The Creeping Flesh

You'll Scream!

Lots of people collect things, don't they? Comics or snuff boxes or postcards or vases or cars or sugar sachets. In fact, if there is a thing, then there is usually someone who collects that thing. But evil skulls? Really?

Peter Cushing plays an evil skull collector in, yes, 'The Skull', a Freddie Francis film from 1965. The creepy cranium in question belonged to the Marquis de Sade and, naturally, has a troubled history, with several unexplained deaths being attached to its unsavoury legend. Within a few days of buying it at a bewitched bones auction, Cushing's ordered life is starting to spiral down the u-bend - he's having nightmares, experiencing hallucinations, standing over his sleeping wife with a big knife in his hand - the sort of things he never ever did before the malevolent noggin came into his world. Incredibly, it seems that the evil skull is bad news. Really bad news.

'The Skull' is pretty good, considering, with some nice out there fantasy sequences and some great skull pov photography. Cushing is always particularly interesting when his cool and calm demeanour breaks down and he starts to unravel, and he falls apart quickly and irrevocably here to great dramatic effect. Freddie Francis' direction is excellent and to the point as you would expect from a genre director of his quality. Even Christopher Lee is quite good (and not in it much) and there's a nice cameo role for 'Island of Terror' favourite, Michael Gough. I miss that guy. 

Right, I'm off to add 'evil skull' to my saved e-bay searches.   

The Skull

Sand Trap

I've seen public information film 'Broken Glass' hundreds of times in the last 38 years - last year alone, for instance, I spent hours watching it over and over as I prepared this very special U-W 'remix' of it, and I can confirm that, however familiar it seems, the last second always makes you feel sick.

Your Lips Are Void Of History

A young David Bowie knocks out 'Let Me Sleep Beside You'.    

All Our Old Friends Have All Got So Old

Peter Wyngarde and Derren Nesbitt as they appeared in the 2007 documentary 'Don't Knock Yourself Out', made to commemorate the 40th anniversary of 'The Prisoner'.

It's Your Phonecall

Derren Nesbitt gives an acting masterclass on Convincing Phone Technique.

The Prisoner: It's Your Funeral

‘It’s Your Funeral’ was the eleventh episode of ‘The Prisoner’, originally broadcast on the 8th of December, 1967.

It’s probably the most densely plotted of all ‘Prisoner’ episodes, although its complexity seems contrived rather than clever. Number Six uncovers a plot to assassinate the outgoing Number Two (Andre Van Gylenhall). Concerned that this will lead to reprisals, Six decides to intervene and, in an unlikely volte face, reports the plotters to the new Number Two (our mate Derren Nesbitt, resplendent with a peroxide bouffant and massive glasses) – the new Number Two, however, says he doesn’t believe him – although, in actual fact, he simply isn’t interested in the warning – he already knows all about the plot and is doing all he can to make sure it comes to fruition…

The estimable Mr. Nesbitt has said that he had no idea what was going on, received no instruction whatsoever, and so played the role in a state of perpetual confusion, and that this feeling was beginning to spread across the production. To make matters worse, Patrick McGoohan was apparently feeling the pressure by this point, and dealing with it by being extremely difficult and aggressive on set, most notably frenziedly throttling Alan Bradley out of ‘Coronation Street’ during an unnecessarily heated fight scene.

‘It’s Your Funeral’ is packed with incident, but it gives the impression of being slightly rushed and cobbled together. McGoohan had apparently only wanted to make seven episodes, but was talked into making more despite his concern that it would spread the material too thinly (interestingly, the seventh episode broadcast was ‘Many Happy Returns’, which would have provided a brilliantly enigmatic and ironic end to the show). I’m grateful for ALL the episodes, but some are more focused than others, and several are deeply flawed. That said, ‘The Prisoner’ is the greatest television series of all time, so it’s all relative, isn’t it?

Derren Nesbitt, Actor

Derren Nesbitt as the new Number Two in 'It's Your Funeral', the eleventh episode of 'The Prisoner'.

Faces Of The Sweeney

June Brown.

Burn, Witch, Burn

I'm generally of the opinion that if Peter Wyngarde is in something, then it surely must be, ipso flipping facto, great. Sometimes, as with 'Night Of The Eagle' ('Burn, Witch, Burn' in the US), that theory does actually stand up to closer scrutiny.

Peter plays Norman Taylor, a successful psychology professor and star of a prestigious college somewhere leafy and posh. Taylor’s specialist subject is what a lot of rubbish the supernatural is, so imagine his distaste when he finds out that his wife, Tansy, is a witch. Disgusted, he forces her to burn all of her magical charms and talismans, never stopping to wonder why they’re emitting sparks and puffs of glittery smoke. When a picture of Norman accidentally falls into the flames, it sets off a chain of inexplicable events, ranging from a near fatal car crash to an accusation of rape, and putting them both in mortal danger. In order to save his wife (and himself), Norman will not only have to recognise the power of the occult world, but to participate in its magic and ritual…

‘Night Of The Eagle’ is a cracking film: full of atmosphere, economical and believable, and with several sequences that rank with the best British horror has to offer.  The script, by genius American writers Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson is excellent, and the idea that that bastion of respectability, an exclusive college, should actually be a hotbed of sorcery aided social climbing is quite brilliant. All the wives are at it, burning effigies and pinning charms to their hapless husbands, hoping that burning some hair and nail will scupper their rival’s chances of promotion, and propel their spouses to the top.    

As for Peter Wyngarde -  he’s great – cocksure and arrogant at first, then increasingly panicked and desperate. It’s such a shame that he only ever made six (!) films (and one of those was ‘Flash Gordon’, where he had his face covered the whole time), as he could have done so much more: Dracula, Caligula, James Bond – the mind boggles at the possibilities.

Night Of The Eagle

Behind You!

As you might have guessed, I watch a massive amount of classic horror films. They entertain me, they fascinate me, they sustain me...but they very rarely scare me. 'The Innocents', however, terrifies me.

Everything about the film is oppressive and doom laden: the beautiful photography, the superb sound, great performances, fantastic sets, brilliant script, all perfectly assembled to be ever so slightly odd, ominous and imperfect to keep you off-balance throughout, quietly dreading what comes next. I've always found ghosts scarier than monsters, kids scarier than adults, Peter Wyngarde scarier than almost anybody, so 'The Innocents' ticks virtually every box on the creepy checklist for me.

In short, it's a masterpiece and,  rather than dissect what happens or blather on and give it all away, I urge the uninitiated to see it as soon as you possibly can - but for Christ's sake don't watch it alone, or in a darkened room where faces can suddenly appear at the window from outside. Really. We screamed like little girls.

The Innocents