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Thirty years ago this month, one of the most profoundly sad songs in pop music history hit Number One on the Hot 100. It was “The Living Years” by Mike + the Mechanics, which forced everyone within earshot of a radio throughout much of 1989 to consider that fact their parents will inevitably die and leave them with profound regret. “I wasn’t there that morning/When my Father passed away,” Paul Carrack sings in a typical verse. “I didn’t get to tell him/All the things I had to say.”

Like many things in the Eighties,...

As the undisputed king of American gothic, Vincent Price holds a unique position regarding his association with British horror. From the mid sixties, nearly all his films were made in the UK, and while not as distinguished as The House of Usher (1960), Tales of Terror (1962) and The Raven (1963), they are not without interest. As an actor perfectly suited to English gothic, Price’s output includes two career-defining performances. In a nutshell, he had the best of both worlds.

Masque of the Red Death (1964)

The British phase of his career began with a bang. After directing all of Price’s Poe chillers for American International Pictures, Roger Corman wanted to give the formula a fresh approach by making his next film in England. Aip’s Samuel Z Arkoff and James H Nicholson had already produced several European films, so the next step was to establish a London base with Louis M Heyward in charge.

You kids can keep your Hotel Transylvania; most horrorphiles would rather hang out in a nightclub with Vincent Price, John Carradine, and Donald Pleasence telling ghoulish tales and listening to kooky music. Welcome to The Monster Club where monsters rule, ok.

The 1981 British film The Monster Club united several famous names from the world of Hammer horror for a campy mix of frightful tales and funky monster rock. Vincent Price starred as a blood-starved vampire who takes horror writer John Carradine to a special nightclub where the undead unwind as a thank you for contributing a small blood donation to quench his eternal thirst. There he’s told three tales of terror about a monster in a manor being swindled out of its fortune, a family of vampires contending with vampire hunters, and a film director taken captive when he location scouts in a town full of man-eating ghouls.

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