Enlightenment Episode 4 Screencaps, Part 16

The Ghost of Rashmon Hall (Night Comes Too Soon, 1948)

In 1983, the time traveling alien known as the Doctor (Doctor 5) beamed down to Earth where he met a now retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and what appeared to be a student named Turlough, but who in actuality was an alien working for the Black Guardian in a plot to kill the Doctor. ("Mawdryn Undead", Doctor Who vlm 1, TV)

Six Plays by Alan Bennett: The Old Crowd (1.3, LWT, 1979)

"Do you do this full time?"

"We're actors. We act."

"Acting, oh that's exciting. Are you resting?"

"'Scuse me?"

"That's what it's called, isn't it, when - when you're out of work? Resting?"

"I call it out of work."

The Haunting | Episode 404

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The Haunting | Episode 404

Jim discusses a classic 1963 Ghost Story based on the novel by Shirley Jackson (“The Haunting Of Hill House”) and directed by Robert Wise -“The Haunting,” starring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Robert Johnson, Russ Tamblyn, Rosalie Crutchley, Fay Compton, Valentine Dyall, and Lois Maxwell. This memorable tale about a small group investigating a legendary haunted house has developed a huge cult following the last 60 years. Find out more on this episode of MONSTER ATTACK!, The Podcast Dedicated To Old Monster Movies.

Bad movie I have The Haunting 1963

No one:

The Black Guardian: “NYAH HA HA”

'Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Saxon... now "The One Who Waits" appears to be joining the ranks of Doctor Who story arcs teased by writer/showrunner Russell T Davies.

The Giggle – the third and last of the show's 60th anniversary specials – saw the Doctor (David Tennant) once again face off with old foe The Toymaker (now played by Neil Patrick Harris).

The events of previous episode Wild Blue Yonder saw the Doctor unwittingly allow the Toymaker – an elemental force who exists beyond the rules of the universe – entry into our universe.

In The Giggle, the cruel Toymaker was able to provoke the Doctor into challenging him to a game – as the two prepared to match wits, the villain taunted the Time Lord with tales of his accomplishments.

"I came to this universe with such delight," he said. "I played them all, Doctor – I toyed with supernovas, turned galaxies into spinning tops, I gambled with God and made him a jack-in-the-box."

We even discover that The Master – last played by Sacha Dhawan in last year's The Power of the Doctor – fell foul of the Toymaker, losing a game to the villain and ending up trapped, apparently for all eternity.

But then, the Toymaker makes a confession: "There's only one player I didn't dare face – The One Who Waits.

"I saw it, hiding, and I ran."

The Doctor attempts to question the Toymaker further, but he shrugs off his earlier comments, telling his nemesis: "That's someone else's game."

So who is The One Who Waits?

The Toymaker is established as having power almost without limit, able to manipulate the atoms of the universe and conjure up his own magical domain – in The Giggle, we saw a shaken Doctor uncertain if he'll be able to best his enemy once again.

The fact then that, whoever or whatever they are, The One Who Waits is capable of striking fear into the heart of the Toymaker is pretty terrifying. Could an even more powerful being exist in the Whoniverse?

Interestingly, in a social media post made in October, the official Doctor Who account appeared to refer to the Toymaker himself as "the one who waits" – but it's made clear in The Giggle that he's referring not to himself but to some other figure.

Of course, the Toymaker isn't the only all-powerful, ever-living being to exist in the worlds of Doctor Who...

Making their debut in the 1983 story Enlightenment, the Eternals are a race of elemental beings of immense power, capable of manipulating matter and creating objects out of thin air.

These amoral creatures act purely for their own amusement, manipulating "Ephemerals" (read: mortal beings) for fun.

Then there are the Guardians, who first appeared in Doctor Who's 16th season in 1978, a series of interlinked stories which saw the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) on a quest to find the legendary Key to Time.

Transcendental beings who embodied aspects of the universe, immortal and indestructible, we met the White Guardian (Cyril Luckham) – who represented light, order and structure – and his eternal opponent the Black Guardian (Valentine Dyall) – the personification of darkness, entropy and chaos.

Most recently, 2020 episode Can You Hear Me? saw the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and friends lured into a trap by Zellin (Ian Gelder), an immortal "god" who was haunting the dreams of humans, all to feed his beloved Rakaya (Clare-Hope Ashitey).

Could one of these creatures, or something like them, be "The One Who Waits"?

It's also possible, of course, that Russell T Davies has invented an entirely new menace. In the episode The Star Beast, The Meep (voiced by Miriam Margolyes) revealed itself to be in the employ of a figure it referred to as "the boss".

David Tennant later admitted that he remains oblivious to the identity of "the boss", which suggested that this reveal would be held back until Ncuti Gatwa's time in the TARDIS.

The Meep's admission and the Toymaker's confession in The Giggle could be the start of something much larger and entirely unexpected...'

LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971) – Episode 196 – Decades Of Horror 1970s

“He had a heart attack.” And you get a heart attack! Everybody gets a heart attack! Is that normal? Join your faithful Grue Crew – Doc Rotten, Bill Mulligan, Chad Hunt, and Jeff Mohr – as they count the heart attacks while they continue their reverse trek through Hammer’s Karnstein Trilogy with Lust for a Vampire (1971).

Decades of Horror 1970s Episode 196 – Lust for a Vampire (1971)

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Decades of Horror 1970s is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of the podcast and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.

In 1830, forty years to the day since the last manifestation of their dreaded vampirism, the Karnstein heirs use the blood of an innocent to bring forth the evil that is the beautiful Mircalla, or as she was in 1710, Carmilla.

  Director: Jimmy Sangster

Writers: Tudor Gates (screenplay); J. Sheridan Le Fanu (based on characters created by)

Selected Cast:

Barbara Jefford as Countess Herritzen

Ralph Bates as Giles Barton

Suzanna Leigh as Janet Playfair

Yutte Stensgaard as Mircalla / Carmilla Karnstein

Michael Johnson as Richard Lestrange

Helen Christie as Miss Simpson

Mike Raven as Count Karnstein (dubbed by  Valentine Dyall)

Christopher Cunningham as Coachman

Harvey Hall as Inspector Heinrich

Michael Brennan as Landlord

Pippa Steel as Susan Pelley

Judy Matheson as Amanda McBride

Caryl Little as Isabel Courtney

David Healy as Raymond Pelley

Jonathan Cecil as Arthur Biggs

Erik Chitty as Professor Herz (as Eric Chitty)

Jack Melford as Bishop

Christopher Neame as Hans

Kirsten Lindholm as Peasant Girl

Luan Peters as Trudi

In the Seventies, Hammer Films struggled to find its way as horror films moved away from gothic horror into modern-day terrors; however, the company famous for Dracula and Frankenstein did earn some success with a trio of films referred to as The Karnstein Trilogy. The Grue Crew settles in to revisit the middle entry, Lust for a Vampire, which follows Vampire Lovers (1970) and leads into Twins of Evil (1971). Unfortunately, the film was plagued with misfortune from the onset: both Peter Cushing and Ingrid Pitt refused to return; the original director, Terence Fisher, suffered injuries when he was hit by a car and was replaced at the last minute by Jimmy Sangster; the director and the writer clashed with producers who insisted on including the pop song “Strange Love.” Even co-star Ralph Bates called the feature, “One of the worst films ever made.” Certainly, there must be some highlights. Certainly…

At the time of this writing, Lust for a Vampire is available to stream from  Shudder, AMC+, Tubi, and Flix Fling. The movie is also available on physical media as a Blu-ray from Shout! Factory.

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1970s is part of the Decades of Horror two-week rotation with The Classic Era and the 1980s. In two weeks, the next episode, chosen by Doc, will be Kingdom of the Spiders (1977). William Shatner and 5,000 spiders! What could go wrong?

We want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: comment on the site or email the Decades of Horror 1970s podcast hosts at [email protected]. 

Check out this episode!

Doctor Who: The Armageddon Factor

I rewatched this, the last of the key to time season, on 29 March 2023. I know I’ve seen it before, but I have no memory of it. Oh, and it seems that some of it — the Drax stuff — I misremembered as being part of Underworld. Brains, hey. Weird things.

We begin with an odd clip of what looks like a commercial. No, it’s a romance set in a time of war. We are on Atrios, which is waging a terrible war against Zeon. There’s a princess, Astra, played by a fiery Lalla Ward, who is kidnapped by a mystery chap in a skull-like mask. It transpires he’s the Shadow, the rather inefficient agent of the Black Guardian employed to do the same job as the Doctor and Romana… I mean, come on, five segments to not quite one. Thinking about it, the Shadow is like a stand-in Master, only rubbish.

There are a lot of ingredients that should make for a fun tale and satisfying conclusion to the quest narrative arc… but for whatever reason, it doesn’t quite hang together.

We say farewell to Mary Tamm as Romana, and hello to Valentine Dyall as the Black Guardian.

Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945) Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond, Everley Gregg, Marjorie Mars, Margaret Barton, Valentine Dyall. Screenplay: Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, Ronald Neame, based on a play by Noël Coward. Cinematography: Robert Krasker. Art direction: Lawrence P. Williams. Film editing: Jack Harris. Music: Percival Mackey, Muir Mathieson. Brief Encounter is set in 1938, which explains why there is no visual evidence of or reference to World War II, which was still going on when it was made. It also helps explain some of the film's jitteriness or reticence about sex. Why, given the facility with which Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) lies about her relationship with Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), don't they just go ahead and have sex? The film is a portrait of prewar middle-class morality, something the war helped break down, especially with the arrival of American troops, proverbially "oversexed and over here," in Britain. When it gained great popularity after the war ended, it was possible to debate whether Brief Encounter was a validation or an indictment of this morality. Is it really healthy for Laura to spend the rest of her life with her pleasantly stuffy husband (Cyril Raymond), dreaming of what might have been? Is it necessary for Alec to uproot his family and emigrate to South Africa just because of sexual frustration? The resolution to their dilemma seems easier to us: We wish Laura and Alec could unbend, the way the working class characters Albert (Stanley Holloway) and Myrtle (Joyce Carey) seem to do. (For all her pretense at refinement, it's easy to see that Myrtle has a healthy off-duty sex life.) But then we get glimpses of the social milieu in which Laura and Alec move: He has to contend with the catty nudge-nudge-wink-wink of Stephen Lynn (Valentine Dyall), the friend whose apartment almost becomes a venue for the consummation of their passion; she is surrounded by friends whose only pleasure in life seems to be to talk. There is a real brilliance in the way which David Lean, greatly aided by Robert Krasker's noir-expressionist black-and-white cinematography, suggests the entrapment of the lovers in a world they are afraid to break out of. Johnson is magnificent, of course, and it was a stroke of genius to cast Howard opposite her. For all his kindness and attentiveness, there is something faintly menacing about him, a hint of danger and possibility that can only attract but also subtly frighten a woman whose life consists of helping her husband with the crossword and spending Thursdays in town returning her library book and shopping for an ugly desk tchotchke for his birthday. Everything in this movie is so well judged and efficiently presented that it only makes me regret that Lean turned from such intimate stories and entered on his epic phase.

Enlightenment Episode 4 Screencaps, Part 15

Michael Caine, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, The Wrong Box (1966) |British Comedy

The Wrong Boz is based on the 1889 novel The Wrong Box by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne,  It is a nonstop comedy, made in London, England.  The story is In the early 19th century, a lawyer explains to a group of young men that a tontine has been organized; £1,000 has been invested for each child which is £20,000 in total, the catch is that only the last survivor will receive all the money along with the earned interest. Sixty-three years later, elderly brothers Masterman and Joseph Finsbury, who live next to each other in Victorian London, are the last surviving members of the tontine. The Cast John Mills as Masterman Finsbury Ralph Richardson as Joseph Finsbury Michael Caine as Michael Finsbury Peter Cook as Morris Finsbury Dudley Moore as John Finsbury Nanette Newman as Julia Finsbury Peter Sellers as Dr. Pratt Tony Hancock as Detective Wilfrid Lawson as Peacock Thorley Walters as Lawyer Patience Cicely Courtneidge as Major Martha Diane Clare as Mercy Gerald Sim as First Undertaker Irene Handl as Mrs. Hackett John Le Mesurier as Dr. Slattery Peter Graves as Military Officer Nicholas Parsons as Alan Frazer Scrope James Villiers as Sydney Whitcombe Sykes Graham Stark as Ian Scott Fife (killed in tontine) Jeremy Lloyd as Brian Allen Harvey Leonard Rossiter as Vyvyan Alistair Montague (killed in tontine) Valentine Dyall as Oliver Pike Harmsworth John Junkin as 1st Engine Driver Timothy Bateson as Official Norman Bird as Spiritual Norman Rossington as First Hooligan Tutte Lemkow as The Bournemouth Strangler You are invited to join the channel so that Mr. P can notify you when new videos are uploaded, https://www.youtube.com/@nrpsmovieclassics

Chris: This is a very good b/w atmospheric horror film about witches with a very sharp performance by Christopher Lee, and wonderful sinisterness from Patricia Jessel and Valentine Dyall, the Black Guardian from Doctor Who, this film really rises above most, essential Christopher Lee viewing, Watch: On Subscription Service.

I Know Where I’m Going | Michael Powell / Emeric Pressburger | 1945

Roger Livesey, Petula Clark, Catherine Lacey, Valentine Dyall, Wendy Hiller, Nancy Price

Teatime

City Of The Dead | Episode 366

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City Of The Dead | Episode 366

Jim discusses a little gem from 1960 considered the first film produced by Amicus – “City Of The Dead” or “Horror Hotel,” starring Christopher Lee, Patricia Jessel, Dennis Lotis, Venetia Stevens, Tom Naylor, Betta St. John, Valentine Dyall and Ann Beach. A college student (Stevens) goes to the site of a 17th century witch burning and discovers a horrific secret. Find out more on this episode of MONSTER ATTACK!, The Podcast Dedicated To Old Monster Movies.