The Blood Beast Terror

Interesting Postcards

Sunset On The River Thames
Published by John Hinde Ltd.
6 Rupert Street, London W.1
Photo: E. Ludwig

Psychedelic night falls in the most wonderful and annoying city on Earth, that London.

Portrait Of A People

003: A Cockney eats pie and mash. 

F*** Me, It's Freddie!

FMIF as Peter in 'Cheers!', an episode of 'The Galton & Simpson Playhouse' from 1977.

In the absence of significant others, middle aged bachelors and house mates Peter and Charles share a fairly unspectacular but steady life with each other - until Peter announces he's geting married on Saturday. Clever, amusing rather than funny, it's hard to see how this would have ever have got a series but, as a one off, and with Freddie and Charles Gray, it's a very worthy way to spend half an hour.

I Like Icke

The least interesting explanation of David Icke’s behaviour over the last twenty years is that he is insane, although that in itself throws up lots of questions, especially around the way society treats the mentally ill. Now I don't think David Icke is insane, but then I don't really know what David Icke is, conman, prophet, cosmic messenger or heir presumptive to the Godhead. I don't believe any of what he says, but I can't be sure that it isn't true.

David's personal history is fascinating, and if it looks familiar it's because it mirrors what generally happens to saints and messiahs: a normal life thrown into chaos by an impending sense of destiny; a sudden, sometimes violent conversion; martyrdom; redemption. Lest we get too carried away, psychiatric wards are full of saints and messiahs, too, of course.

A NORMAL LIFE

David was born in 1952. From an early age, he wanted to be a professional footballer. Like Albert Camus and Pope John Paul II, he played in goal and, like them, enjoyed the solitude and time for reflection that the position offered: the sense of being in a team, but also apart. He played for Hereford and Coventry before retiring at the shockingly young age of 21 with chronic arthritis. It was this crippling condition that would perhaps have more bearing on his unusual destiny than any other factor.

With his footballing career behind him, David then decided that he would like to work for the BBC, so he became a sports reporter on a Leicester newspaper before breaking into regional radio and TV, achieving his goal in 1983 as one of the 'Breakfast Time' team alongside Selina Scott and cross dressing flagellant and drug user Frank Bough. At the same time, struggling with his arthritis, he began looking into alternative therapies and this, ultimately, led him to new age theories and The Green Party, for whom he became a spokesman in 1988 (the Green Party did not have a leader on principle, but Icke was by far the most charismatic and popular of its four elected speakers, a de facto leader).

David, pictured just before things got weird

AN IMPENDING SENSE OF DESTINY

In 1989, things started to get weird. David began to feel the pull of destiny, an unexplained, unseen influence, a presence that disconcerted him and left him anticipating something that never seemed to materialise. Whilst in a newsagents he felt a sudden magnetic force, a strange, compelling energy that directed him to a book by a psychic medium called Betty Shine. David decided to contact Betty and see if she could help him with his arthritis.

In 1990, David left the BBC, having resigned after refusing to pay his poll tax, a political stance the ‘impartial’ corporation couldn’t allow. Privately, I’m sure they felt relieved, as David was clearly going through some sort of mid-life crisis. That same year, Betty Shine had some unexpected news for David: he had been chosen to heal the Earth.

I'll repeat that: HE HAD BEEN CHOSEN TO HEAL THE EARTH.

The deal was this: David would be the receptacle for information from the spirit world. He would not understand it all, but he would pass on the messages through books and personal appearances. He would be ridiculed and scorned but, ultimately, he would be proved right.

A SUDDEN, SOMETIMES VIOLENT CONVERSION

Shortly afterwards, David felt a strong urge to visit Peru and, at a pre-Incan burial site, he went through his most profound experience to date, feeling as if he had been plugged directly into some spiritual socket, his body and mind energised with an unearthly power, as if he were an empty vessel to be filled with new and astonishing ideas.

On his return to the UK, David resigned from the Green Party and, dressed in a turquoise (a ‘healing colour’) track suit, called a press conference to tell everybody what had happened to him, that a series of global catastrophes were imminent, and that the world would end in 1997. He has said that, even as he made the announcement, part of him was thinking ‘David, this is nonsense’*.

MARTYRDOM 

The national press seemed to think that David was in the middle of a massive nervous breakdown so, sensitively, played the story for laughs. The BBC, perhaps wishing to get even with their difficult ex-employee, invited him on to their flagship ‘Wogan’ show to talk about his new direction, where he was met by Terry at his least twinkly and a derisive, mocking audience. Somewhere along the line, he mentioned he was the ‘son of God’, although, he says, he meant that he was simply a part of the ‘infinite consciousness’ rather than claiming to be the second coming.  Whatever he meant, however, the appearance made David a laughing stock, a national joke. It nearly destroyed him and, presumably, destroyed Wogan’s chances of getting the Dalai Lama or The Pope on the show.  

Turquoise lamb to the slaughter

Terry stifles a titter

'But they're not laughing with you, they're laughing at you'

REDEMPTION

But David prevailed. He didn’t try and make the national news any more, instead concentrating on writing books and engaging with an ever growing audience who were at least receptive to his ideas, even, in some cases, thinking of him as a Prophet. His early Biblical-style predictions of floods and earthquakes became more sophisticated over the years, including predicting attacks on major US cities between 2001 and 2002, as well as a Middle Eastern conflict that would lead to World War 3 (his ‘hit rate’ is certainly better than the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have predicted the end of the world ten times since 1914, and they didn't even mention Jimmy Savile, who David outed as a predatory paedophile the day Savile died) Over time, his audience grew, and his reputation, irreparably damaged within ‘normal’ society, grew stronger and stronger in alternative circles (his website currently receives over 350,000 hits a day).

David’s main focus over the last twenty years has been to make sense of the messages he apparently receives from the ether, weaving together a compelling, hugely complex web of conspiracy theory that appeals to almost everyone who thinks that the world is a shadowy place with something to hide.  He has drawn together a worldview that is also a saga, a continuous narrative - part 'Revelations', part 'Dune', part H.P Lovecraft - which can be continually updated to incorporate current events and personalities.

At the heart of it is the idea that the world is controlled by an elite few, and that everyone else is unknowingly manipulated into slavishly following their orders. It’s the standard Illuminati / Bilderberg / New World Order idea, but with a uniquely Icke-ian twist : the secret leaders of the world are alien lizards. Oh, and paedophiles. So, yes, alien paedophile lizards, who use blood sacrifice and genocide to create the negative energy that they feed on.

Now that sounds ridiculous, but, again, can you prove it isn’t so? Don’t all religions start with a seemingly fantastic truth which, in many cases, may even be a lie? And it’s not just religion that can be hard to take. Some people still refuse to believe the Earth isn’t 6,000 years old despite all the evidence; some people simply can’t believe in evolution, or that Princess Diana is dead, or that Jamie Cullum isn’t a jazz artist - it doesn’t mean that they are all stupid, or mad, or hucksters, or con men, or liars - just that, perhaps, they find it difficult to overcome their programming (except the Jamie Cullum people: they’re simply idiots).

Icke’s main point seems to be not much more than that we are all conditioned from birth to work for the system without ever really questioning what’s behind it all, so perhaps his paedophile alien lizards are symbolic or allegorical or just a shock device to shake up our collective brain boxes. If his message can be encapsulated into a few guiding principles it might be: you are not free; you are living an illusion; there are answers out there, but you have to look harder and in different places, and forget everything you think you know.

Now I don’t necessarily believe that The Queen is a reptilian human hybrid and murderer, or that the Moon is a control station, or that Cancer is a fungus from outer space, but, when it comes to making up your own mind in this weird and impenetrably baffling world we live in, I like Icke.   

* This part of the story always reminds me of Howard Beale in 'Network' (1976). Beale is the respected long term anchorman of a news programme who, when he is told he is about to be fired, goes on air to say that he is about to commit suicide, and if everyone tunes in next week they can see him do it. Beale doesn't have to kill himself because his ratings improve, so instead he becomes 'the mad prophet of the airwaves', a crazy holy man who goes onto TV to tell it how it is and shout 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'.

We take it for granted that Beale is literally as mad as hell, but there is a scene when he is woken in the middle of the night by a light on his face and he sits up and has an animated conversation with an unseen presence. It's hugely unsettling as, for a moment, you're no longer sure if this is a delusion or is really happening - then you realise that, for Beale, it's all the same thing.

On a lighter note, it also strikes me that Icke's conversion from football pundit to new age prophet is an Alan Partridge series waiting to happen.

Beasts: The Dummy

‘The Dummy’ is the only rubber beast of Nigel Kneale's series, a character in a popular and endless series of  low budget horror films. Inside the grotesque costume is a man (Bernard Horsfall) who has come to identify more with the monstrous Dummy than the people around him, most of whom use him ruthlessly for their own ends.

Alcoholic, tired, hot, trapped, the actor’s life is falling messily apart and the final kick in the teeth comes when his wife (sexy Patricia Maynard) leaves him for his co-star, an absolute grade one twatpot played with aplomb by smooth, supercillious, infuriatingly smug Simon Oates. Faced with this latest humiliation, he does what any drunk and disintergrating bloke in a monster suit would do and goes on a kill crazy rampage…

Well written (of course), well acted, ‘The Dummy’ is a very talky piece of drama, but that’s not a bad thing: the characters have a lot to say. Kneale may very well be having a pop at Hammer in the basic elements of the set up, but the bulk of the drama isn’t really about horror, or at, least, not the supernatural – all the nasty things here are painfully human, the most horrible horror of all.  

Let's Dance

Regular readers of this weblog will know that I am a big Scott Walker fan. I'm so grateful that he is releasing music again, even if it isn't always quite the sort of music I'd like, if you know what I mean. He's the artist, however, and I'm just a fellow who buys all his stuff so I follow his instructions, not the other way around.

Scott has a new album out on December 3rd called 'Bish Bosch', which made me laugh. It's going to be another challenging listen, I'm sure, but what I've heard so far sounds great and this track - 'Epizootics!' - is extraordinary. Make sure you listen to it all.

Welcome back again, Mr. Engel.

Gas

Island Life

Gough Kicks Off

Eight years on from ‘Black Zoo’, Michael Gough was still played the cold eyed martinet, the ruthless ruler of all he surveys. In ‘The Velvet House’ (aka ‘The Corpse’, aka ‘Crucible Of Horror’) his kingdom is a domestic house, and his subjects his abused family.

It’s an odd set up. Gough prowls the house looking for things to kick off about and, when he’s not trying to start a fight, is seen strenuously washing his hands as if to absolve himself of his guilt. He has moulded his son into a mini version of himself and the boy puts on his headphones and turns the music up to full volume everytime he can hear an argument. Gough has dangerously contrary emotions towards his rebellious  teenage daughter: when she gets off her bike he secretly squeezes the saddle; when she gets out of line, he beats her savagely with a riding crop.

The wife / mother (played by the eternally downtrodden Yvonne Mitchell) locks herself away from everything most days, obsessively painting expressionist portraits of her feared husband. After the horse whipping, however, she turns wearily to her daughter and says ‘let’s kill him’ - so they do. Or at least they think they do…

A minor but intriguing little psycho drama, ‘The Velvet House’ is, ultimately, compromised by a lack of narrative clarity but it’s a thoughtful little film with an implacably nasty but very matter of fact performance from Gough, who plays the control freak father as a kind of passive-psychotic. Nobody does bastard like Gough, and he’s on top form here - alive, dead or reanimated making the lives of those around him a hell.

It's not on DVD (I think - cue comments and links to DVD copies), hence the slightly scabby screenshots. I’d like to see a cleaned up version, or at least one where you can still see what’s going on when it gets dark.

The Velvet House

Kill-Lust

Produced by Herman Cohen, starring Michael Gough, ‘Black Zoo’ is superbly silly stuff, full of violence and shock and death by wild animal. In its quieter moments, it also creates a sickly, unhealthy atmosphere in which odd family units are formed, then broken apart. It also finds a use for the old ‘Konga’ monkey suit, which more or less guarantees a good time.

Gough plays Michael Conrad, a private zoo keeper in Los Angeles. Gough excels at playing uptight psychotic types, driven men who are so certain of their destiny that murder is simply a way of getting there quicker. In his spare time, he attends meetings of a bizarre animal worshipping cult, and although this thread doesn’t really go anywhere, it quickly establishes his priorities: human life is cheap, it’s the animals that count. In the evenings he and his mute teenage son gather the animals around them – a lion, a tiger, a puma, a leopard – and Conrad plays the organ to them all. It’s all pretty eerie, especially as he quite often ends the get togethers by issuing the creatures their orders, which normally involve taking out some busy body or land developer that is impinging on their weird way of life.

After a while, the mute son realises that he can’t speak because he was traumatised as a child by something awful Daddy did to Mummy and it all comes tumbling down, but only after several heads have been clamped in several sets of jaws, and a lady has her skull smashed by a swipe of a massive simian paw (this bit is brilliant: a man in the ‘Konga’ suit does the dirty deed and, when he hears a police siren, starts hopping from foot to foot, flapping his hands around like he’s trying to think what to do next. I’m sure David Attenborough would have something to say about it).

Full of energy and unsettling moments (midnight tiger funeral, anyone?), ‘Black Zoo’ is full pelt early sixties horror – dripping with sensationalism but, over fifty years on, endearingly innocent and quaint. It’s grrreat.