Middle English - 'Ghosts' documentary 1980

Interesting documentary presented by Aidan Chambers whom wrote the book 'Haunted Houses' Piccolo books 1971 and 'More Haunted Houses' Piccolo 1973, the documentary was from the Schools programme 'Middle English' in 1980. Look for the brief clips inside The Palladium Cellars.

Hammer star Katya Wyeth - Top of the Pops album covers

I didn't realise that this was former German model and actress the lovely Katya Wyeth until I came across her name on a website dedicated to the 'Top of the Pops' LPs. Well I thought I would feature these 2 covers as a follow up to the post I did not so long ago on 'Non-genre records with a genre connection'.
Katya featured in a number of horror films which include 'Hands of the Ripper' (1971) [1st pub Whore], 'Twins of evil' (1971) [Countess Mircalla], 'A Clockwork Orange' (1971) [Girl in Ascot Fantasy], 'Burke and Hare' (1972) [Natalie], 'Straight on till morning' (1972) [Caroline] and 'Dead of Night' [TV series] (1972) ep.'Death cancels all debts' [Vanessa].

Volume 23

Volume 45

Katya as Countess Mircalla from 'Twins of Evil'

Publicity still from 'Twins of Evil', Katya here with Mary and Madeline Collinson

'Hands of the Ripper'

Smiths Horror Bags - 'Spooky Tales' No.1 - 'The Creation' Leaflet/flyer

I spotted this on Ebay a few weeks ago, didn't have the money to bid for it though. It is nice to see though because ever since I featured no.2 of 'Spooky Tales' I've been curious to what the first one would be like. The back of this leaflet is the same as featured on the 2nd one [A Horror Bags T-shirt offer] . Now I wonder if there were a 3rd one too.

Non-Genre LP records with a genre connection

Here we have a selection of records that are non-horror themed but do have a connection with horror films because of the actors featured on them. The only one featuring a still from a horror film is the Telly Savalas LP. I will feature some more that will have a monster on the cover but don't really have nothing to do with monsters.

'Kojak' star Telly Savalas was also quite the singer releasing a number of records, this particular one features a still from 'Horror Express' (1972). His other genre film was 'Lisa and the Devil' (1973)

Former radio DJ Mike Raven turned to acting mainly because he wanted to be the next big horror star starring in such films as 'Lust for a Vampire' (1971), 'I Monster' (1971), 'Crucible of terror' (1971) and 'Disciple of death' (1972). He had quite a striking resemblance to Christopher Lee and here on this record he looks quite the part.  

Back of sleeve, here with his Wife

I am not 100% sure on this but I am pretty sure this is the lovely Valli Kemp whom starred in 'Dr.Phibes rides again' (1972) starring as Vulnavia alongside Vincent Price

Here we have the lovely Caroline Munroe on the LP 'Hot Hits 11', Caroline also featured on the cover of a French or German copy of a 'Top of the Pops' LP. Genre films starring Caroline Munroe includes 'The Abominable Dr.Phibes' (1971), 'Dracula a.d.72' (1972), 'Dr.Phibes rises again' (1972), 'Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter' (1974), 'Maniac' (1980), 'The Last horror show' (1982) etc

Reverse of sleeve

'HALLOWEEN GANG BADGES' - Esco - Grimley Hall Creations

I have had the Frankenstein badge from this line for many years and I had always wondered what other characters there were too. Well a year or 2 ago I came across this shop display with most of the badges on it at a carboot sale, the seller was asking 10 pence for each badge so I asked them what he wanted for all of them as well as the display piece, got them all for £1.
So it seems that apart from the Frankenstein Monster there were only 2 others: Dracula and a Demon/Devil. Seems like there were 8 of each character. The badges glow in the dark and were made by 'Esco' under the banner of 'Grimley Hall Creations'. A number of other novelty Halloween items were made in the Grimley Hall Creations line.  

'Monster Rings'

Thanks to BrianF for sending me this photo of one of his monster rings he found in his attic.

BrianF's Brother also found his original Monster rings

These plastic monster rings were around for quite some time certainly during the 1970s, possibly during the 1960s too. The box of rings you see here are from the 70s judging by the price. Made by Leaf here in the UK and another company in America. I've seen various different designs of the box art on the Internet and a number of colours of the rings including silver. There were 6 different designs of the rings, from what I can make out these were as follows: Skull, A tiger beast thing?, A Bat, An Alien type creature?, A Monster of some sort, and bizarrely a Ladies hand with painted finger nails.
I remember buying some of the rings during the 70s or maybe even into the 80s. I still have 3 of the Skull rings which you can see being worn beautifully by the rubber severed hand. I did used to have a Bat as well [Green I think it was], don't know what happened to that, must of flew off. I am also wondering if you could get the rings in those slot machines like with the bubble gum machines.
They maybe cheap but I like the charm of them, quite nice designs as well.  

Mystery Vampire bat toy

I have had this for a long time, no idea where I bought it from and it certainly wasn't new at the time. Its certainly something that I haven't seen again anywhere else, can't even find anything on the Internet about it either. The face of the bat is made of plastic and the wings are a vinyl material. You probably noticed the tufts of black hair/fur around the edges too, I think it would of had more than this originally.  The back of the bat has a battery compartment and switch on the side which makes the bats eyes light up red. The only markings on the back are Creata 1986 Made in Hong Kong.   So its a bit of a mystery what the toy is called and whether it was part of a particular toy line. If anyone knows anymore about it please share here. Thank you. 

How my horror/monster passion began

Hello everyone

As many regular visitors to the Cobwebbed Room may of noticed the total lack of posts, its been nearly a year now since I posted anything. Well I don't have any excuses apart from nearly every week I kept telling myself I must start putting something on the site but of course I never did, I think one of the reasons I didn't bother was because I was using Internet Explorer and every time I attempted a post it kept acting weird and not letting me upload pictures or if they did upload it would place them in a random place which made the page look terrible. So now I am using Google chrome which seems a lot better. I am so sorry if you have been returning to the Cobwebbed Room every so often and not seeing anything new for so long. I am hoping to get in to the swing of things again. I have a few ideas of things I want to post about but if you yourself can think of something you would like to see on here then please do let me know or maybe you would like to contribute an article or something.
Thank you.


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I thought I would tell you how my horror/monster fascination began. I remember it well, I was 5 years old in 1973 and in March [I managed to find the actual date and time from the issue of the TV times of that week] there was a showing on ITV of the Universal monster classic 'Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein', I was engrossed, sat there on the floor in front of the telly, I don't remember the whole film from that time but just certain scenes. This is also the first film I do remember watching as well.
Another thing I remember was my Dad and his best mate doing  impressions of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster and Bela Lugosi as Igor, I was quite amused by their antics but I had no idea who these movie characters were, maybe they told me at the time but I don't remember. One time when me and my brother went to London with our Mum to see our Nan, stayed there for about a week. Dad didn't bother coming with us. Anyway when we got back home my Dad had painted a large mural on the living room wall of a spooky scene complete with a castle, trees, and Dracula all painted in black and white. Well I thought it was amazing, Mum wasn't too pleased though. Dad also had 3 Aurora monster kits that he kept on the window sill of Dracula, Forgotten prisoner of Castel Mare and The Witch. He had these until the early 1980's, 2 of them must of got damaged and thrown out, only the Dracula kit survived. He gave me this one eventually. My Dad I guess must of been a monster film fan at the time, he didn't carry it on as such like the collecting side of things but he still enjoyed the monster films.
What memories do you have of your first interest in horror and monster films etc?  

My Dad's original Aurora Dracula kit, few pieces missing and little paint work

   

'Ghost Stories' Trailer 2018

Well I didn't realise that the film version of the successful stage play by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson was going to made until I saw this trailer posted on another site. I really like the look of this and it'll be Interesting to see how the play adapts to film. I should imagine they have a few things up their sleeves to make it work and make you shiver and Shake. Looking forward to its release.