He sure is with this wacky rock ‘n’ roll horror delight. Not much is known about this 1962 gem, other than that it had to be recorded at night as the vocalist would not record in daylight hours. Oooh..

Anway, enjoy this fun track as it has good ol’ Drac contributing some ghoulish quotes (listen out to a line about Jackie Gleason!). Adding a surreal charm to the quite amateurish proceedings, the Count makes this record quite a hoot.

When I talk to people who haven’t seen Ghostwatch (either because they were too young, or they were watching something else at the time), I sometimes feel like the deranged stereotype of a Vietnam veteran; “YOU WOULDN’T KNOW, MAN! YOU WEREN’T THERE, MAN!” I holler upon recalling the horror (and yes… the horror) of it all.

If ya don’t know, Ghostwatch was a mockumentary broadcast by BBC One on Halloween night, 1992. Clearly and cautiously signposted as a drama, the events depicted in this one-off broadcast nevertheless began to unfold with an astounding feel of authenticity. Ghostwatch purported to be an investigation of the “most haunted house in Britain”, carried out with semi-ironic enthusiasm by several loveable TV stalwarts of the day; Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, Craig Charles, and even Michael “Parky” Parkinson.

Things soon turned very nasty, however, as the family residing in said haunted house were invited to recount in creepy detail their ongoing torment at the hands of a malevolent spirit named “Mr. Pipes” on account of his habit of banging on their heating pipes. Now, I’m not going to lie or exaggerate for effect. I knew Ghostwatch wasn’t real from the off. I watched it from the start, so had seen the warning, and I was watching it with my mum, who definitely knew it wasn’t real, and reassured me accordingly. BUT, and as you can see it’s a big but, Ghostwatch was still fucking scary, really fucking scary, and weird.

This is partly due to the fact that it was so unprecedented. You have to remember, this was 1992. We weren’t so clued up on how telly worked back then, and we weren’t used to it lying to us or playing tricks on us. A handy reference point, perhaps, is the fact that Chris Morris’ epoch-shattering mock news satire The Day Today was still two years away. So into this telly age of innocence stalks a programme that looks, feels and smells like the real thing, and quickly turns into something so frightening and intense that you can’t quite believe that, even if it is a prank, the BBC has had the audacity to make it.

Ghostwatch is deviously cynical in the way it earns your trust. The popular presenters (each of whom still resides to some extent or other in the public consciousness) employed to bring it to life couldn’t have been better chosen. Affable lads Craig Charles and Mike “Smiffy” Smith would never want to scare you or make a fool out of you, would they? Carrying even more potential for psychological damage is the use of children’s TV presenter Sarah Greene as a roving reporter who at one point conducts a terrifying interview with the clearly traumitised young daughter of the house, who also happens to be covered from head to foot in scratch marks. I was 11-years-old at the time and still watched Greene on Going Live! Perhaps most dastardly of all is “Parky” himself who uses all of his hard-earned credibility as a National Treasure to convince us that he himself has been possessed by Mr. Pipes. Believe it or not, this is actually really quite convincing.

But it’s not just shrewd TV trickery that makes Ghostwatch such an unsettling brain-bomb of terror. It is also brilliantly written by Stephen Volk (who penned the screenplay for William Friedkin’s typically duff The Guardian two years before) and expertly directed by Lesley Manning. One of Ghostwatch’s greatest strengths is it’s employment of a surprisingly underused ploy in modern horror; namely keep all sightings of your spook, monster or killer fleeting. Mr. Pipes is scarcely glimpsed but eight times during the programme’s 90 minute running time, but each time he is, be it a half-face in the darkness or a shadowy silhouette behind a bedroom curtain, it sends a shiver down your spine. At one point the programme even has the balls to re-run a sequence in which we have seen Mr. Pipes to show us (deceitfully, of course) that he wasn’t there at all! No wonder the BBC’s duty-log went white hot with complaints while it was still on air.

Ah yes, the complaints… While I had been fully assured from the very beginning that Ghostwatch wasn’t real, others weren’t so lucky. 1992 was also still firmly in an era of four channels, and people flicking around for something to watch were incredibly likely to hop onto Ghostwatch without being fully aware it was a drama. The BBC may have felt they had their backs covered somewhat with the presence of a helpline, which when called would assure troubled viewers the whole thing was a hoax. Unfortunately, so many were scared shitless by what they were seeing that the line became jammed. It was also undermined somewhat by another devastating ploy in which Mike Smith fielded a (fake) call from a petrified mother whose young son had fallen into a trance whilst watching the programme and violently smashed a glass coffee table, cutting himself horrifically in the process. This was my personal most traumitising moment of Ghostwatch, I remember the woman’s voice being wild with emotion and frighteningly real. You just had to keep thinking to yourself; “They wouldn’t go this far, would they?”

In the end, maybe people were victims of their own foolhardiness to have accepted Ghostwatch as anything less than an elaborate prank. But as I’ve already made clear, the time was right and the entire production was sly enough to catch a hell of a lot of people completely off-guard. As a testament to Ghostwatch’s undiminished power, the BBC have never repeated it, and undoubtedly never will.

It is, however, available on DVD from the BFI, and take it from me, it’s well worth seeing if you haven’t already, and well worth revisiting if you remember being scared shitless by it, like me. Why not have a look at this clip below and see what you think? Please don’t have fucking nightmares.

Films based on comic books. There’s a few too many of ‘em about these days. And what’s worse is that they all seem determined to sap everything that’s remotely fun out of comic books in their transition from page to screen. Take that new Batman franchise, for example. It’s all so po-faced and pseudo serious, posing the question; “What if Batman was, y’know, a real guy?” Well, he’s not a real guy. He’s fucking Batman.

Anyway, if you want a masterclass in how comic books should be adapted for the screen, look no further than George A. Romero’s Creepshow. And since it’s Halloween, that goes double.

Creepshow is based on the notorious E.C. horror comic anthologies of the 50s. The video nasties of their day, these comics offered up surprisingly grim and gory fare for disaffected youngsters during the frightening first wave of the Cold War. These youngsters counted among them both Romero and legendary horror scribe Stephen King, who collaborated with the director to bring the lurid tales of their youth to life.

Creepshow bears the traces of both men’s love of these macabre comics, and the film could probably claim the prize for being the “fun-est” horror film ever made (second only to Gremlins, at any rate). What you get here is five fiendish fables, written with wry zest by King and realised with warped relish by Romero. There’s ‘Father’s Day’ in which a murdered dad seeks bloody, zombified revenge. ’The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill’ sees King himself give a surprisingly assured slapstick performance as a slacker hillbilly who goes through some frightening changes after contact with a fallen meteorite. ‘Something to Tide You Over’ concerns a betrayed husband plotting diabolical revenge on his wife and her lover, while ’The Crate’ sees a bloodthirsty ancient beast coerced into performing a similar task. Things come to a suitably creepy climax with ‘They’re Creeping Up On You!’ which pits a bitter, housebound recluse against an army of invading cockroaches.

Each segment is joyously witty and weird, but the entire film never shies away from the nihilistic darkness at the heart of horror comics, and there’s more than enough morbid mayhem on display to leave you at least a little unsettled. The best sequence is probably ‘Something to Tide You Over’, and not least because it boasts the dream double casting of Ted Danson and Leslie Nielsen. It also features an extraordinarily grim and inspired twist, in which Danson discovers the tragic fate of his missing paramour, that predates George Sluizer’s highbrow thriller The Vanishing by a good six years.

But George Romero’s direction is the real star of the show, and his use of luminous/ominous comic book colours (including, on occasion, animated frames and backdrops) gives Creepshow a unique and special feel that grants comic book fans cause to cherish it even today. Stephen King, overhyped hokum peddler that he often is, should also be applauded for a brilliant, barmy screenplay.

You can watch a fantastic trailer for Creepshow below!

Ghoulish Delight No.9 is a rattling psychedelic funk number from Italian composer/producer/conductor Armando Sciascia. Taken from his 1970 record Impressions In Rhythm & Sound, this is a stunning piece of howling psychedelia.

Its thundering and creepy bassline combine devilishly with a whole range of demented sound effects and noises (from wild whistles to screeching sitars) to create one helluva mad track. A wonderfully bizarre record, this wouldn’t sound out of place on some crazy Giallo film. It really is that good.

Our good friend Paul from LoveLockandLoad, has kindly shared some of his favourite horror films with us – all of which scared him uncontrollably as a child. Not really! We wouldn’t be allowed to print that sort of thing. Anyway, here’s Paul to explain…

The horror. The horror.

When I was asked to come up with my list of favourite horror films for this site I was initially apprehensive. Over the years I’ve read countless lists of horror films; the best, the worst, most overlooked, etc, etc, and it all gets a little boring after a while. So having pondered the idea of doing it for a while, I thought I’d come up with something a little different, and hopefully it’ll make for a read that’s more fun. Firstly, I’ve not confined myself by coming up with a certain number of films for the list. Bollocks to that. I’m far too lazy and would rather write about the films from the heart than write in order to fill a designated space. Secondly, I’m not going to come up with a list of films by which all other horror films should be measured, but rather an assortment of movies that left their mark on me instead. Some people may find my selections completely laughable but they’ve made the list because, for better of worse, each of them left a lasting impression the first time I saw them.

So, without further ado, here’s my list. The films aren’t in order of greatness, rather the Nick Hornby-styled “autobiographical configuration:

Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)

The first time I saw Jaws I was only five years-old; it also happened to be the film’s premiere on terrestrial TV (hey, SKY TV didn’t launch for years after this – we’re talking backing in the days of three fucking channels, okay?). My mum had let me stay up to watch it and I remember being petrified throughout the film. Scared as I was, I was completely drawn in by the film and completely mesmerised by it. Apart from going to a wax museum the year before, I have no other recollection of being scared before seeing Jaws.

So the next day I go to school. I seem to remember having a chat with several other kids that had seen it and we had all agreed that it was the best thing ever. That morning we had assembly. After the usual assortment of hymns and highly moralistic proverbs the head mistress asked that any of us who’d seen Jaws the previous night to stand up. Of the three or four hundred kids sat cross-legged on the floor of the school’s gym, around 30 or 40 of us had arisen. The head then proceed to tell us how irresponsible our parents were for allowing us to see this film that wasn’t suitable for children. I was completely blown away by this and it was right then that I forever made a connection between horror and the taboo.

The Thing (1982, John Carpenter)

To most normal eight-year-olds, the perfect birthday party involves silly hats, jelly and ice-cream and probably a few games of ‘pin the tail on the donkey’. That wasn’t my mate Dean’s idea of a great kiddie shindig. Instead, he subjected us to one of the goriest and downright bleakest mainstream horror movies ever made. Anyone who’s seen the film knows how it starts. After the title cards over the Earth, we see an adorable husky being chased by a helicopter across the snowfields of Antarctica. Getting bitten on the face by my auntie’s dog when I was four aside, I quite like our little canine friends, especially when they’re safely behind a TV screen where they’re incapable of savaging my body. So to my surprise, I was lulled into a false sense of security. It wasn’t long however before the claret had begun to flow and Carpenter cranked up the tension to an unbearable level that I was soon petrified: so much so that I got behind Dean’s sofa and started playing with some He-Man figures I found lying around there.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1986, Jack Shoulder)

Yes, this is one of the stinkier sequels, probably second only to the execrable Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (hey, they lied, there were two more after that one) as the worst film in the series. That said, it was still something of a landmark in my own horror film history. Back in 1987, I wasn’t quite twelve, but was already aware of the phenomenon that surrounded paedophile killer Freddy Krueger; a character that became the most unlikely pop-culture icon we’ve ever known. Somehow I had convinced my mum to rent the video for Richard, a friend from school, and I one day during the summer holidays. Being the sort of kid that was always seeking out what was new; I skipped over the superior predecessor and went with the lamebrain sequel that had just been released on the antiquated format that we called VHS. We got it home and within ten minutes Richard made for the door, which I blocked with a chair that I promptly sat on, his cries for going to play with my Lego fell on deaf ears. The pair of us sat there watching the film (Richard through his fingers), neither of us realising at the time that we were watching our first slasher film. I subsequently sought out the original and then began working my way through the Halloween and Friday The 13^th franchises thereafter.

The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick)

It took an age for The Shining to receive it’s UK television premiere: nine years to be exact. By the time it made its debut on British TV (courtesy of Thames Television in the Autumn of 1989) I was fourteen years old and up until then, Full Metal Jacket had been the only film directed by Stanley Kubrick that I’d seen. At fourteen I was becoming aware of directors and was beginning to check out films shown on TV that were directed by those that had made films I had previously enjoyed. Full Metal Jacket came out on video at a point in time when the Vietnam war seemed to be represented everywhere: there was of course Oliver Stone’s Platoon, the television series Tour Of Duty and even synth maestro Paul Hardcastle got in on the act with his single ‘Nineteen’, so my motivation for seeing Kubrick’s film was nothing more than checking out the latest chapter in the media’s ongoing obsession with ‘Nam. Even at the age of 12, I really dug Full Metal Jacket and instantly recognised Kubrick’s flair for visuals and his seemingly effortless mastery of what was cool about films. So when the fanfare surrounding The Shining’s premiere (Thames were previewing the flick a good two months before they actually aired it) began, my interest was instantly piqued and I wasn’t disappointed when I finally saw the film. What’s more, where I’d been scared watching films before, The Shining lingered long after. I’m not talking merely the trip to bed after seeing the film, no, Kubrick’s film continued to play on my mind MONTHS after watching it. Back at the time I had an evening paper round and with it being winter it was pitch black at the time I was doing my deliveries and just like Danny’s terrifying journey through the corridors of the Overlook Hotel, menace, fear and dread seemed to await me at every alley entrance and darkened drive.

Unlike other films, The Shining’s power to chill isn’t diminished when watching it again. As of writing, the film stands as one of my most watched films and whenever I see it, it still manages to unnerve me, some 20 years and 15+ viewings later. I’ve not seen a film since that has affected me in the same way.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)

When I was a kid The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was unavailable, having been rejected for cinema release in the 1970s by the British Board of Film Classification. In the early eighties it was issued on VHS–by the now defunct Iver Film Services–but that release would fall foul to the Video Recordings Act of 1984 and remained “banned” until it was finally classified in 1999. During the interim period, the only way to see the film was via a bootleg and those lucky enough to see it became instant playground celebrities. I first heard of the film when I was 12: a friend of mine knew a guy who’d seen it in America and recanted tales of the film’s grim delights including “feet in the fridge” and “so much blood and guts my mate puked”. The film’s “banned” status cemented its reputation as the celluloid equivalent of evil incarnate, so like every other horror-fixated kid I was desperate to see it. And see it I finally did when I was fifteen. Now three years is a lifetime when you’re a tween and those intervening years had sent my expectations through the roof. When I was finally lent a pirate copy by a kid in my class one lunchtime, I was literally salivating through my final lesson of the day and I ran home as fast as my feet would carry me. What awaited me when I popped the tape in the VCR wasn’t what I was expecting. Far from it: this almost bloodless horror film was a complete disappointment. “Why had it been banned?” thought I as the end credits rolled. How during this first screening of the film I remained unmoved by its twisted and disturbing depiction of the macabre, I’ll never understand, because today I rate the film highly and it still has the power to get under my skin each time I revisit it. What’s even more curious is that had my first Texas Chainsaw experience been the ill-advised remake (which, I hasten to add, I don’t think is nearly as bad as many others do), Marcus Nispel’s film would have almost certainly ticked all the required boxes I had projected upon Hooper’s original. What the hell do kids know, anyway? Still, this was my first experience of a film falling a long way short of the expectation I had.

So there you have my horror history. Which films moulded you as a person and informed your taste for the years that followed? Discuss.

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Thanks Paul!

If you enjoyed that,  click here for more movie related madness from Paul and the gang!

No Halloween would be complete without an appearance from the undisputed Dark Prince of Reggae Keith Hudson. So, here we have the rare B-side to his classic 1972 track Evil Spirit.

A slightly spooky slice of dub, Satan Side is a curious and nefarious addition to your Halloween playlist. All your friends will be well impressed. I mean, who plays dub at a Halloween party other than me? Exactly.

As you can probably guess from the massive accompanying picture, this Ghoulish Delight is taken from the crap 1980 slasher film Don’t Go In The House. Often cited as one of the most DISTURBING VIDEO NASTIES BAN THIS SICK FILTH film ever, it’s actually a ridiculous tale of a Norman Bates type character who has pyromania. What a premise eh? Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, it’s a bit shit but the one redeeming feature that should pique your curiosity, is the film’s soundtrack.

During the late seventies and early eighties, slasher films were awash with funky, wah-wah disco tracks, the majority being utterly awful and a minority being, well, good. If you’re sad bastard like me and love to trawl hours and hours of YouTube clips of crap seventies horror films for a good song; then a song like Struck By Boogie Lightning will be your reward. Basically, if you look hard enough you WILL find a decent slasher disco song. The song itself is a dramatic, high octane number (funnily enough, the song is not played during some mad scene from the movie but actually during a scene in a clothes shop! See video below), that even has thunder and lightning sounds which will enhance your Halloween party immensely. A favourite of legendary cosmic DJ Beppe Loda, this is a massive lightning boogie bolt, but before you put your dancing shoes on, have a good ol’ laugh at the aforementioned shop scene. Hilarious!

Just look at Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson doing the fabulous prog/folk/psych number ‘Witch’s Promise’ on Top of the Pops in 1970!

Look at him! He’s like a mad combination of Rasputin and someone you might see on Time Team! He’s singing about a witch, as well. Stick this on at your Halloween party and it’ll go down a treat… Or a trick?

If only they had performances like this on Top of the Pops these days. If only they had Top of the Pops these days.

I remember watching this on Sounds of the Seventies on BBC2 in about 1990. “Mummy?” I said. “Who is that weird man with the flute?” I think she told me to shut up.

What are they going to have on Sounds of the Noughties? Fucking Paloma Faith, that’s what.

Anyway, here’s Jethro Tull; scary, hairy men singing about witches.

Halloween, eh? It’s all about the silly masks. And they don’t come much sillier than the frankly abysmal mask the poor actor (one Joe Cornelius) playing the title creature of this 1970s Britsploitation “classic” was lumbered with.

Trog is of course short for Troglodyte, a prehistoric man, and that’s exactly what scientist Joan Crawford (!) has discovered in a cave. Naturally enough, old Mommie Dearest wants to study the wretched creature, but some sniffy, stiff upper lip types in the science community would rather have it destroyed.

As I’m sure you can imagine, based on that brief synopsis, Trog features numerous scenes in which Joan as Scientist Woman sort of trains her charge to be a bit more human by getting him to perform various menial tasks such as playing with balls etc. In fact, these scenes make up the vast majority of Trog, and as such it’s a little boring. The hairy blighter doesn’t get to go on his highly-anticipated bloodthirsty rampage until well into the final third, attacking and killing an impressive three people in just under as many minutes.

Still, the only thing you’ll probably remember Trog for is for boasting the most amateurish prosthetics job ever captured on celluloid. That and the fact that la Crawford (in her last film role) is clearly, and perhaps understandably, sozzled throughout. This is far from director Freddie Francis’ finest hour, too. Most famous for helming seminal Amicus horror anthology Dr. Terror’s House of Horror’s (which is set in a train compartment, not a house), he also turned in a selection of underrated mini-classics, such as Hammer’s little seen attempt at Hitchcock, Hysteria, and the Oliver Reed starring Paranoiac.

Anyway, watch this bloody trailer for Trog and you’ll see what I mean. I will personally give a hearty handshake to anyone who goes to a Halloween party dressed as Trog, with a special prize of ten pounds for whoever makes the best… No, make that worst, Trog mask.

Things bloody well go boom in the night with this 1981 post-punk ditty from the moody Bush Tetras.