3 Tales of Horror by Jo M. Thomas, Michael S. Collins (that's me!) and Jon Arnold.
Read about the future diary and predestination! A cursed boat, an evil
ghost and a dwindling list of survivors on a pleasure cruise gone
horribly wrong! What happens when you put a lot of Brexiteers on a big
boat and meet ghosts of the past? Each story pays tribute to a beast of
the genre: Jo is inspired by Alan Garner, yours truly is basically a
homage to John Carpenter, and Jon basically goes all Dario Argento on
folk.
Armored brigades engaging their lines
Regain control of black gold
Your reign of terror will come to an end
Forcing you out of control
Thank you, Saboton.
So the Doctor was in a plot induced huff and wanted to abandon Ian and
Barbara. But first we see cloaked figures walk through a forest. Written
by Dennis Spooner is a promising early announcement. Funny seeing the
TARDIS land without the grunting groaning sound we all know and love.
So we start with a guy trying to drive his wife and daughter away from
some volcano in the Carribbean/latin America as pyroclastic flow rushes
through their village. And just as I was about to write down how
unrealistic that is, the car explodes, because you can't outrun
pyroclastic flow. I guess that's them dead.
Meanwhile, a guy who looks like Alberto Del Rio (man, did this reference from a week ago date badly!) is having a boring
meeting in town. And some American tourists are investigating Pompeii
when Vesuvius explodes again. Is this the same explosion? The narratives
a bit weird here. Also its a Bulgarian Italian film, the audio for it
on Horror Channel is ¤¤¤¤ed, and there's no subtitles so I haven't a
clue who is who.
So, back in the early 1990s, writer RL Stine had finally carved out a
niche for himself. He had spent 20 years writing anything and everything
under the sun - joke books, colouring books, self help books,
interviews, articles, liner sheets, TV scripts, comics - that would pay
the bills as he tried to make his way as a writer. He wanted to be
Jovial Bob, a MAD magazine style writer, but he struggled to get that
successful paying job until he was in his 40s and an editor friend of
his wife noted his love of horror and asked the infamous question: "Why
not write a horror book?" Twisted was the result, for Scholastic's new
young adult range and it quickly became a best seller in its
demographic. So he got asked to write another, and another, and soon
even his own series of books, Fear Street.
We open with found footage of a night time teen beach party, where is
playing loud music, drinking and falling out with each other, usual
stuff. This juxtaposes with the early morning beach, which is quiet and
empty bar 8 teens who wake up, 4 in a car, 2 in the lifeguard hut, one
on a table, one in a barrel. No one else is left. Then someone stands on
the sand and dies horribly, and it becomes clear they are the survivors
of some horrific attack which is still going on, and that anyone who
steps foot on the sand is dead.
So the crew don't now where the TARDIS has landed and all the signals
are wonky, so they open the doors, but first a quick reminder of all the
adventures you missed:
IAN: There's one thing about it, Doctor. We're certainly different from when we started out with you.
SUSAN: That's funny. Grandfather and I were talking about that just before you came in. How you've both changed.
BARBARA: Well we've all changed.
SUSAN: Have I?
BARBARA: Yes.
DOCTOR: Yes, it all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard, and
now it's turned out to be quite a, quite a great spirit of adventure,
don't you think?
IAN: Yes. We've had some pretty rough times and even that doesn't stop
us. It's a wonderful thing, this ship of yours, Doctor. Taken us back to
prehistoric times, the Daleks.
SUSAN: Marco Polo, Marinus.
BARBARA: And the Aztecs.
DOCTOR: Yes, and that extraordinary quarrel I had with that English
king, Henry the Eighth. You know, he threw a parson's nose at me.
BARBARA: What did you do?
DOCTOR: Threw it back, of course. Take them to the Tower, he said. That's why I did it.
BARBARA: Why?
SUSAN: The Tardis was inside the Tower.
I'd have preferred that last one - unseen - over some episodes of Keys
of Marinus tbh. The Doctor and crew are no longer adversaries, they are
now firmly friends, joking about historical murderous tyrants.
John Hurt is one of my favourite actors. He's just brilliant in
everything, isn't it? There's rarely a scene in which he wont steal it
by being John Hurt.
And yet, The Shout is that rarest of beasts, where Hurt is second fiddle
to another acting talent. For, from the moment he is introduced scoring
a cricket match, the eyes are drawn irretrievably towards the magnetic
danger of Alan Bates. As Crossley, Bates is eyes, silence and whispered
lines, but so in control of the character and screen he manages to blow
away everything around him.
When you are younger, you take things for granted.
Like the concept of there being a new Jurassic Park every four years. Of
course, this one had disappointing returns and put the series on hiatus
until 2015. There was hints of this dispiriting 21st Century in the
cinema, as I saw my dad’s face fall further with every scientific
inaccuracy.
In Jurassic Park, the Dilophosaurs are entirely reinvented for the sake
of a jump scare, but it works within the context of the film. Also the
series Raptors are actually Deinonychus, but no kid ever complained
about that because Deinonychus are ¤¤¤¤ing awesome. The Lost World
decided to eject the paleontology lessons for more action. Here all the
rules of dinosaurs are thrown out the window to tell a super-monster
story. Does it make for a thrilling film? Sort of. But its also a more
hollow experience.
So studio execs and Steven Spielberg really liked Jurassic Park.
Specifically, they liked the money it gave them. So they got Michael
Crichton to write a swift sequel, and then signed the rights to make the
film version, in which they jettisoned every single thing in that
Crichton book. And to be fair, good decision, that book is Exhibit A in
Writer Doesn’t Give A ¤¤¤¤ About Book He Was Contracted To Write.
Instead, they nab a few good scenes from the first book they didn’t use
in the first film, nick from stuff like The Wizard of Oz and Alien, nab
the finish of King Kong, and add in far more dinosaurs. This may sound
cynical, but it worked, and it sort of works, and is the lesson Jurassic
Park III didn’t learn in the slightest.
I really like James poking fun at all the common stereotype ghost tales
around in the opening, but I feel like at some point, there's James,
sitting at his desk, writers block hitting, Christmas round the corner,
comes up with an idea but DAMN IT, he already used it at the start of
School Story!
"‘I dare say it was. Then there was the man who heard a noise in the
passage at night, opened his door, and saw someone crawling towards him
on all fours with his eye hanging out on his cheek. There was besides,
let me think—Yes! the room where a man was found dead in bed with a
horseshoe mark on his forehead, and the floor under the bed was covered
with marks of horseshoes also; I don’t know why. Also there was the lady
who, on locking her bedroom door in a strange house, heard a thin voice
among the bed-curtains say, ‘Now we’re shut in for the night.’ None of
those had any explanation or sequel. I wonder if they go on still, those
stories.’ "
In the 1970s, Gregory Peck, David Warner and Patrick Troughton tried to
stop the anti-Christ being unleashed on the world, but failed. Mostly
thanks to the terrifying Billie Whitelaw.
In 2014, Vinnie Jones tries to stop his daughter's boyfriend being unleashed on the world.
The portmanteau horror film produced some classics of the genre. Dead of
Night. Asylum with good old Geoffrey Bayldon. The one with Tom Baker
and the voodoo. Classics. One way or another.
So it was nice to see that tradition brought back to life here.
I never liked high rises. I'm sure some of them are grand places to live
in, but the vast majority around here were damp ridden slums to chuck
poor people in and forget about them. Judging by the complete lack of
amenities around Wyndham Tower, it's much the same for our characters
here. (Wyndham Tower, incidentally, is a great in-joke just thrown in
there for those who get it...)
“A painting is always moral enough when it is tragic and it gives the horror of the things it traces.”
Barbey D’Aurevilly
From the opening music by Van Parys, you know you are in for something
different here. Especially when the film is largely empty of music,
allowing the sound effects to dig in. And yet, the film starts so
familiarly. A school overrun with children, a school master who could
easily be a Robert Donat type. The staff are on break, but with the
juxtaposition of children happily playing and snatches of dialogues
between staff, we quickly get the picture of dysfunctional relationships
and marriages among the teachers. Headmaster Delassalle is a complete
arse, not only as a tyrannical teacher, but with the fact that he
carries out an affair with the local blonde schoolteacher in front of
his ailing wife and expects everyone to be happy. Even the children
gossip about it! And so two women, thrown together, talk about divorce
and love and other means to find happiness.
And suddenly, a death mask! And the words "Written by John Lucarotti"
which suggest high promise. The TARDIS has landed in a tomb which
Barbara immediately recognises as an Aztec priest. They've landed in the
time period of Barbara's favourite school subject! Although if the chap
was buried in 1430 it's a bit late in the day to be "early Aztec".
So, yeah, imagine being six years old in 1992. Dinosaurs Magazine is out
in the shops weekly, and you read about the Drinker-Cope and the Bone
Wars. You've seen King Kong and the stopmotion dinosaurs of that and
much underrated Valley of Gwanji. You have dinosaur toys and Dinotopia
and much like the rest of your class and every child that age you are
mad about dinosaurs.
It's time to party like it's 1999. No Prince this year round, however, as we jump forward in time to the end of the 20th Century, which was meant to be the End of History. It was an odd year in the charts which seemed to look back as much as forward, but presented the future of music and the past in the charts.
Near Omissions List: Turn (Travis), Dear Mama (Tupac), Rock is Dead (Marilyn
Manson), Strong enough (Cher), Right Here Right Now (Fatboy Slim),
Electric Barbarella (Duran Duran), U Don’t Know Me (Armand van
Helden), Baby its Cold Outside (Tom Jones/Cerys Matthews), Erase/Rewind
(Cardigans), Turn Around (Phats and Small), That Dont Impress Me Much
(Shania Twain)
If we can take the art over artist bit as read after last time, a brief reminder. This is, in my opinion, the 40 best songs to appear on the UK Top 40 between January 1st and December 31st 1999. The 90s were harder to piece together lists on that criteria and 2007 onwards looks even harder, but it is what it is.
Doctor Who
Marco Polo episode 1
The Roof of the World
Ok, who lost the episodes down the back of a sofa? Own up. So this is
being done by Loose Cannon reconstruction. We are lucky to have the
audios, and in many cases the telesnaps and even censor clips from many
of the missing stories, but then there's pauses in the audio, where you
just know one of the regulars has done something amazing and non-verbal
which is lost forever.
First odd thing - this reconstruction is in COLOUR. I forgot that. I
remember borrowing Aidan Brack's copy of this on VHS at uni about 16
years ago.
The fourth dimension, it is explodin',
Violence flarin', cavemen loadin',
You're old enough to time travel but not for votin',
You don't believe in war, but whose that Thal you're smotin',
And even the Skaro river has bodies floatin',
But you tell me over and over and over again my Doc
Ah, you don't believe we're on the Edge of Destruction.
The TARDIS goes boom and everyone hits the floor. But they get up again,
you're never going to keep them down. Good work on Ian to collapse into
a nearby chair.
"Ian Chesterton?" says Barbara as thought she's not read the script.
Susan looks drunk. Everyone is acting oddly. And I don't mean "are they
possessed?" I mean "do they realise the cameras are filming?" The Doctor
is lying down so long you might think he'd pissed off and left a body
double.
Even William Russell looks confused.
I'm confused.
Everyone has amnesia and is pausing between words so often even Harold Pinter would have said "too long".
Perhaps he did it, says Ian of the Doctor about the doors opening. You
know those pisstakes of Russian theatre, with people saying ominous
things slowly, and then a pause before anyone says anything else. This
is Doctor Who as done by a sketch by Paul Whitehouse.
Some bad acting from Ford, comically punctured by Ian going "She's FAINTED!"
William Hartnell still can't be arsed getting involved in the episode. Wisest person going here.
Randomly Susan has a scissors and threatens Ian. Instead she stabs a
recliner bed to death, presumably for it nearly lifting her skirt up
before William Russell intervened.
You know that Assignment 1 with Sapphire and Steel. Childs nursery
rhymes, Val Pringle, stopped clocks, etc? That still made more sense
than this.
Although in the background they start playing Eric Siday's Anesthesia,
which gets me excited because you'll recognise it as background music
from The Moonbase! Siday was a pioneer in electronic music - he commissioned the first Moog synthesizer - and until his early death in
the 1970s his work appeared time and again in 60s Doctor Who. It feels
futuristic, and would lead one day to Visage.
Meanwhile it now time for Susan to threaten Barbara with the scissors.
This really is an experiment in wasting time. The sound quality in the
Pilot episode (actually the pilot) (Goes Wrong Show gag for you all) was
better than here.
So the Doctor does what seems obvious. He poisons everyone, only for
someone off screen to strangle him. What an odd cliffhanger to a frankly
odd episode.
Oh I should mention Barbara has a right proper go at the Doctor for being an untrusting sod.
And the Doctors phrase "Rash action is worse than no action". Wise.
Doctor Who
Edge of Destruction part 2
The Brink of Disaster
"on the brink of disaster..." Ah it doesn't work as well.
It turns out it was Ian strangling the Doctor. But he stops now the
cliffhanger is over. Did I mention the Doctor sneaking in with laced
nightcaps on a tray was very funny? Even William Russell can't do the
falling in a nightdress to the floor bit. Judging from the angle of the
shot, Susan can walk through walls, but never uses this for practical
effect. The bloodied bit on the Doctors head bandage has swapped sides
of his head.
For the first time all series, William Russell just can't be arsed here.
Not sure I can blame him. Apparently the DVD Commentary explains all
the bits of the script they couldn't be bothered translating to the
screen.
As Susan starts to complain to the Doctor, I can't help but shake the
feeling this is made up as we go along, with a distinct need to kill 50
minutes of time.
Ian starts giving Barbara a vigorous back massage, which is prelude to
her holding him in his arms. William Russell. But then the Doctor ruins
this happy moment for the couple by deciding they are innocent of
damaging the ship, without anything happening in between to change his
mind.
"We're on the brink of discussion!" says the Doctor, which is
surprisingly accurate. So something has gone wrong with the TARDIS, and
to let the crew know its made them go insane. I'm not sure that's the
most sensible safety warning. Like a house warning you of a fire by
spraying petrol.
Anyhow, the Doctor casually announces the crew have ten minutes to
survive. Then he slowly walks around the TARDIS set as though that its
not that big a deal.
Barbara decides the food machine and the clock were actually giving out
clues to what was going on. Later on, when Barbara left the TARDIS, she
found fame as the only winner of the 3-2-1 grand prize in history.
The concept of something possessing the TARDIS - mentioned in a throwaway line - is far more interesting.
So this exists because Who was originally given a 13 episode run, and
they had 2 episodes spare. Imagine the Daleks never took off, this would
be the weirdest run of 13 SF episodes ever.
DOCTOR: I know. I know. I said it would take the force of a total solar
system to attract the power away from my ship. We're at the very
beginning, the new start of a solar system. Outside, the atoms are
rushing towards each other. Fusing, coagulating, until minute little
collections of matter are created. And so the process goes on, and on
until dust is formed. Dust then becomes solid entity. A new birth, of a
sun and its planets.
The Doctor giggling and talking about the birth of suns in a darkened
TARDIS room makes as much sense as anything else, but is also a fun
Doctor moment. Anyhow, this cheers up the Doctor who gives Susan a big
hug, and then stutters an apology to Barbara. Its very odd that this of
all things turns the Doctor into "lets be friends".
Barbara is still in a huff. Doctor has a Doctor moment with her but she seems unconvinced.
Meanwhile, Susan is playing in the snow.
Edge of Destruction is an oddity. It tries to be different, and it is,
but between the regulars not being on form, and the weird structure of
the tales, it feels more like a series of disconnected weird imagery,
than a story in its own right.
The Doctors already in an inquisitive mood, wanting to find out why the
forest they land in is petrified. Ian has the feeling something is wrong
with this new location. Barbara shows early prejudice against friendly
reptile creatures (beware Vicki!). The reveal the creature was a robot
makes Barbara sad this isn't Earth, because Earth getting nuked to death
would be so much better.
"There's nothing here to rely on" says Barbara, crushing poor old Ian.
"The planet is totally dead" says The Doctor, 10 seconds before seeing a
big alien city. That city is bloody huge though, to scale. You can just
picture poor old Dalek Kindergarten Teachers: "Tommy, DO NOT
EXTERMINATE THE TOYS!"
Was recently asked how I'd rebook the infamously bad Vince McMahon win in the 1999 Rumble. Here's my attempt saved...
Well the pre-rumble stuff I'd keep mostly the same but...change it
about. Road Dogg/Bossman isn't needed, X-Pac/Gangrel was a decent sprint
so add a bit more time, tame down the I Quit for the sake of Mick
Foley's health.
Rumble. Take out Vince for starters. Keep the
bounty on elimination Austin. Keep DX and The Corporation in the match,
and add in The Ministry, so the story is the target on Austin and him
having to dodge 3 big stables fighting each other. He can dodge in and
out and use his wiles to have folk turn on each other instead.
Doctor Who - The Pilot Episode (1963) I know there are
several different versions circulating, I believe this is the one
from 1991. There's a degree of uncanny valley here, seeing something
you know well but slightly off kilter. I'd never seen this version of
An Unearthly Child part 1 before. Many of the scenes are familiar but
the sound quality is off, people mumble their lines and there's the
lingering feeling of a dress rehearsal to it. Carole Ann Ford in
particular speaks all of her lines too fast. But in the midst of all
this in Act One, there is William Russell breezing through every
scene, treating them as though he's live on stage doing Shakespeare.
Susan and Barbara are one degree to the left off what we know and
love, but Ian is pretty much Ian from the start.
Hello, so this is a piece I wrote 7 years ago about the World Cup. I still happen to think it was one of the bests I've written, but the copy online was...badly formatted, so here it is, in full, in a hopefully readable style. I was planning to write a sequel, How the World Changed the World Cup, and I still do, but parenthood has as yet delayed it...
How the World Cup Changed the World Michael S. Collins
