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!

Hello boys and ghouls. It’s actually not still Halloween, of course. But, for the purposes of finishing our rundown of the top 13 horror films of all time, we’re going to pretend it is.

Hope you all had a spooky one and enjoyed yourselves. You didn’t just stay in watching Halloween 2 on BBC1, did you? Thanks to some kind of minor social miracle, I actually got invited to a Halloween party! And most enjoyable it was, too. In case you’re wondering, I went as Alan Partridge as a zombie, which was met with predictably nonplussed responses. Oh, well. It was a great party, and they had The Texas Chainsaw Massacre playing on a loop in the living room and everything! And if you’re looking for a clue as to how terrifying and bloody brilliant the remainder of our list is going to be, I’ll let it slip that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t even in there!

But, what is? Read on to find out… IF YOU DARE!!!!!!

Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural (1973)

Almost certainly the most obscure film on the list (more so than even Alice, Sweet Alice and Blue Sunshine from part one), this is a strange and enthralling gothic fairytale. Superbly put together and beautiful to look at, the only thing more remarkable than the fact it was made for peanuts is the fact that it has languished in obscurity for so long.

Lemora stars late B-movie regular Cheryl Smith (Caged Heat, Phantom of the Paradise) as Lila Lee, a 13-year-old gospel singer who has been fostered by the Reverend of her church. Upon recieving a letter from her real father, a gangster suffering from a fatal wound and being held at a strange house in a town called Astaroth, Lila steals away to see him before he dies. The journey alone is enough to make Lila uncertain of the wiseness of her decision to seek her father out, as a group of deformed maniacs lay siege to her bus and kill the driver. Managing to escape, Lila makes her way through a dark and dazzling Southern Gothic landscape to the house and her father, who is being guarded by the sinister Lemora of the title. Lemora already has loads of weird kids hanging around the house, and she seems keen to add Lila to her collection. She also has a private army of vampires under her control, and is waging a war against the same deformed maniacs who had earlier munched the bus driver. It’s not long before all hell breaks lose in Astaroth, but can Lila and her father escape in time?

I can’t stress enough how beautiful Lemora is to look at. Setting itself up as a dreamlike fable of childhood innocence under threat, the film is pitch perfect and incredibly atmospheric throughout. Strangely, its director, Richard Blackburn, never made another film, although he did co-write another dark fable, Paul Bartel’s Eating Raoul. Despite all this talk of fable and fairytale, Lemora is also occassionally gruesome and always unsettling. The film is never more unsettling than when Lemora herself is onscreen. Played by the uncannily Sigourney Weaver-like Lesley Gilb, who never appeared in anything else, some of Lemora’s most haunting sequences are of the vampire queen grooming her young charges. 

Following its release, the film got into hot water with the Catholic League of Decency, due largely to the predatory nature of Lemora’s relationship with Lila. This controversy, and subsequent banning in some territories, is doubtless partly responsible for Lemora being tragically overlooked. Don’t make the same mistake. I urge you to seek out Synapse’s fantastic recent DVD release and prepare to have your breath taken away by a dark, forgotten classic.

Martin (1977)

Running the risk of widespread derision and, quite possibly, contempt, I hereby include George A. Romero’s Martin in the list at the exclusion of the generously spectacled horror legend’s two most famous masterpieces. Yes, that’s right; I prefer Martin to both Night and Dawn of the Living Dead. But rather than take that as sacrilege, simply accept it as testament to how excellent a film Martin is. And no, it’s not a Martin Kemp biopic.

Instead, Martin is the tale of a young lad with a penchant for sedating women, slicing their wrists open and drinking their blood. This makes him a vampire, non? Well, it certainly makes him a very modern one, and Martin’s Olde Worldy uncle is having none of it, forcing the eponymous anti-hero to come and stay with him in backwater Pittsburgh in order to be cured. Belonging very much to the old school of vampire handling, Martin’s uncle tries every hackneyed trick in the book, from the garlic clove to the crucifix, but nothing seems to work. The strangely sympathetic Martin resolves to cure himself and embarks on an affair with an unhappy housewife. But can he resist the old, murderous temptations, and how long before his uncle runs out of patience, and weans him off the blood by giving him some ”stake”? Groan.

Just one of a handful of criminally underrated Romero films (see also; Jack’s Wife, The Crazies, Creepshow and Monkey Shines. His romantic comedy (!) There’s Always Vanilla ain’t bad, either), Martin is his most restrained and, maybe even, personal film. As noted earlier, this is due in no small part to the depiction of Martin as more troubled teenager than maniacal monster, and the role is brilliantly brought to life by Romero regular John Amplas. That’s not to say that Martin isn’t as thrilling as George A.’s more famous films, and, indeed, I consider the opening, tensely staged, murder aboard a sleeper train to be the director’s finest hour. It’s also, perhaps unsurprisingly, very bloody, with the great Tom Savini on hand to lay on the gruesome effects (and, a la Dawn of the Dead, act in a minor role). And it’s a very funny film in places, maybe Romero’s wittiest, with Martin’s exasperated attempts to explain the nature of his vampirism to a sleazy phone-in radio DJ being nothing short of hilarious.

Martin is also available in a slightly different, Italian-language version, edited by Romero’s great mate Dario Argento, and featuring musical mayhem from none other than Goblin. For first-timers, however, I’d recommend the original; a unique and intelligent take on the vampire myth.

Profondo Rosso (1975)

“What horror movies seemed like when you were too young to get in to see them.” Alas, not my words, but the words of Time Out magazine, summarising the work of Dario Argento. I have yet to hear a more apt appraisal of the maestro’s talents, and it’s one I would most certainly apply to his greatest film; Profondo Rosso.

Please forgive me if you feel I’m being pretenious by neglecting to use its English title, Deep Red, but I was lumbered with an appallingly edited, dubbed version of the film bearing that title sometime in the mid-90s, and I instinctively use the Italian title to differentiate. I refuse to apologise, however, if you feel I should have selected Suspiria instead. Come on! We’ve just been through all this with George Romero! I will justify my selection by saying that Suspiria is, of course, an absolute masterpiece, however, as are several other Dario Argento films, including his debut The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. But, one of the things I like best about Profondo Rosso is the way it marries the breathless, mysterious Giallo style of Argento’s earlier films with the more fragmented, evocative supernatural power of his later films, most notably Suspiria. In my mind, at least, it is the definitive Argento film.

Regular readers may remember Days Are Numbers exhaustive Giallo bumper special a few months back, in which we laid out a potted history of these very Italian, very violent murder-mystery/horror hybrids. Profondo Rosso is very much in the Giallo mould, but here Argento takes the genre (which he helped to popularise) and does to it what his traditionally black glove-clad killer does to their many victims in the film. Takes it to bloody pieces. David Hemmings stars as a jazz pianist who witnesses the murder of a psychic (who had earlier claimed she could feel the presence of a killer at one of her meetings), but having failed to catch a glimpse of the killer’s mush, attempts to solve the mystery with the assistance of a fiesty female journalist. The more bizarre the case becomes, as Hemmings’ investigation leads him to a decrepit house with a dark secret, the higher the body count mounts. Very soon he has good reason to fear for his own life.

I’ll spare you an outpouring of superlatives and simply say this; Profondo Rosso is bloody brilliant. Nerve-jangling, brutal, darkly psychedelic, absolutely mesmerising (ok, that’s a few superlatives); I’d heartily recommend any Argento film (up to Trauma, at least), but Profondo Rosso is something else altogether compared to even its brothers and sisters. Goblin’s soundtrack is belting and bonkers, to boot. Naturally.

Targets (1968)

We got the ball rolling (in part one) with a Roger Corman film, and here, halfway through part two, we encounter the great man again. He’s not behind the camera this time, but instead flexing his creative muscle as a shrewd and resourceful producer, helping one of his numerous talented proteges crank out an ingenious and inventive modern horror film.

It’s remarkable to think that we wouldn’t even have Targets to enjoy had it not been for the fact that horror legend Boris Karloff owed Corman three days’ work. Many other producers would have simply written this meagre debt off, but not our Roger. He got on the blower to talented youngster Peter Bogdanovich and told him he would produce his first feature provided he cast Karloff and use him for three days. The second part of the brief stipulated that Bogdanovich would be required to include footage from the film Corman had just made with Karloff, The Terror, which starred another Corman discovery, Jack Nicholson.

Unfazed by this challenge, Bogdanovich sought help in devising a suitable storyline in which to include all these elements by calling on another mercurial movie maverick, Samuel Fuller. Possibly the greatest filmmaker most people have never heard of (more info on Days Are Numbers in the coming month), Fuller helped Bogdanovich craft an absolute peach of an idea; Karloff plays a loosely fictionalised version of himself, an elderly, Hollywood-era horror star named Byron Orlok. Increasingly tired and jaded, Orlok is touring the drive-in circuit to promote his new film, which looks suspicously like The Terror. Oh, hang on. IT IS The Terror. Being met with a subdued response, Orlok ponders the relevance of his traditional brand of wordy and theatrical horror in an increasingly violent and outrageous world. Meanwhile, an all-American boy and Vietnam veteran (whose rigid and mundane life we have been observing in snippets throughout) snaps suddenly across town and begins gunning down random passers-by, before making his way to the very same drive-in at which Orlok is appearing to continue his killing spree. It is here that the old school screen monster Orlok must confront a new, nihilistic horror.

If that’s not one of the best ideas for a film ever, then I don’t know what is. And Targets is indeed one of my favourite films ever. Hats off to everyone involved for a great job well done, from the ever-resourceful Corman for getting it off the ground, to Bogdanovich and Fuller for dreaming up a dynamite premise that is both exciting and intelligent, and still sadly relevant today. Bogdanovich would never direct another horror film, although he would turn in some wacko sci-fi for Corman (Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women), before becoming one of the most successful film directors of the early to mid 70s. He would later become one of the most derided and least loved film directors of the late 70s and 80s. Perhaps unfairly, but that’s another story.

Whilst not Karloff’s final film as is often widely misreported (he would slum it in Spain for a year or so after), Targets comes close enough to fit as a sterling swansong for a bona fide horror legend. Giving a charming and sad performance, Karloff reminds us just what a wonderful actor the man behind Frankenstein’s monster truly was.

Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968)

Not technically a film-film, Whistle… weighs in at a mere 42 mins. long, and was never given a cinema release. It was instead made for BBC television’s seminal arts strand Omnibus, and directed by surely one of the least likely horror directors of all time.

To this day Jonathan Miller is still most famous as one-quarter of Britain’s pre-eminent pre-Python comedy troupe, Beyond the Fringe. Largely remembered for giving the world the far from inconsiderable gifts of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, BTF also housed treasured monolguist and writer Alan Bennett and, of course, Jonathan Miller, in their salad days, both of whom were as funny as their more celebrated peers, but neither of whom pursued a career in comedy following the group’s split. Immediately after, Miller found himself at the head of the BBC’s arts department, and directed two literary adaptations for TV; Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and Whistle and I’ll Come to You, based on a story by M.R. James.

Anyone who’s read at least a handful of stories by M.R. James (and I don’t mean to disparage his abilities, I’m a big fan) will know that he is fond of one story template in particular; stuffy, cynical English academic goes on rural holiday, finds strange, ancient artefact buried somewhere, pockets artefact, then gets haunted by ghost of some kind until mysteriously dies/replaces artefact. So it is with Whistle…, which could transfer a little flat and formulaic if brought to the screen by a lesser hand, but fortunately Miller possesses the skills to make it absolutely riveting.

The artefact in question here is, suitably enough, a whistle, chanced upon by stuffy, cynical Professor Parkins whilst enjoying a ramble on holiday on the Suffolk coast. Parkins pockets the whistle, after giving it a quick blow, and for the rest of his walk, and his holiday, he is stalked by a large dark figure in the distance, looming ever closer and more threateningly. One of the masterstrokes pulled off by Miller is to illustrate the stark difference in atmosphere and mood between night and day. Contrasting the scenes which take place during the day time, in which the pompous Parkins makes tart remarks to himself during conversation with his fellow hotel guests, with those at night, with Parkins plagued by surreal, terrifying nightmares, makes for interesting viewing, and it is a ploy I have not seen used in quite the same way in any other horror film. Miller also handles the sequences of Parkins being followed by the figure along desolate shorelines beautifully, but it is the final sequence that is worthy of the highest praise. The finale employs eerie, stop-motion effects and jagged editing superbly to bring something utterly terrible to life. It is still powerful and frightening to this day, although Channel 4 ruined it for millions recently by showing the end in its near-entirety on the channel’s 100 Scariest Moments countdown. A more than admirable choice, all the same.

A true renaissance man in a time when some will apply the term to even Justin Timberlake, Jonathan Miller tired of film directing even quicker than he tired of comedy, and went off to become a sculptor, neurologist, author and God-knows-what-else. Based on the evidence here, it was a great loss, but his earlier Alice in Wonderland (with an all-star cast, including Peters’ Sellers and Cook) is equally well-worth watching and his one full-length feature film, another literary adaptation, Kingsley Amis’ Take a Girl Like You (released 1970, starring Oliver Reed) is about to be released on DVD after decades of unavailability. Hurrah! The late Michael Horden, superb as Professor Parkins in Whistle…, also deserves props. A lengthy and colourful career, he both narrated Kubrick’s masterpiece Barry Lyndon and appeared alongside Frankie Howerd in the film of Up Pompeii. Titter ye not! 

The Wicker Man (1973)

I almost felt like leaving out the “1973″ above as an act of defiance. It’s not that I don’t want anyone to know when The Wicker Man was made, I’m sure everybody already does, it’s just that I loathe the idea that it’s nowadays required to differentiate the seminal, sublime original from the terrible, turgid remake.

Easily the most famous film on the second part of our list, The Wicker Man has gone onto become a bona fide cultural phenomenon, and watching it is almost a rites-of-passage type thing. One of the first things I normally ask people when the subject of The Wicker Man arises in conversation is whether or not they knew how it was going to end before they saw it. I alas, did know, and feel somewhat envious of those who didn’t, as in an era when hackneyed and contrived twist endings are commonplace in films, The Wicker Man’s denouement is a true stroke of dark genius. However, even if you do know how it’s going to end, The Wicker Man is still the most engrossing, enrapturing British horror film (perhaps) ever made.

Telly hardman Edward Woodward gives an expertly measured performance as a staunchly Christian copper summoned to a remote Scottish island to search for a missing girl. Once there he finds himself entangled in a web of intrigue seemingly constructed by corrupt English nobleman Lord Summerisle, who presides over the whole island, which is also called Summerisle like wot he is. The entire populace of Summerisle happen to be pagans, which obviously rattles our pious pig, with the locals first unsettling him, and then, apparently, threatening him. And just who is this “Wicker Man”? As if you don’t all know.

The remake of The Wicker Man is, of course, grossly inferior to the original in every way. In fact the remake of The Wicker Man is grossly inferior to most films in every way. However, one of the most hideously wrong things about the remake is that they chose to invent their own credibility-sapping religion (something about bees and Nazi feminism), which contributed to the whole affair’s damnation to failure. This, in turn, is one of the prized assets that the original can boast, and something that gives it even greater resonance. The fact that within and just without Britain’s Christian shores there remains remnants of a dark, pagan past where sinister things can apparently happen. Indeed, Halloween itself, which we are celebrating on this list, survives from that very past.

The Wicker Man also boasts a production history that is as unique and complex as the film itself. It’s much too long a story to get into, but I can heartily recommend the excellent commentary track on the terrific Anchor Bay DVD release, featuring a bagful of interesting anecdotes from Christopher Lee. The iconic star of nearly 300 films (many of them horror), Lee has always maintained that The Wicker Man is the best thing he’s ever done, and who’s going to argue? It’s certainly the best thing director Robin Hardy has ever done, although given the level of fame enjoyed by The Wicker Man, his only other film of note, The Fantasist, deserves to be at least a bit better known, despite not being very good. After years of trying, Hardy has finally succeeded in mounting his long-planned Wicker Man sequel, the almost alarmingly titled Cowboys for Christ. It’s hard to know what to expect, but at least it’s guaranteed to be better than The Wicker Man remake. Sadly, it won’t boast the writing talents of original Wicker Man scribe Anthony Shaffer, who also penned the twice-filmed hit stageplay Sleuth, as well as Frenzy, for Alfred Hitchcock, and who passed away in 2001.

Witchfinder General (1968)

Completing our list is a film that deserves to be as famous as The Wicker Man, in my opinion, and a film that may yet come close to achieving such a level of fame as it continues to grow in stature. It also completes two hat-tricks on this second half of the list; a hat-trick of films made in 1968 (what a great year for horror), and a hat-trick of career-redefining films from horror icons. We’ve already had Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee. Now it’s the turn of Vincent Price.

Price stars as the witch-hunter and torturer of the title, actual historic figure Matthew Hopkins, except if director Michael Reeves had had his way the old ghoul wouldn’t have been allowed near the thing to begin with. Reeves really wanted another horror stalwart, Donald Pleasance, to play the lead, and considered Price too waspish and campy. This is not a massively surprising conclusion for the young director to have arrived at, considering Price’s most recent credits at the time included the role of Egghead in the Batman TV series, and a film called Dr. Goldfoot and the Sex Bombs (albeit directed by Mario Bava). However, the decision was not Reeves’ to make as American International Pictures were stumping up the cash, and counted Price as a treasured contract player (he had spent the early 60s making a series of fantastic Edgar Allan Poe adaptations with Roger Corman at AIP). So, Price it was to be.

And a good thing too, as despite numerous on-set arguments and clashes, Price proved Reeves wrong and put in a poised and dead-eyed performance in a film that still astounds with its unflinching sadism to this day. Reeves has described Witchfinder General as a western set in East Anglia, during the English Civil War of the 17th century, and indeed, the film does have a distinct gunslinger tang to it. Maliciously touring the war-torn English countryside carrying out his grim trade of accusing innocent young women of witchcraft and murdering them for profit, Hopkins encounters Roundhead soldier Richard Marshall, who unaware of what he’s doing, gives Hopkins directions to his hometown. Once there, Hopkins chooses Marshall’s beloved and her clergyman uncle as his latest victims, and soon numbers the disillusioned soldier as his number one enemy. Marshall sets out for revenge, but does the shrewd and sadistic Hopkins wield too much power in these troubled times?

An excellent storyline, and if it seems a little superficially slender, don’t worry. Michael Reeves places numerous scenes of cruel and brutal torture throughout the film, which created a minor outrage on its release. In fact, one of the film’s leading opponents was none other than Jonathan Miller’s old Beyond the Fringe chum Alan Bennett, who decried the film as morbid and thoroughly unenjoyable, and claimed watching it made him feel dirty. Reeves responded by stating that the violence of Witchfinder General was not meant to be enjoyed, but that he would love the opportunity to watch Bennett try and scrub himself clean. Despite being a distant cousin of then BBFC big cheese John Trevelyan, Reeves’ film would be shorn of several minutes, which have subsequently been restored and are still incrediby shocking. The film also boasts a belter of an ending, and if not exactly as surprising as the final scene of The Wicker Man, it easily matches it for bleakness. An unforgettable, harrowing lesson in the futility of violent revenge.

Michael Reeves is the great lost talent of British cinema. A scarcely believable mere 25-years-old when he died a year after Witchfinder General’s release, Reeves is also responsible for another dark and intoxicatingly imaginitive British horror, The Sorcerers, which he made with Boris Karloff in 1967. I had a headache deciding whether or not I should include The Sorcerers or Witchfinder General on the list, and the earlier film missed out only just. A brilliant tale of bitter old folks controlling jaded youngsters through mind control, expect it to make a full appearance on these pages very soon. Reeves’ first film, The She Beast, is also very good, if hamstrung by a zero-budget and nowhere near as sophisticated as his later two (running 74 min. long, more than a third of the film is taken up by a elaborate car chase!). It does, however, feature several early glimpses of his supreme, ruthless talent, not to mention his dark humour.

It’s impossible to guess where Reeves would have gone next, and before his untimely death from an apparent suicide bid, he had already pulled out of filming his next production, The Oblong Box, a Poe story starring Vincent Price (Witchfinder General is known as The Conqueror Worm in the US, after a Poe poem, to cash in on the Price connection). Had he lived longer, I believe we would have been guaranteed several more films as masterful as those he left us, but at least we’ll always have those.

Well, thanks for being patient and keeping up the pretence that Halloween is still occurring. I hope you enjoyed the list, and please forgive me for any glaring omissions. I’ve decided not to think about it, as I don’t want to kick myself too hard for leaving brilliant things out (i.e. “The Birds? Doh!”). You may also have noticed that we in fact covered 14 films, rather than the promised 13. The decision to throw another one in was meant to both trick and treat, in keeping with the spirit of the season. Also, 13 is too darn unlucky.

Anyway, until next year… Happy haunting!

(NB: Please stay tuned for the third and final part of Days Are Number’s banned series. It’s comin’ to get ya!)          

The future, eh? It ain’t what it used to be. There was a time when the world gazed dewy eyed onto the horizon and dreamily mused over what delights the dawn of a new age would herald. Food in pill form, perhaps? Flying cars, you say? What’s that? You believe that all pavements will be replaced by those travelator things that you get in airports? Why, that would be wonderful!

There were some among us, however, for whom the future did not seem so bright. We feared the breakdown of society. We shuddered at the thought of non-stop technological and scientific advancement one day becoming the proverbial noose around our collective necks. And we shit our pants at the threat of overpopulation, global warming and stuff like that. For people like us the dystopian sci-fi film, the most intriguing of all loosely defined subgenres, best projected our darkest fears and fantasies onto the silver screen (generally BBC2 at around 11pm).

But now I believe we actually are living in the future. Not only is it quite gobsmackingly the year 2008AD, but I have just seen a mobile phone what you can watch YouTube on. Why, just the other day I was perusing the Guardian website and observed that they had gone for the rather humdrum “Top Gear stars stall over contracts” over the alarming “Man gives birth to baby” as their headline. Yes, we’re a bit blasé when it comes to all this future shit now, ain’t we? America even appears to be on the cusp of electing a black president, which, as all keen science fiction students will tell you, is proof indeed that The Future Has Arrived.

What better time could there be then, to reassess some of these dark visions of the future from a bygone age, and see just how accurate they were in their predictions? Join me now on a journey back to the future (although I will not be doing the film Back to the Future, as it is not a dystopian sci-fi film. Back to the Future 2 kind of is, but I won’t be doing that, either) if you dare…

Things to Come (1936) – Written by none other than H.G. Wells (from his own novel) Things to Come does very well in getting it’s work in early. It’s not strictly the first dystopian sci-fi film (from here on in DSF), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis for example could also qualify, but I’m starting with it because it only makes sense to begin with the best prediction we’re going to hear all day. Yes, made in 1936, Things to Come predicts that four years later there will be a Second World War. It was a year off, admittedly, but we’re not going to mark it down for that, are we? Where it fares less well is in its prediction that in the aftermath of this war the world will be ruled and rebuilt by a collective of rather camp chaps calling themselves The Airmen, and that World War III will kick off in 2036 as a result of man’s first attempt to fly to the moon. That’s obviously not going to happen now.

(NB: Things to Come is now in the public domain, and therefore available for free on many websites. It is, of course, a little dated but is nevertheless excellent and boasts trailblazing set design and special effects which still astound)

The Last Man on Earth (1964) – I have opted for this version of Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend over the 1971 version, The Omega Man, and the 2007 version, erm, I Am Legend, for the simple reason that this one has Vincent Price in it, and the others don’t (I haven’t actually seen the 2007 version, starring Will Smith, but it is probably pants. Non?). Price stars as the titular survivor who is holed up in his bungalow listening to “jazz” on his “hi-fi”, whilst frightening, but really weak, vampire zombies waddle about outside. Can our hero, who was conveniently a scientist back in the civilised world, come up with the antidote to save these puny monsters? Or will he be doomed to spend the rest of his miserable life on his own? That is if you can really describe being plagued by vampire zombies as being truly alone. That’s one for Sartre. The film has it that these creatures came about after a bizarre plague infected the world in 1965. Now, we know this isn’t going to happen because, well, it didn’t happen. But what did happen in 1965? Well, Liverpool won the FA Cup. That definitely did happen.

(NB: The Last Man on Earth is also available for free on many websites. Whilst not quite up to Things to Come standard, if you like Vincent Price (and I know you do) it is well worth watching)

Soylent Green (1973) – We’re into the 70s now, something of a heyday for the DSF and this classic example stars none other than the late Charlton Heston, a true icon of this sort of fare, what with starring in this and The Omega Man (and to a lesser extent Planet of the Apes). Please look away now if you haven’t seen it, and you don’t want to know how it ends, but there’s no getting around this… Charlton Heston daringly plays against type as a macho, no-nonsense, beefcake police detective in an OVERPOPULATED world with CHRONIC FOOD SHORTAGE that, as a result of which leads the government to supply a STRANGE UNKNOWN FOODSTUFF called Soylent Green to the starving millions. So, there are too many people and not enough food, and the food that there is, well, nobody seems to know where it comes from? Mmmhhh… Could it be that Soylent Green is people? SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE. Yes, it could and it is. The film is set in 2022 so, to be fair, it still might happen, especially if food prices keep going the way they are. I really hope it doesn’t happen, though.

A Boy and His Dog (1974) – A proper curio, this one, so give yourself a minute or two to digest the preposterous premise. It stars a young Don Johnson, no less, as a young scavenger living in a post-apocalyptic world. His only companion is his dog, with whom he can communicate telepathically for reasons unknown to the rest of us, and who helps him to sniff out women so he can rape them. One day Don and his dog chance upon a particularly nice young lady whom Don really wants to rape, so he follows her, sans dog, into a subterranean community. This community is all done up like a quintessential American 50s white picket-fence type of place, and is ruled over by Jason Robards. Jason Robards in clown makeup. It then turns out that Robards had Johnson lured down to this community so he could use his semen to repopulate the town by injecting it into the women cos the men are no longer up to it for some reason. You’d think Johnson would be pleased, but he decides to escape after Robard’s android henchman, Michael, starts breaking people’s necks. All good stuff. Now, A Boy and His Dog takes place in the aftermath of a nuclear war so that kind of makes it a post-apocalyptic film, which is sort of a subgenre of a subgenre, in a way (see also Mad Max, which appears to have taken its look from ABAHD), but because of the Robards bit, I say it also counts as DSF. It doesn’t exactly say when it takes place, but the prologue explaining the nuclear apocalypse bit features snippets of Nixon banging on about China and the Soviet Union, which probably places it a few generations on, maybe the 90s. Now, the threat of a nuclear holocaust doesn’t seem quite as pronounced as it did in the 70s, but I still hope it doesn’t yet happen, telepathic communication with dogs or no.

Death Race 2000 (1975) – No prizes for guessing when this one’s set, then. The legendary Roger Corman produced this pulp satire concerning a futuristic, fascist America where the national sport is a cross country race in which participants must mow down and kill as many pedestrians as possible. The Death Race’s answer to Michael Schumacher is Kill Bill’s David Carradine who must outwit a terrorist group whilst staying ahead of main rival Sylvester Stallone. Oh, yes. While we were afraid of many things at the dawn of the new millennium (the Millennium Bug, the Millennium Dome, Robbie Williams’ hit ‘Millennium’), being run over by Sylvester Stallone was not necessarily one of them. Therefore, Death Race 2000 misses by miles. Also, the way oil prices are rising, it might not be too long before nobody can afford to run anybody over. So there.

Logan’s Run (1975) – This is it. The Citizen Kane… The Vertigo… The Pee Wee’s Big Adventure of DSF. I scarcely feel the need for a quick synopsis, but nevertheless allow me to take the pleasure. Logan’s Run is all about this ace futuristic world that, funnily enough, actually looks really 70s where everybody lives in this massive domed city where they kill you when you reach 30! And not only do they kill you, but they kill you in this amazing, spinning psychedelic thing that everyone calls “Carousel” and it is Michael York’s job to shoot you if you don’t want to go along with this. But he gets a bit disillusioned and him and Jenny Agutter escape from the dome and fight this mad robot that freezes people. Then they discover the ruins of the White House, and in there they find the only person over the age of 30 they have ever seen, so they decide to take him (it’s actually Peter Ustinov) back to the dome to show people that it’s ok to be over 30.

It is a testament to the enduring power of Logan’s Run that with each subsequent birthday I enjoy, I think of myself in Logan’s Run years. As it currently stands, I would only have three years left, so thank goodness the society depicted in Logan’s Run has not come to be (although you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you watch MTV). But it might yet, however, as it is the only film here to really cover it’s ass in terms of time by taking place in the far-flung 23^rd Century. Kudos Logan’s Run. Kudos.

(NB: If you enjoy Logan’s Run, or if you are just a bit ageist and enjoy this sort of thing generally, you should check out the simply outrageous Wild in the Streets about a 22-year-old US president who wreaks havoc on the old folks under his rule. It comes equipped with the greatest tagline in film history: “Haven’t you always wanted to put your dad in a concentration camp?” You can get it on a bargain double DVD set with Roger Corman’s similar, and similarly brilliant, Gas-s-s-s)

Escape from New York (1981) – Poor old Escape from New York would have done well to have paid attention to Logan’s Run shrewd pragmatism, asking us, as it does, to believe that by 1997 (1997!) the entire island of Manhattan will serve as a walled prison housing America’s deadliest convicts in a bleak future where the world has fallen foul of a Boris Johnson bewildering 400% increase in crime. Now, I first went to New York a few years ago, and stayed in Manhattan. Not only did I have a really pleasant holiday, but at no time did I see a single trace of it being employed as any kind of futuristic prison-style setup. So either a lot must have changed since 1997 or, more likely, that just never happened. It’s just as well, then, that Escape from New York is absolutely brilliant and Kurt Russell is sneeringly awesome as the ruthless antihero Snake Plissken, who must enter Manhattan and rescue the president who’s only gone and crashed his bloody plane there. Plissken would return in the undeserving sequel Escape from L.A., set in the year 2000 (2000!) by which time the entire city of Los Angeles has, erm, become an island on which lots of horrible criminals do reside like it is a big prison. But that is another story. Although, only slightly.

Demolition Man (1993) – It’s that man Stallone again, this time as 90s cop John Spartan awoken up from cryonic freezing (like what Disney and Hitler had done) in 2032 to capture similarly revived super villain Wesley Snipes. We’ve still got some 24 years to go before we can see how much of Demolition Man is to come true, but these are the things to look out for. Firstly, there’s been a massive earthquake and for some reason Los Angeles is now known as San Angeles. Secondly, all popular music has been replaced by 50s advertising jingles, but this would not be such a bad thing, considering it is preferable to Timberlake et al. Thirdly, somewhere between now and 2032, Arnold Schwarzenegger will have become President of the United States of America. Stallone is unsurprisingly thrilled upon hearing this. Most importantly, however, society has become a complete utopia where there is no violence, crime, murder or even swearing, and everybody seems to be really nice to each other, except to Dennis Leary, but he’s annoying old Dennis Leary, so who cares? The film, which is in no way knuckleheaded or reactionary, insists however that no such society could ever exist and that big lug musclemen like Stallone should have access to as many guns as they want so they can shoot the bad guys when they inevitably appear. Demolition Man is still immensely enjoyable at times, thanks in no small part to Wesley Snipes, who is not so much scene-stealing as film-kidnapping. There are also many gratuitous references to Aldous Huxley’s seminal DSF novel Brave New World shoehorned into the script, presumably to provide sufficient evidence that at least someone involved in the making of this film had actually once read a book.

(NB: Whilst writing about Demolition Man just now, I actually looked up the definition of the word dystopia for the first time in my life. I had always assumed it meant the opposite of utopia, but I wanted to be sure. It turns out I was correct in my lifelong held assumption)

So there we have it, a series of terrifying glimpses into the future (and, confusingly at times, also the past). So what have we learnt? That there is still much to fear from the future if one is wary of travelling to the moon, vampire zombies, bizarre foodstuff of untraceable origin, being raped by Don Johnson, being run over by Sylvester Stallone, turning 30, holidaying in Manhattan or Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming president. We have also learnt, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the exact definition of dystopia IS that it means the opposite of utopia. And we have also also surely learnt by deduction that the film of George Orwell’s DSF benchmark novel 1984, starring John Hurt and Richard Burton, can’t be particularly noteworthy, and thus is NOT a glaring omission from this list.

Here’s to the future!