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Continuing from the previous post here are some more photos that Greg sent in from his scrapbooks. This time from BBC's 'Master of Terror', ATV's 'A Date with the Devil', Channel 4's 'Monster Horrors', ATV's 'Creature Features', and ATV's 'Prince of Menace'.
Oh wow this post really brings back memories. I was only allowed to watch the first installment of the bill, and so I really remember Doctor X and The Strange Door, which I would love to see again.
ReplyDeleteI think Voodoo Island was the first 'horror' film I ever saw, and that was part of the BBC2 double bills, plus there was that great Radio Times cover with Night of the Demon, which I think you posted before.
Hi John
ReplyDeleteI forget a some of the horror films I remember watching during these horror double bills or horror seasons. I remember watching I think my first monster film back in 1973 when I was about 6 years old, this was the classic 'Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein'. I rememeber watching 'Voodoo Island' too, this is the one starring Boris Karloff isn't it? I think that the Radio Times cover featuring 'Night of the Demon' has got to be one of the best covers Radio Times has done, much prefer the painted covers on any magazine.
I was born in 1971, the first film I saw that got me interested in horror films was probably Curse Of The Werewolf ( I seem to recall it being shown with Lorre's Beast With 5 Fingers on the BBC, though i may be wrong )...the scenes of the beggar in the dungeon & the passage of time were what stayed with me.
ReplyDeleteI first saw the Universal horrors on channel 4, they would show double bills ( possibly even triple bills ) & often include the trailers beforehand ( unthinkable now ).
I'm in the Granada region...we would have "seasons" of usually Hammer, Amicus, etc. ( with the odd US tv movie like Moon Of The Wolf & Satans School For Girls ). One of the Granada onscreen continuity announcers was a man called Graham James...James was previously an actor in 3 Hammer films & he actually was announcing one time when one of the films he appeared in ( It was either Horror Of Frankenstein or The Vampire Lovers ) was shown! At the end of the film, he remarked "I thought that blonde guy was very good". It was then that I realised that it was in fact him in the film!
Thousands of youngsters in Britain got their first taste of films from watching mostly British horror films at night...now that tv has been homogenised, these films are never shown. Ok, you can buy them on dvd, but it can never replace that thrill of watching a film live, recording it on video ( pausing whilst the ads are on...hoping 2 films will fit on a 3 hr tape...) & hearing the announcer say "next week, Plague Of The Zombies" & looking forward to it all week because you hated school.
Your blog conjures up some of that nostalgia & you are to be commended for it.
Hi Dom
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for writing about your experiances of the horror double bills. Liked your story about Graham James, very funny. Announcers in those days were great. It is such a shame that the pleasure of waiting for a certain film to come on and also knowing that if you missed it, it may not come on again or don't know when it will. Nice to be able to tape all these films, TV series etc, but the joy isn't the same.