstopping song and dance routine from none other than Barbara Windsor… Mahler (1974) is a return to the lives of the great composers (Gustav Mahler this time, natch), although ever-so-slightly less feverish than The Music Lovers, and less memorable overall… Franz Liszt gets a good going-over in Lisztomania (1975), which could well win the title of “Most Mental Film Ken Russell Ever Made”, and it’s pretty fantastic too… Valentino (1977) was the first flop of what had been a perversely commercially viable run of films, prompting Russell himself to ask “What idiot made this?”, although it’s not actually all that bad… An even bigger disaster loomed on the horizon in the shape of Altered States (1980) a curate’s egg of mindboggling visuals and bizarre sci-fi melodrama which became a byword for both box-office poison and technical innovation… After all that, the S&M-centric neo-noir Crimes of Passion (1984) seems comparatively tame and forgettable… Gothic (1986) is much better (and the first Ken Russell film I ever saw!), being a bonkers, bawdy and, erm, gothic reimagining of the events that inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein… Salome’s Last Dance (1988) delves behind the scenes of a private performance of Oscar Wilde’s banned play, coming on like a heady mix between Gothic and The Boy Friend, but it soon collapses under the weight of too much farce and too many in-jokes… The Lair of the White Worm (1988) is a totally bonkers blood ‘n’ guts tale adapted rather liberally from Bram Stoker, and if you ask me, it’s one of the most thoroughly enjoyable British horror films of the 80s… While he would bow out that decade with an underwhelming return to old D.H. Lawrence with The Rainbow (1989)… The engrossing Whore (1991) is sadly the sole 90s effort from a now very much maligned Ken Russell – it’s a cutting response to the pure fantasy of Pretty Woman as a never-better Theresa Russell (no relation) gives us an all-together more honest account of the oldest profession in the title role… It seems pretty harsh to judge The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002) too harshly as it was made for absolute peanuts, largely at Chez Russell itself, and even then it manages to retain a sort of winning, grubby charm…

And that’s yer lot, I’m afraid… What’s that? Yes, Ken Russell did direct 90s TV bonkfest Lady Chatterly… And yes, he also directed the frankly insane Uri Geller TV movie Mindbender. But let’s not bother with those now. If you’re hungry for more, get yourself on Youtube and check out anything from his early BBC days, before kicking yourself that TV isn’t even remotely that elegant and intellectual anymore. Additionally, I can’t recommend his first short, Amelia and the Angel, highly enough.

RIP Ken Russell. We’ll certainly never see your like again.

It took me a long, long time to get round to watching Death Proof, and to be honest with you, that was probably largely down to the fact that I haven’t been overly impressed with the general output of Quentin Tarantino in this century…

Don’t get me wrong, both Kill Bills 1 and 2 and Inglourious Basterds have their moments; it’s just that overall they’re a bit, well silly, and I rather assumed that Death Proof would be similarly flawed. It also didn’t help that its release was so truncated, what with the whole “It’s going to be released as a Grindhouse-style double-bill with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror… Oh no wait, it isn’t.” It just felt like it was going to be little more than an interesting stopgap, and even then only interesting if you have a passion for 70s exploitation cinema – which I sort-of do, but that’s beside the point.

But how wrong I was! Not only is Death Proof the best film Quentin Tarantino has made since Jackie Brown, but it is also the most intelligent and joltingly original horror film I’ve seen in a long, long time. Kurt Russell is on super-sinister, almost Snake Plissken-like form as “Stuntman” Mike, a man whose occupation may be no mystery, but whose motivations – at least initially – very much are. Following a playful, slithering build-up, during which we are introduced to a notably feisty quartet of potential victims, we eventually learn that Mike likes to smash into young ladies in his vocationally appropriate ”death proof” car, leaving them for dead and making it all look like an accident… And that he’s got our four new friends in his sights.

I really don’t want to say anymore about how the action unfolds, but Tarantino engrossingly spools out his story in a way that manages to critique the codes and conventions of the slasher genre, while simultaneously revamping it. “Stuntman” Mike is an extraordinarily original horror/exploitation bogeyman in that he is in turns aggrandised, demystified, fetishised and humiliated; and Kurt Russell has the time of his life the whole way through, with a special nod due to each and every female member of cast, as well. And also, don’t overestimate the whole “authentic Grindhouse vibe” that Death Proof was sold on (ie fake scratches on the film, deliberate sound glitches etc.), it’s really only used as an enigmatic stylistic tool here - remember how little Jackie Brown actually resembled a blaxploitation film? Well, that’s how little Death Proof actually resembles an exploitation film – and in equally the same way, it’s simply better than almost every film that it’s an apparent homage to.

Never mind all those fake trailers that were supposed to go in between Death Proof and Planet Terror in the cinema (Edgar Wright seems to be the only one who really “got” the idea, anyway), let’s instead enjoy the actual trailer for the whole sorry Grindhouse experiment itself… Happy Halloween everybody!

Vampires, eh? Those guys will never go out of fashion, it seems. Surely the man on the street’s bogeyman of choice, even if they are more likely to be found sulking in their bedrooms a la the Twilight kids or getting their heads kicked in by Wesley Snipes these days…

While Dracula is undoubtedly the most famous bloodsucker of them all, and a true screen icon from Nosferatu to Christopher Lee, many of my favourite vampire films are based upon a tale which actually predates Bram Stoker’s seminal story; Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella ‘Carmilla’, in which the chief creature of the night is female. Lady vampires were a very big deal in the 60s and 70s, and with Gogol’s similarly pre-Dracula short story ‘Viy’ also providing inspiration, these seductive tales full of sensual danger were a perfect fit for practitioners of classy Euro-horror. Roger Vadim gave us Blood and Roses, Mario Bava chipped in with Black Sunday, France’s Jean Rollin and Spain’s Jess Franco were very interested in inter-vampire lady love indeed, and even the Soviet Union produced its first ever horror film in the form of an adaptation of the aforementioned Viy.

Daughters of Darkness is perhaps the best femme vampyr film of them all, however, and represents everything that’s brilliantly atmospheric, sly and provocative about this beguiling subgenre. Kumel’s film introduces us to Stefan and Valerie, newlyweds stopping off at an isolated Belgian hotel, en route to visiting the groom’s family in England. There they rather spookily remain the only guests until the arrival of the glamorous and mysterious Countess Bathory, who manages to not only enthral and unsettle our honeymooners in equal measure, but who also may just be responsible – along with her similarly shady sidekick, Ilona - for a recent spate of bizarrely vampiric murders in the surrounding area.

If you’re looking for a brainy, artfully erotic vampire film for your Halloween viewing next Monday, Daughters of Darkness has so much to recommend it that it’s hard to know where to begin. It is beautifully shot and designed (in particular the icily grand hotel interiors), and the cast are uniformly superb, with Nouvelle Vague icon Delphine Seyrig absolutely spellbinding as the eerily charming Countess. Kumel, who co-wrote the screenplay with a few nods to ‘Carmilla’, keeps us guessing throughout, and the film has more than a few juicy ambiguities to roll our way, including several enigmatic question marks lingering over the Countess and even a few over supposedly trusty Stefan himself – all resulting in a sophisticated bloody vintage that gets better with age.

You can see a bit of what I’m banging on about if you check out the trailer from Blue Underground (who put out a terrific DVD release) below.

Yes, Morrissey fans this is where he got it from… Although quite what the Salford warbler’s feelings are about director William Castle, have sadly never been put on record.

As for me, I happen to think that Herr Schloss (to use his original, German birth name) is the quintessential “Halloween” filmmaker because, if you think about it, October 31st stands first and foremost for getting a bit spooked and having a lot of fun, and William Castle pretty much devoted his entire career to that cause. After all, Castle is the man who became - an admittedly rather low-rent - Hollywood legend for the imaginative and utterly OTT ways he would promote his low-budget horror films in the 50s and early 60s. There were the free life insurance policies for Macabre… The inflatable, glow-in-the-dark skeleton that swung out across the auditorium during House on Haunted Hill… And, my personal favourite, the full refund offered to patrons who found Homicidal just too scary (of course, many cinemagoers just took this as an easy chance to get their money back, something which irked Castle no end!).

Let’s Kill Uncle was made just a little bit after the schlockmeister extraordinaire was in his gimmicky pomp, but while it’s cinema release was sadly lacking a hokey, harebrained selling point, it is just as much spooky, kooky fun as anything else William Castle ever put his name to. The disarmingly bizarre plot sees the orphaned heir to a multi-million dollar fortune forced to relocate to a tropical island to live with his ex-British serviceman uncle (the brilliant Nigel Green), who unexpectedly intends to murder his grieving nephew in order to get his hands on the cash. Luckily enough for the plucky lad, uncle is a good sport and decides to tell him all about his dastardly plan first, and thus begins a deadly game of cat and mouse.

William Castle is one of my all-time favourite horror film directors, even without his trademark gimmick-ery (and anyone intrigued by this would do well to check out Joe Dante’s 1993 film Matinee – essentially a biopic of Castle). His films always seem to exude an uneasy but highly effective mixture of American schmaltz and authentic, threatening horror, and Let’s Kill Uncle is a case in point. One moment it pads along like an episode of The Brady Bunch, and the next it veers into something infinitely more sinister and less wholesome – even if this film does play out like a deliciously burlesque proto-Home Alone, it is a certainty that it is too creepy and near-the-knuckle to be made today… Although it’s none the worse off for that, of course!

Please check out Saturday Night Fever director John Badham reminiscing about Let’s Kill Uncle (on which he served as a casting director) in the clip - from the superb Trailers From Hell website – below.

One of the segments I enjoyed most during Mark Gatiss’ recent History of Horror series was when the erstwhile League of Gentlemen man set about championing a peculiar subgenre often referred to as Folk Horror.

Films that belong to this stable are notable for incorporating spooky British folklore into the horror mileu, often played out to a surprisingly unsettling pastoral backdrop, and include the likes of Witchfinder General, Blood on Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man… And I think we can also add Tam-Lin (also released as The Devil’s Widow, as you can see from the poster above) to that list. The reason why this equally folksy curio is not nearly as well-known as any of its potential peers is because it’s not currently available for purchase on any format* - but just because it’s been exiled into obscurity, doesn’t mean it can’t boast a considerable amount of star quality. Perhaps the most notable thing about Tam-Lin at first glance is that it’s the sole directorial credit of legendary character actor Roddy McDowall, and a quick look over the cast list reveals a whole host of further household names, including Ava Gardner, Ian McShane, Stephanie Beacham, Joanna Lumley, Withnail & I creator Bruce Robinson and two Cusacks: Cyril and Sinead.

The plot is a loose and very modern reinterpretation of the Robert Burns standard The Ballad of Tam-Lin, which essentially tells the tale of a young man rescued from the spell of the fairy queen (stop laughing at the back!) by his true love. In this retelling that young man is Ian McShane, a jaded little hipster who is currently the favourite hanger-on in the court of manipulative millionaire Ava Gardner. Leaving Swinging London for a bit of a break, Ava and Co. take a trip across the border to Bonnie Scotland where the future Lovejoy falls for an innocent local lass (Beacham!), thus provoking a strange and startling act of revenge from his pissed off mistress.

The film Tam-Lin is most often compared to is The Wicker Man, and it’s not hard to see why – both share a Scottish location, a foreboding folk-rock soundtrack (in Tam-Lin’s case by Pentangle) and a raw, earthy sensuality. However, while The Wicker Man plays a commendably straight-hand and has aged all the better for it, McDowall’s film is rather more wilfully of its time, and a couple of cracking little psychedelic scenes notwithstanding, proceedings are still somewhat marred by a few silly, typically early-70s bumnotes (sample dialogue: “I’ll swallow anything, so long as it’s illegal!”). This probably leaves it feeling a little more like something from Hammer’s slightly seamy, boldly cheesy mid-to-late period (think The Satanic Rites of Dracula or Tigon’s Curse of the Crimson Altar – that studio also being responsible for Blood on Satan’s Claw), but while Tam-Lin may not match up to it’s more famous, similarly Caledonian Folk Horror cousin, it is still well worth seeking out… Something which may prove difficult until it finds its way on to DVD.

You can at least enjoy the terrific trailer below – lovingly put together by Days Are Numbers’ chums Filmbar 70!

*I hadn’t heard of Tam-Lin myself until Days Are Numbers number one fan (I think?!) Paul “Too Hot to Handle” Sandell told me about it. But now I’ve seen it and he hasn’t! LOL.

Back by popular demand (I think?!), Days Are Numbers’ annual Halloween horror film blow-out, Spooky Film of the Day… Mwah-ha-ha! etc. And what better time of year than All Hallows’ Eve to “Vamp” it up, eh?

Let me give this to you straight from the very beginning; what most appeals about this largely forgotten 80s horror-comedy hybrid is the presence of a certain Ms. Grace Jones in the cast list. Surely anyone who calls themselves a fan of this fascinatingly unique music and fashion icon, and her hysterical, aggressive and mind-boggling antics, can see what a great fit she’d be for a horror film. And as the formidable fiend in Vamp, she certainly doesn’t disappoint.

Vamp starts out, like none-too-few American films of the eighties, with a pair of chaps that can only be described as ”Bro’s”, looking to assert their cool in a college fraternity house – in this instance by finding a hot stripper for a hotly anticipated frat party. Their search takes them to the big city, and the After Dark Club, a sleazy little establishment which turns out to be hiding an all-too dark secret… Namely that it’s a hideaway for a horde of very thirsty vampires! By the time our “heroes” manage to work out that they’re surrounded by these salacious bloodsuckers, it could be too late and their saucy quest turns into a fight for survival.

Yes indeed, that premise does bear a striking resemblance to the Quentin Tarantino-penned From Dusk till Dawn, and you can see why he took the liberty of “borrowing” it – the idea that vampires would use the nocturnal anonymity and sordid mileu of a strip club to capture their prey is inspired. However, Vamp is by no means an unqualified success, and it’s over-reliance on the “buddy” dynamic all too often invites comparison to too many ropey 80s staples (Weekend at Bernie’s et al), even if does occasionally call to mind a few better ones (An American Werewolf in London, namely). But as I’ve already made clear, Grace Jones is the real reason to check this romp out… Terrifying, brooding and bizarrely alluring, you can’t help but think that you’re watching a great lost female horror icon in what has proved to be her sole outing in the genre to date.

Check out the trailer for Vamp below, even if it is disappointingly light on la Jones. You’ll just have to watch the whole film if you want to see her uniquely disturbing striptease set-piece in full!

“In your head… In your head… Zombie… Zombie.” – Cranberries’ Woman, 1994.

And she was right, too. Zombies are in your head! And my head! In fact, zombies are in all of our heads! These heaving, crumbling, flesh-eating corpses are right up there with vampires, werewolves, and any other mankind-bothering monster you care to mention, at horror’s top-table and have loomed large in the imagination ever since they first stumbled onto the silver screen.

Indeed, just last week London’s very fine Roxy bar and film venue hosted a zombie film all-nighter, which serves as proof if it were needed that our gut-munching friends are as big a draw as ever. I wasn’t in attendance, I’m ashamed to say (and it wasn’t because I was too scared!!!), but comrade Aneet was and she says it was fantastic.

So while there’s still a zombie-buzz in the air, allow me to present to you Days Are Numbers list of The Top 10 Greatest Zombie Films of All-Time!!!

They’re coming to get you, erm, Barbara!

10. I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)

It’s debatable as to what the first actual zombie film was (there’s even a strong case for James Whale’s classic adaptation of Frankenstein), but almost certainly I Walked with a Zombie is commonly regarded as early Hollywood’s finest foray into the genre. It’s not hard to see why, as this tale of the bizarre voodoo practises taking place on a tropical island, and the effect they have on a colonial family, remains moody, atmospheric and strangely alluring even when viewed today. Director Jacques Tourneur has two other trail-blazing horror classics to his name (Cat People and Night of the Demon), as well as Robert Mitchum’s finest moment, Out of the Past.

9. Tombs of the Blind Dead (Amando de Ossorio, 1971)

Spain’s answer to George Romero’s ”Living Dead” series, this minor Euro-horror classic would spawn three sequels. The first instalment establishes the tale of a band of Satan-worshipping knights (they’re blind because crows pecked out their eyes after some angry serfs had them hung) who rise from the dead in modern-day Portugal to gobble all who get in their way. de Ossorio sets up some fine set-pieces riffing on the fact that the Blind Dead can’t actually see their prey, and gives us a number of pleasingly fantastical visual flourishes along the way, before a memorably mean-spirited finale shows us that Spanish horror could be just as nasty as it’s more notorious Italian cousin.

8. The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling, 1966)

Two years prior to Night of the Living Dead, and good old Hammer Studios pretty much mint everything we’ve come to expect from a modern zombie film, by giving us a groaning, moaning swarm of the undead that slowly enshroud their victims in a truly terror-inducing way. Not that they ever get much credit for it, mind, as The Plague of the Zombies remains criminally underseen. Not just one of the best British zombie movies, but one of Hammer’s best efforts as well.

7. The Living Dead at The Manchester Morgue (Jorge Grau, 1974)

Not quite another British zombie film, despite what its title may lead you to think (this was actually an Italian/Spanish production). Equally misleading is the fact that it takes place in the Lake District, as opposed to Manchester, but rest assured this is a truly exemplary, not to mention intelligent, gut-munching classic. Cult icon Ray Lovelock (whose dubbing makes him sound strangely like Russell Brand) stars as a hitherto carefree hippy who cottons on to the fact that a new way of killing insects by radiation might just be causing the dead to rise from their graves and chow down on the living.

6. Deathdream (Bob Clark, 1972)

Since Hammer and Romero raised the bar, it’s not often that a modern zombie film will keep its number of ghouls down to single figures, but Deathdream (AKA Dead of Night) does just that. In fact, there’s only one zombie in the whole film; Andy, a young soldier believed to have been killed in Vietnam, who unexpectedly returns home to his grieving parents. But of course, all is not as it seems in this politically-charged and creepy take on the genre, and very soon local townsfolk begin to disappear as Andy grows ever more violent and unhinged.

5. The Grapes of Death (Jean Rollin, 1978)

We’ve already had Spain and Italy, and while the French never quite developed a knack for genre cinema to match their continental kin, director Jean Rollin is a largely underrated horror master, with this as his finest zombie moment. Surely one of cinemas greatest ever puns; The Grapes of Death tells the oh-so Gallic tale of a pesticide that is turning rural wine-drinkers into murderous monsters. The atmosphere remains intense and edgily surreal throughout, and Rollin really delivers on the shocks and set-pieces, all executed with a strangely nonchalant existentialist feel that perhaps only a Frenchman could muster. Magnifique! *

4. Zombie Flesh Eaters (Lucio Fulci, 1979)

Perhaps the most infamous zombie film of all time, this typically gruesome effort may also represent the peak of Lucio Fulci’s entire career. Without surrendering completely to hyperbole, Fulci is one of cinema’s great “mood-setters” and the atmosphere throughout Zombie Flesh Eaters is bleak, nightmarish, unsettlingly grimy and as unremittingly malevolent as the titular people quaffers depicted therein. Boasts not one, but three of the most enduring images of 70s Italian horror: a plague of zombies staggering across the Brooklyn Bridge, an eyeball bursting on an unfortunately placed splinter, and best of all, an atypically aquatic zombie attacking and killing a fucking shark!

3. Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (Bob Clark, 1972)

Forget about Shaun of the Dead, y’all; this is the funniest “zom-com” ever made, and it’s pretty darn scary to boot. Future Deathdream director Bob Clark provides the thrills and chills with ease in this tale of a pretentious Artaud-style theatre troupe, gathering for a fake seance on a spooky Florida island. Naturally, this seance proves a little more potent than they initially expected, and the group – headed by one of the most hilarious horror film characters of all time, my unbelievably obnoxious namesake Alan - soon find themselves holed up in an old shack with the undead closing in. Oh, that Alan!

2. Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968)

Perhaps the most famous zombie film of all time, the great George A. Romero not only gave that particular genre a shot in the arm with this still-disturbing classic, but he also gave horror in general a much-needed boot up the bum, too. Long-gone were the hammy theatrics of the old-school “drawing room” style that had dominated horror since cinema began, as Romero tells his tale of a group of survivors fighting for their lives in the midst of an undead uprising with grit and unflinching realism. The unexpectedly shocking and sour ending still manages to raise some bold questions about the nature of western society even today.

1. Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)

We all knew this was going to be number one, didn’t we? But then, how could it not be?

It may have taken Romero ten-years (via an ill-judged romantic comedy and some other very fine horror classics) to come up with a sequel to Night of the Living Dead, but golly, he had lost none of his verve, audacity or eye for cutting satire in the interim. Perhaps a few shades lighter in tone than it’s predeccessor, Dawn of the Dead depicts a world now fully overrun by the undead in which a group of survivors have fled the city, only to find themselves trapped in an out-of-town shopping mall. Romero uses this as the setting for a true horror classic which takes on themes of consumerism and cultural identity, just as readily as our plucky heroes take on those lumbering, stumbling, hungry and nasty, good-old zombies!

That’s all folks. But please allow me to eat… I mean “Pick” your brains and ask you all for your favourite zombie films of all time!

*Just quickly… The Grapes of Death is just one of several films that people often dispute is not a true zombie film. You see the “zombies” in it don’t actually die, but rather they simply drink wine that makes them go completely mental. Personally, I don’t think you necessarily have to be dead to qualify as a zombie – as long as you’re not of sound mind and you’re well up for attacking/eating people, you’re a zombie to me. See also some other notable entries into the genre: The Crazies (which I may well have included on this list where it not already so Romero-heavy), Nightmare City and 28 Days Later. Bizarrely, some people say the Blind Dead aren’t really zombies, but they’re the reanimated corpses of knights from donkeys’ years ago… How much more dead can you get? Peace.

Vincent Price is without doubt my absolute favourite of all the great horror actors. Lee, Cushing, even the earlier Lugosi and Karloff, none of the others can hold a spooky candle to him in my eyes.

It is now generally accepted, and quite rightfully, that Price gave his best ever dramatic performance in Michael Reeves’ classic folk horror shocker Witchfinder General, and no one can deny that it was under the direction of first William Castle and later Roger Corman that he truly became an icon. But as far as I’m concerned, Theatre of Blood is the definitive Vincent Price film. As accomplished an actor as he really was, there was always an element of sly, theatrical irony in the great man’s screen persona, and this 1973 classic really hones in on that and develops it into something that manages to be both oddly grandiose and truly menacing.

Theatre of Blood sees Price star as Edward Lionheart, an embittered Shakespearian actor who apparently commits suicide after a group of critics deny him a highly coveted award. However, as you may have already guessed, Lionheart survives and returns to exact gory revenge on his tormentors (who still believe he is dead) by murdering each one in a unique and elaborate fashion modelled on famous death scenes from a range of Shakespeare’s plays. Aided in this grisly endeavour by his own personal army of creepy, meths-swigging tramps, Lionheart seeks to destroy each of the critics who wronged him before the cops catch up and bring down the final curtain. 

As much as I absolutely love Theatre of Blood, I can never ignore the fact that it is a million times better than it really has any right to be. Not only is it as daft as a bag of snakes (especially the scene where Price dons the disguise of a flamboyant hairdresser and camps it up to the max) and as subtle as a sledgehammer (the trendy counter-culture actor that Lionheart loses out on the award to is called William WOODSTOCK and one of the doomed critics is called Hector SNIPE), but the entire film is also essentially just variations on the same scene played over and over again. However, it’s the wit and invention (Shakespeare fans will have a ball spotting the references) poured into each of these scenes that make Theatre of Blood such a treat, that and the fact that Price is clearly having the time of his life delivering knowingly unhinged horror acting with a side order of brilliantly performed bard.

Another fantastic thing about Theatre of Blood is the sheer number of first class British thesps it boasts in it’s cast; Jack “Bridge on the River Kwai” Hawkins, Ian “Get Carter” Hendry, Michael “Where Eagles Dare” Horden, Arthur “Captain Mainwaring” Lowe, Dennis “Kind Hearts and Coronets” Price, Diana “The Avengers” Rigg (who spends a good deal of the film disguised as Noel Edmonds),  Diana “British Marilyn Monroe” Dors, and best of all, Eric “Sykes” Sykes as a comically inept policeman. See how many you can spot in this ace trailer below!