Deathblog: Wings Hauser (1947 - 2025)

So first off - a quick note to any remaining loyal readers, to clarify that I didn’t really intend for this to just become an obits blog going forward, but a total absence of time to write, combined with blogger’s increasingly disruptive barrage of log-in requests, content blocks and cookie pop-ups, make it difficult to envisage a return to regular posting in this space. I have however been diverting my faltering energies into some other projects - which I will hope to update you on soon.

But now, on to more important matters.

I hate to be the one to tell you if you’ve not heard the news elsewhere, but Wings has left the building.

There is, of course, a corny line to be inserted her about bells ringing and angels - but this is a sad time, so I’m not going to be the one to do it.

Wings! What an incredible human being. What untold joy he has brought to those of us who persist in believing that watching low budget genre films made in Los Angeles in the 1980s / 1990s is a respectable use of our time on earth. Truth be told, he personally provided a fairly hefty percentage of the force behind that belief, and he asked so little in return.

Long-term readers will be aware of the respect I hold for actors with the courage to GO BIG in small films, and rarely has a jobbing thespian routinely gone bigger than Wings, a man who seems to have approached the task of playing the baddie in a DTV action flick with the same dedication a professional athlete brings to running a triathlon - commanding the screen, flattening the opposition, capturing the audience in his mad glare like an unshackled psycho about to stick a shiv in the camera operator’s gut.

FUN was always the name of the game with Wings; even on the rare occasions when he was allowed to sink his teeth into a more quote-unquote ‘serious’ role, he gives every impression of having a blast with it, and his energy is infectious - a talent honed no doubt during his apprenticeship as a rock singer (and what I wouldn’t have given to have been able to attend one of his gigs in the ‘70s - at least if ‘The Neon Slime’ [see below] is any indication of his preferred musical oeuvre).

Despite all this though, I am astonished to note that the Deadline obit piece I have linked to above does not mention Hauser’s appearances in motion pictures at all, instead framing his legacy in terms of his prolific TV work and parenthood of his apparently-more-famous children.

I mean, we really do live in a parallel universe here, don't we people?

How has the Cult of Wings been allowed to remain such a fringe concern?

Beats me, but in fairness, in the early days of this blog, I was equally clueless - reviewing Nico Mastorakis’s ‘The Wind’ aka ‘The Edge of Terror’ in 2010 [I won’t link, because those early posts an an embarrassment], I made fun of his name, and remained non-committal on the quality of his (no doubt wonderful) psychopath acting.

Since then though, having obtained a more informed overview of the cinematic hinterland, I’ve naturally seen the light, allowing Wings to ascend to “I will pay to watch anything this man is in” status in my personal pantheon (a pledge which, believe me, has proved painful at times), and experiencing an acute sense of joy each time I see his name fade up, third or fourth billed, in a set of opening credits, probably accompanied by ominous, synthesizer sludge and ‘Terminator’-esque snare drums.

In spite of everything though, there are still some crucial entries in the Wings filmography which I’ve not gotten around to at the time of writing; his surely magnificent top-billed role as ‘The Carpenter’ (1986)? [I’m waiting to pick up that new blu-ray on import.] His collaboration with the equally legendary Brian Trenchard Smith on ‘The Siege of Firebase Gloria’ (1988)? [I have it lined up, but my partner doesn’t care for war movies.] Or what of ‘Skins’ aka ‘Gang Boyz’ (1994), his self-directed skinheadsploitation epic with Linda Blair?!

All of these and more will no doubt find a place in my future viewing schedule, helping to ease the pain of a world without Wings.

Meanwhile though, and bearing in mind the above caveats re: films I’ve not yet seen, here are a few picks of my favourite Hauser performances, to hopefully help the uninitiated get a handle on the achievements of this unique and already missed performer. 

 

Vice Squad (1982)

Hauser’s breakout role (to the extent that he ever really ‘broke out’), and probably most fans’ pick for his definitive performance. It helps of course that ‘Vice Squad’ is one of those films which is about x100 times better than it has any right to be, as director Gary Sherman takes what could have merely been a sleazy ‘hookers on the Strip’ exploitation piece and transforms it into one of the best and most exhilarating American crime movies of the 1980s… but if there is one thing everyone remembers from the film, it is the central presence of Ramrod.

On paper, the figure of the Elvis-obsessed, faux-cowboy psycho pimp, keeping his girls violently in line through the liberal application of his ‘pimp stick’ (don’t even ask) could have made for a fairly routine / comedic villain… but, as so often, Wings really takes it to another level. Channelling his frustration at spending three years stuck on the soap opera treadmill of ‘The Young & The Restless’ into a hyper-energised performance (even by his standards), he turns Ramrod into an obscene, unstoppable force of physically intimidating chaos, lashing out in all directions with a mixture of unhinged menace and pitiful grotesquery, cutting a bloody swathe through the Hollywood underworld with an intensity which is frankly jaw-dropping.

Feeling very much like a ‘80s analogue to Richard Widmark’s turn in Kiss of Death (1947), it’s hardly surprising the ‘Vice Squad’ opened up a new career for Wings as a go-to guy for scene-stealing villainy. And when, after Ramrod has met his inevitable demise at the hands of the far-less-memorable cops, as the camera gratuitously crane-shots above the urban wasteland and the man himself launches into the aforementioned ‘Neon Slime’, you’ll be hard-pressed not to physically cheer / applaud /salute the magnificent, nihilistic insanity of the whole enterprise. What a movie.

 

Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987)

In a film loaded with unhinged, oversized macho performances, corralled by an even more unhinged, oversized egomaniacal writer-director, Wings still manages to come out as top dog, grinding the competition into the dust as his foul-mouthed, priapic closet-case monster-cop Luther Regency rides roughshod over the privileged populace of Provincetown, Massachusetts, getting so up-in-the-face of bewildered hero Ryan O’Neill that at one point he manages to make a windswept cliff-top feel claustrophobic and sweaty.

I attempted to write about my love for this astonishing, uncategorisable film as part of one of my ‘Best First Watches of 2022’ posts here, but needless to say - despite reportedly being given a hard time by Big Norm on set, Wings fits into Mailer’s toxic, coked out world like a filth-stained leather glove. 

 

Nightmare at Noon (1988)

Quite possibly the aforementioned Nico Mastorakis’s masterpiece, you can read my thoughts on this classic piece of b-movie junk here, but specifically in terms of Hauser’s performance, I find it interesting the way he upturns expectations by playing his everyday-guy-in-an-RV protagonist / hero character as an absolute, raging asshole - whining, wheedling, selfish, he has that nails-down-the-blackboard annoyance down pat, until a “shit just got real” revelation eventually causes him to simmer down and become a helpful part of the bro-hero zombie-fighting team alongside Bo Hopkins and George Kennedy - a beautifully played transition.

 

Pale Blood (1990)

In this entertaining low budget vampire epic from Chinese-American director V.V. Dachin Hsu, Wings essays the role of a Van Helsing-descended vampire hunter with an ancient magic sword, posing as a sleazy, Richard Kern-esque video artist in contemporary L.A. Need I say more?!

I mean, if you’re on the scene in 1990, looking for an actor who’s going to turn up on time everyday for whatever pitiful rate your non-union picture is paying and breath life into a character like that… there’s only one guy you’re gonna call, right?

I can’t quite claim the resulting film is a stone-cold classic, but if you’ve sat through as much horror / sci-fi drek from this era as I have… keep your expectations in check, and you may be pleasantly surprised, let’s put it that way. 

 

Champagne & Bullets [aka ‘Geteven’ aka ‘Road to Revenge’] (1993)

In interviews, Hauser often spoke about his wild, hard-partying lifestyle during the 1980s, and nowhere can you see the weird aftermath of all this hedonism quite so clearly as in this astounding, once seen / never forgotten vanity project from Los Angeles lawyer John De Hart.

One of several b-movie stalwarts drafted in to lend a fig leaf of legitimacy to the production, Wings plays De Hart’s character’s best friend / partner ‘Huck Finney’, and… well, I should emphasise at this point that everything else I’ve ever read about Hauser gives the impression that he was a dedicated, hard-working professional, but let’s just say that he spends the majority of his screen time here instead giving a pretty good impression of being completely out of his mind.

He’s under control and hits the required beats in some scenes, so I’ll assume he was at least aware that he was in this movie, and wasn’t just hanging out at De Hart’s house being covertly filmed or something, but the rest of the time…? We’re deep into “point the camera at him and see what he does” territory here.

In one scene, he seems to be having a conversation with a wooden Cigar Store Indian; in another, he’s lolloping about senselessly in De Hart’s swimming pool, outlining his plan for starting a new religion based around ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’. I may be misremembering, but I think he spends some time theatrically downing and crushing cans of beer, in response to his character’s marital difficulties, or something?

I have no idea what is going on with all this. Did De Hart pay him in bourbon (or worse)? Or did Wings simply respond to the amateurishness of the production by throwing caution to the wind and going full-on Dr Gonzo? Who can say.

Whatever the case, Hauser’s performance ranks as about the 86th most uncomfortable thing in the gruelling duration of ‘Champagne & Bullets’. 

 

Mutant (1984)

And finally, I don’t think anyone on earth would pick this poverty-stricken alien/zombie flick from director John ‘Bud’ Carlos as an all-time favourite, but if you’re a tolerant viewer who likes this sort of thing, it’s certainly worth a watch.

With the exception of top-billed Bo Hopkins, Wings is clearly the best actor on the movie by a factor of ten, and I recall being touched by the way that, rather than simply steamrolling his younger, inexperienced co-stars and leaving the production a smouldering ruin (as he could so easily have done), he reins his performance in beautifully, considerately leaving space for the other actors to fill, and using his own presence to prop them up.

In particular, my memory is that his scenes with female lead Jody Medford feel more like acting workshops than anything else, as he patiently tries to help her through her faltering performance, revealing what I would like to think is a generosity of spirit rarely glimpsed in his more over-sized roles.

--

And, that’s about it for now I think, but in closing - I recommend opening your windows, cranking your speakers, and paying tribute to the late, great Wings Hauser by exposing your neighbours to an undiluted dose of The Neon Slime…. you know you want to.

Book Review: Wheels of Light: Designs for British Light Shows 1970-1990 by Kevin Foakes (Four Corners, 2022)

Ever since I first began to develop an interest in psychedelic rock as a teenager, the elusive presence of those bubbling, multi-layered liquid light shows which we’re led to believe routinely accompanied performances and ‘happenings’ during the 1960s has always fascinated me. Although I’ve only been lucky enough to witness proper, analogue light shows on a few (distant and poorly remembered) occasions, I feel that they represent an underappreciated and under-utilised DIY art form which has never really been given its due over the over the years.

As such, I was immediately on-board when I learned that Kevin Foakes (aka DJ Food) had a new book coming out via the estimable Four Corners Irregulars imprint, cataloguing his researches into the history of light shows in the UK.

The first thing to note here is that, by Foakes’ own admission, visual evidence of the development of light shows during the ‘60s is sketchy in the extreme. Over the course of a few pages, we learn that the ‘bubbling coloured oil’ type lighting effects primarily associated with the psychedelic era were first brought to these shores in 1964, when avant garde practitioners Mark Boyle and Joan Hills (aka The Boyle Family) utilised them in a series of stand-alone environmental art pieces in central London.

At some point thereafter, Boyle and Hills hooked up with the legendary UFO Club, presenting their, dangerous and occasionally explosive, lighting techniques as but one element of the full spectrum sensory overload envisioned by UFO founders Joe Boyd and John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, no doubt inspiring the eager young practitioners who in turn went on to create way-out lighting experiences for the likes of Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and Dantalian’s Chariot.

It was from this hallowed scene that the first business centred around hiring/selling liquid light show equipment - Krishna Lights, based at 13 Goodge St - emerged, but, with this important pre-history established, ‘Wheels of Light’ swiftly leaves the psychedelic splendour of the ‘60s far behind, focusing instead on the leaner years of the 1970s, when a more established commercial niche for light show projection equipment began to emerge, its focus necessarily becoming more diffuse, both geographically and aesthetically.

By the early ‘70s, specialist retailers like Optikinetics, Pluto and Orion were operating not out of the trendy West End, but from shop fronts and industrial units in such far-flung locales as Luton, Colchester and Penge. Though there was some crossover of personnel from the UFO/Floyd days, these enterprises were staffed not by acid-guzzling hippie agitators, but by nerdy blokes with backgrounds in electronics or engineering, who saw an opportunity to make a living from lenses, bulbs and moulded plastic gizmos.

And, naturally enough, as the excesses of psychedelic rock fell out of fashion, and as the scene’s surviving practitioners moved on to bigger venues and more professional/purpose-built stage shows, these firms needed to widen their remit, appealing to a broader and potentially more mainstream range of potential customers.

But, who in the hell might they be, exactly?! This is the unanswered question which lies behind much of the more curious material in ‘Patterns of Light’, as the book becomes less a celebration of the psychedelic counter-culture, and more of an exploration of a previously neglected form of suburban folk-art, very much in line with Four Corners’ earlier, excellent, volumes on CB Radio Cards and UFO drawings.

By the point at which most of the material in this book was created, projected light shows had largely abandoned the messy and dangerous business of bubbling inks and oils, and - at least in their commercial capacity - were instead largely centred around the use of customised (or custom built) slide projectors. These could be loaded up with either 3” ‘effects cassettes’, used to generate abstract, kaleidoscopic / op-art patterns such as the one seem on the book’s cover, or larger 6” ‘picture wheels’, which allowed a rolling, circular display of themed artwork to be projected in magnified form - and it is on the latter that most of Foakes’ book naturally concentrates.

Probably the most famous examples of these ‘picture wheels’ are the ones created by ‘space artist’ David A. Hardy for Hawkwind’s ‘Space Ritual’ tour in 1972, and subsequently reproduced as part of the artwork for the resulting live album and sold under license by Optikinetics.

 

‘Space Ritual’ wheel by David A. Hardy

So far, so psychedelic, and indeed, this kind of traditionally ‘way out’ imagery remained a proponent component of the lighting companies’ product over the years. At the same time though, many of the picture wheels reproduced herein date from 1977, ‘78 or ’79, by which point surely no remotely fashionable rock band or night club would countenance the idea of using a projected light show at all, let alone subject their audiences to the unhinged mixture of kid’s bedroom wallpaper designs, seaside postcard sleaze and new age kitsch being proffered at the time by Pluto or Orion.

I mean, can you even imagine what kind of terminally naff event would make use of Orion’s ‘punk rock’ picture wheel (featuring Beano-esque figures of mohawked thugs stomping around vibrating amplifiers), never mind their ‘wild west’, ‘smurf’ and ‘torture’ lines?

‘Daffy Disco’ wheel by Steve Maher (Orion Lighting, 1974)

Some semblance of an answer can be found in a passage of the text in which Pluto founder Micky Thompson notes that, by the dawn of the 1980s, the customers of his rivals at Optikinetics were largely proprietors of mobile discos, whilst his own company catered instead to what he calls, “the domestic Saturday night party projector”.

Regarding the former, I certainly went to a school disco or two in my time, and I don’t specifically recall any pirates or cowboys being projected across the assembly hall walls, but yes - mobile discos. That makes sense.

As to the “domestic Saturday night” crowd meanwhile…. well, the mind fairly boggles. At this point, it’s probably worth noting that another thing which stands out about the artwork reproduced in ‘Wheels of Light’ is just how damn smutty (in a distinctly British, 1970s kind of way) much of it is. Drawings of ladies with their boobs out are a frequent presence, as are photo-collages assembled from porno mags, spread across a range of picture wheels which includes such provocative titles as ‘glamour’, ‘stripper’, ‘flesh’, ‘naughty girls’, and the ever-popular ‘roman orgy’.

Clearly these risqué picture wheels must have sold well, as each of the companies featured in the book seems to have offered their own variations on the theme. How many man-caves, private dungeons and swingers’ parties hid behind the pebble-dashed façade of ‘70s suburbia, with lights dimmed and projectors cranked up to create just the right atmosphere for an evening’s indulgences…? Mercifully perhaps, we will probably never know.

As with the aforementioned Four Corners’ books however, the kitsch/cringe factor and analogue-era nostalgia inherent in such material is only a small part of ‘Wheels of Light’s overall appeal. As aesthetically questionable as some of the picture wheels proffered by Optikinetics, Pluto and Orion may have been, many of the other wheels gathered by Foakes are genuinely remarkable, highlighting a wealth of awesome, hyper-detailed and (dare I say it) even somewhat mind-blowing artwork from artists such as Maggie Gould, Roy Wilkinson and Connie Jude (whose 1978 ‘gay’ picture wheel is a particularly fascinating inclusion), as well as impressive later work from Jennie Caldwell (who graduated from designing picture wheels to masterminding Hawkwind’s light show for a period in the 1990s). 

Comprising an exemplary cross-section of the era’s more imaginative popular/pulp illustration, the work of these artists (and numerous others who remain uncredited) is eminently worthy of preservation between hard covers, and it is fair to assume that the opportunity to produce these wheels gave jobbing commercial illustrators a chance to ‘go wild’ in a way which would never have been allowed in more straight-down-the-line magazine/book gigs.

Meanwhile, reproductions of the more more abstract, mandala-like patterns created by the smaller ‘effects cassettes’ are also fascinating and hugely appealing (to me, at least), as is the wealth of technical detail concerning equipment and projection techniques covered in Foakes’ text. In fact, as much as I may have poked fun at the “domestic Saturday night” crowd earlier, I’d dare any reader to get through ‘Wheels of Light’ without at some point feeling an irresistible urge to start tracking down some of this old gear and giving it a whirl.

I mean, who knows? Chances are there’s a music venue down the road from you somewhere with a white sheet, an open mind and a few spare plug sockets. Optikenetics are - miraculously - still in business. So long as we’re all still burning through electricity like irresponsible goons, we might as well channel some of it into light shows, and that pixelated video shit just don’t cut it. So long as we all remember to leave the ‘roman orgy’ wheel at home, a bright future surely awaits.

‘Wheels of Light’ can be purchased direct from Four Corners.  

‘Liquid Lady Wheel’, Light Fantastic Limited (1976)

DEAD EARS OF LONDON:Being Thee 11th Stereo Sanctity/Breakfast in the Ruins Halloween mix CD.

As is traditional, eighty-something minutes of ultra-creepy sounds to get you in the mood for next weekend’s festivities.

Mainly contemporary stuff this time around, and don’t expect many toe-tapping tunes; I’ve been doing these for over a decade at this point, so the go-to horror-rock classics have long ago run dry. Instead, expect ragin’ metal, soundtrack extracts, warped outsider rock, lo-fi electronica - all throbbing in praise of The Dark Gods (or something along those lines). I’ll refrain from adding bandcamp links, but most can (and should) be easily googled and given money.

If we don’t speak before the big night, may your kool-aid carry a kick, and your rites not go wrong.

 

00:00 … 

00:45 Ivor Slaney - Terror (main titles) 

02:46 Heavy Sentence - Medusa 

06:57 Lucifer - Sabbath 

12:10 Gianfranco Reverberi - Orgiastic Ritual 

15:54 Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Dead Eyes of London 

19:57 Taras Bulba - The Green Eyes of the The Dragon 

24:59 Masahiko Sato - The Witch Hunt 

27:00 Potion - Hallucination Rites 

34:33 The Psychic Circle - Hallucinations 

38:04 Brian Ellis & Brian Granger - Treesmoke 

42:30 Blood Ceremony - Coven Tree 

47:17 The Heartwood Institute - Who Put Bella Down the Wych Elm? 

53:35 Gianfranco Reverberi - Secret Orgy II 

55:38 Angelo Francesco Lavagnino - Misteri Della Cripta 

58:24 Dream Division - The Final Seance 

1:02:13 Grilth - Crooked Back and Broken Spirit 

1:11:05 Ivor Slaney - Possessed Police Car 

1:13:48 Bessie Smith - Cemetery Blues

(For the next seven days, a nice old fashioned mp3 download version can be found here - if you’d like a re-up at some point after that, just drop me a line and I’ll be happy to assist.)

Spells and Incantations:Being Thee 10th Annual Stereo Sanctity/Breakfast in the Ruins Halloween Mix CD.

 [Cross-posted with Stereo Sanctity.]

As we kick off Halloween week, here, as tradition demands, is a just-under-80-minute mix of ragin’, unholy audio to get you in the mood for whatever safely socially distanced blasphemous rites and abhorrent festivities yourself and your household support bubble/coven have planned this year.

Given that this is the tenth instalment in the series (research gleaned from the long-shuttered archives suggests that the first occurred back in 2008, but that I skipped both 2018 and 2019), you’ll appreciate that the back catalogues of the true greats of Horror-Rock have already been thoroughly tapped by this point, but, as so often in life, metal has stepped up to save the day.

Betwixt the riffage, we also dip a disfigured toe or two into the faddish yet undeniably appealing waters of ‘dungeon synth’, and explore a wide range of atavistic diabolism during the first half, before a brief diversion into lycanthropy ushers us into some unspeakable realms of cosmic terror, concluding with a nod to everyone’s favourite Obeah Man. Dare you stand before the altar and offer up your mortal soul? Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, a quick click on the mixcloud ‘play’ button is all it takes.

Alternatively though, if you miss the riskier business of getting naked and throwing questionable fluids around the place, the old school mp3 download link below the tracklist may prove more to your liking.

(As usual, bands and artists who are still a going concern and deserve your support have been linked below as appropriate.)

 

00:00 One’s blessing...

00:59 Debbie Lyndsey - Spells and Incantations 

03:46 Aggressive Perfector - Onward to the Cemetery 

09:06 Midnight - Rebirth by Blasphemy 

12:15 Blood Ceremony - Witchwood 

19:12 Dream Division - The Gateway of the Pit 

21:32 Witchfinder General - Witchfinder General 

25:20 Dream Division - The Ancient Sanctuary 

26:49 Shooting Guns - Silver Bullet Remix 

32:27 Horse - The Sacrifice 

38:39 Ennio Morricone - Magic and Ecstasy 

41:33 Ted Dicks - Virgin Witch # 9 

46:37 Eskaton - Dagon 

56:34 Ogre - Hillside Necropolis 

58:56 Candlemass - Demon’s Gate 

1:08:02 Sunn O))) - It Took The Night To Believe 

1:14:00 Exuma - Exuma’s Reincarnation 

 

    ((( Download link. )))

Deathblog: Ennio Morricone (1928-2020)

(Cross-posted with Stereo Sanctity.)

Of course we knew this day would come, but still.

So, let’s get straight to the point here – Morricone IS film music, so far as I’m concerned. Even if he didn’t contribute to it all directly, a vast swathe of the cinema I love would sound very different without his influence.

Years before I actually saw any of the Leone films, hearing Morricone’s themes from them pop up on the radio (which they sometimes did in those days) was an event. My Dad (who, like many dads, had a yen for all things cowboy-related) would turn up the volume, and for a few minutes we’d soak it in. The drama, the atmosphere, the wild sounds were just completely intoxicating. They didn’t need any context – as always, Morricone’s music creates its own context. That was almost certainly the first time I stopped to think about music in films, about a kind of musical vocabulary which extended beyond lyrics and pop songs, and about the different ways in which sounds and images can combine to create emotion and excitement. Thirty years later, I’m still thinking about those things.

The medium by which I enjoy the Leone scores has moved over the years from radio, to parental vinyl, to CD, and back to my own vinyl, and during my adult life I’ve of course hovered up all the other Morricone I can find within my price range (which of course still only represents the tiniest fraction of the monolithic range of his total achievement).

From what little I know of Morricone’s beliefs and personality, I think it’s probably safe to say that he would wish to be remembered to the world for his work rather than his biography, so instead of rabbiting on further, I’ll share a swiftly cobbled together mix of fifteen (which could easily be thirty, or one hundred) personal favourite smash hits from his vast catalogue, assembled in no particular order. I’ll keep commentary to a minimum, because otherwise my responses to most of these tracks would just be variations on a theme of holy fucking shit.

Though the magic which Nicolai, Dell’Orso, Alessandroni and so many others brought to his recordings cannot be overlooked, Morricone remains a giant – one of the greatest composers and musicians of the 20th century, no questions asked.

For ease of ad-free listening, I’ve compiled these fifteen cuts into a mix on Mixcloud (embed below), but will also go through them one-by-one via Youtube links for those who wish to pick and choose.




1. ‘Titoli’ from ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ (1964)

Here’s where it all began.



2. ‘Il Grande Silenzio (Restless)’ from ‘Il Grande Silenzio’ (1968)



3. “Valmont’s Go-Go Pad” from ‘Danger! Diabolik’ (1968)



4. ‘Svolta Definitiva’ from ‘Violent City’ (1970)



5. ‘La Lucertola’ from ‘A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin’ (1971)



6. ‘Guerra E Pace, Pollo E Brace’ from ‘Grazie Zia’ / ‘Come Play With Me’ (1968)



7. ‘Giorno Di Notte’ from ‘A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin’ (1971)



8. ‘Magic and Ecstasy’ from ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’ (1977)



9. Main theme from ‘The Thing’ (1982)



10. ‘Canzone Lontana’ from ‘Il Serpente’ (1973)



11. ‘Fraseggio Senza Struttura’ from ‘The Bird with the Crystal Plumage’ (1970)



12. ‘Ballabile No. 2’ from ‘La Cosa Buffa’ (1972)



13. ‘Titoli’ from ‘A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof’ (1968)



14. ‘Astratto 3’ from ‘Veruschka’ (1971)



15. ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ from ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ (1968)

This theme makes me involuntarily break down in tears each time I hear it. Really, every time, like clockwork. Which has proved quite embarrassing whenever I’ve watched the film in company.

My reaction has nothing to do with any personal/biographical connections, or anything in the film itself (incredible though it is). The sound of the music is just completely overwhelming.

It is simply one of the greatest pieces of music ever recorded, and any classical buffs who want to fight about that are welcome to. Everything that is worth feeling within the human experience, I can hear in this.

R.I.P. Il Maestro.

Exploito All’Italiana: Paganini Horror (Luigi Cozzi, 1989)

You don’t need a PhD in Italian cinema to realise that the nation’s commercial film industry was in pretty dire straits by the tail end of the 1980s. Simply watching a few of the increasingly cynical and poverty-stricken horror and action films which continued to trickle out as the decade drew to a close, all seemingly designed solely to try to claw back some easy dough from the overseas video rental market, should get the point across well enough.

In terms in horror, Luigi Cozzi’s ‘Paganini Horror’ and its even more bizarrely conceived companion piece ‘The Black Cat’ (aka ‘De Profundis’, aka ‘Demons 6’, aka ‘Suspiria 2’, 1989) were not technically the end of the line. After all, directors like Fulci, Lenzi and Fragasso all kept pluggin’ away into the early ‘90s, Argento was still making films (albeit with overseas financing at this point), and Michele Soavi even pulled off a late era triumph with 1994’s ‘Dellamorte Dellamore’.

But, on an emotional level, Cozzi’s ’89 films still seem very much like the end of something. On some level, I can’t help but feel that that particular strain of stylised Mediterranean gothic first kicked off in earnest by Mario Bava’s ‘La Maschera del Demonio’ in 1960, reaches it’s eventual, ragged conclusion right here.

All of which may sound a bit maudlin, but, thankfully, there are two things you can always rely on Luigo Cozzi to provide, however daft his films may be – earnest enthusiasm and utter weirdness. True to form, ‘Paganini Horror’ delivers both in spades.

As you might have expected, the genesis of this film seems to have been pretty convoluted, but insofar as I can establish, the series of events which led to its creation went as follows. Earlier in the ‘80s, Cozzi claims that he wrote a script for a film which he envisioned as a serious period drama, exploring the life of the legendary Venetian composer and violinist Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), and the diabolical rumours which swirled around him.

Unsurprisingly, this project didn’t get anywhere near being made, but a few years later, Cozzi found himself working in some capacity on the nightmarish production of the thrice-doomed Klaus Kinski vanity project ‘Nosferatu in Venice’ (1988). Word on the canals was that Kinski planned to follow up this misbegotten venture with a self-directed film about Paganini – and indeed he did, although the result was reportedly such a car crash that it barely even saw release upon completion.

Prior to that however, there was apparently a sufficient buzz surrounding the project for low budget producer extraordinaire Fabrizio De Angelis (who seems to have almost single-handedly kept Italian b-movie industry afloat through these lean years) to smell the opportunity for a quick cash-in.

(If you’re wondering by the way why Enzo Sciotti’s incredible poster artwork for ‘Paganini Horror’ – reproduced at the top of this post – features a monster design, characters and a building which bear no resemblance to the finished film… well, I believe that’s simply because, in true grindhouse style, De Angelis commissioned him to paint it before the movie had even been scripted.)

Presumably remembering Cozzi’s earlier Paganini script, and aware that he was already working on the Kinski film, De Angelis must have given our man a call, and after getting the kind of hearty “HELL YES” that producers are naturally liable to receive when calling up struggling directors about their unrealised dream projects, he proceeded to lay down some pretty harsh caveats.

Firstly, he wanted the film to be a contemporary, American-style slasher movie with a rock soundtrack. Secondly, he wanted it made super-quick for pretty much no money whatsoever. (In an interview included on the blu-ray release of the film, Cozzi claims that De Angelis’s contribution as producer consisted of handing him a faulty 16mm camera, pointing him in the direction of the ruined villa which serves as the film’s primary location, and telling him to get on with it.)

So, you can probably see where this is all headed. Yes, that’s right - somewhere AWESOME, particularly once the great Daria Nicolodi (permanently estranged from Dario by this point, I believe) somehow also got involved with writing the script.

Perhaps this last point might help explain why ‘Paganini Horror’ kicks off with an initially perplexing, ‘Deep Red’ style childhood trauma prologue in which a small girl carrying a violin case travels home via gondola and electrocutes her mother in the bath. Or perhaps not, who knows. Either way though, once that’s out of the way, the story proper kicks off in a recording studio, where an unnamed, primarily female rock band are demoing their latest song - a shameless rip off of Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’.

The band’s manager Lavinia (Maria Cristina Mastrangeli) is unimpressed. “If you ask me, your creativity has fallen on it’s ass – you keep doing the same stupid things again and again,” she tells singer/band leader Kate (Jasmine Maimone), not unreasonably under the circumstances. “Find something new, something mind-blowing and sensational,” Lavinia commands. “That’s what people expect from you! Another hit, not rehashed bullshit!” Ouch.

In an attempt to overcome this creative impasse, the band’s drummer and sole male member Daniel (Pascal Persiano) decides the time has come for them to considerably raise the stakes on their plagiarism, and as such he arranges a clandestine rendezvous with the sinister Mr. Pickett, a dishevelled, Mephistophelean type figure played by Donald Pleasence (who clearly wasn’t above jumping on a plane every now and then to lend his talents to this sort of thing, nearly a decade after the humiliation of ‘Pumaman’).

In exchange for a big wad of lire, Mr Pickett hands over a dusty suitcase containing – what else - a long lost, unpublished composition by Paganini himself! (In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, we later see Pleasence climbing to the top of the Basilica di San Marco in Venice and throwing piles of bank notes into the wind above St Mark’s Square; “little demons, little demons,” he cackles.) (1)

Back at the shack meanwhile, drummer-boy sits at the piano and plays his new acquisition for his band-mates (naturally it sounds like daytime soap opera music with a few baroque flourishes thrown in), and verily, they are inspired. Not just to rework some the 200-year-old tune into a solid gold hit, but also to use the music’s allegedly foreboding atmosphere as the jumping off point for an epic, horror-themed video project, which will no doubt clean up on MTV!

“No one has done anything remotely like it before… except for Michael Jackson, with ‘Thriller’, and his fantastic video clip,” declares Kate - and no, that’s not just me being facetious, it’s a direct quote from the film’s English dub, which, as you will have noted, is an absolute thing of beauty. “WE COULD DO THE SAME,” Daniel immediately responds, clearly still struggling with the essential concept of creating something ‘new’ and ‘sensational’.

And so, the band and their bitchy manager set out to make their dreams come true, hiring a renowned horror movie director (Pietro Genuardi, apparently playing a close cousin of ‘The Black Cat’s Dario Argento stand-in character) along the way, and decamping to a genuinely ominous looking derelict palazzo on the edge of town (actually a location in Rome), in which Paganini allegedly spent his final years.

These days however, the place is owned by none other than Daria Nicolodi! And so naturally she hangs around during the filming too, because hey, who wouldn’t? It all looks like a lot of fun, as the shadows loom and the elegantly-hued drapes billow through the dusty, candelabra-and-skull filled rooms, whilst the spandex-clad band dodge their way past armies of creepy mannequins, enthusiastically miming their way through their new, Paganini-derived smash hit (which my wife, who has a better ear than I for these things, assures me is a shameless rip off of a song by ELO). Good times indeed.

But, of course, all is not well. Before you know it, there’s a guy in a big, floppy hat and ‘Phantom of the Opera’ rubber mask (looking not unlike the killer from Bava’s ‘Baron Blood’ (1971)), stalking the band and their entourage, disposing of a few of ‘em with a switchblade embedded in the body of a violin, and, well, you know the drill.

More than anything, ‘Paganini Horror’ (especially when viewed in its English dub) strikes me as having tapped into the same rare and special brand of straight-faced absurdity which has helped make Juan Piquer Simón’s ‘Pieces’ (1982) into such a fan favourite. But, as much as I may have enjoyed taking the piss out of it in the paragraphs above, it’s worth stressing that Cozzi and his collaborators still manage to bring a sense of craft and style to proceedings which fans of older Italian horror are liable to find extremely endearing (if not a little heart-breaking, in view of the reduced circumstances they find themselves here).

Although much of the film is shot on roving, handheld 16mm, Cozzi’s footage retains a certain amount of elegance and compositional flair (more than can be found in his earlier, more generously budgeted films, some may argue), reflecting perhaps the years he spent peering over the shoulders of Argento, Bava and other celebrated maestros of the Italian gothic.

Lighting is consistently, uh, interesting (bright, infernal neon reds and blue-filtered day-for-night), whilst the editing (courtesy of industry veteran Sergio Montanari) is particularly strong, lending an Argento/Soavi-esque vitality to the film’s central stalking / murder set pieces which momentarily transcends the inherent silliness of the characters and storyline.(2)

The abandoned building in which much of the action takes place makes for a great, authentically ancient and creepy location, with elaborate (albeit budget conscious) set dressing helping to recapture a bit of that ineffable Italio-gothic feeling, whilst the Venetian location work is likewise as atmospheric as you could wish for, aided by an icy, surprisingly sombre electronic score from Vince Tempera.

This being a Cozzi film though of course, there is still plenty of room for outright, inexplicable goofiness, particularly during the movie’s second half, as the director seems to begin throwing in any wacky idea he can come up with to try to keep audience interest from flagging, even managing to indulge his long-standing preference for fantasy and science fiction to a certain extent.

It turns out, for instance, that there is an invisible ‘energy field’ preventing our characters from leaving the grounds of the palazzo – as we discover when the movie director character drives his car into it and somehow ends up roasting upon his flaming windshield.

Furthermore, the house has a cursed room, with for some reason boasts E=MC2 graffiti, esoteric equations, giant glowing egg-timers and a portrait of Einstein(?!), its flimsy floor concealing a system of time-and-space defying caves, in which Lavinia gets lost… or something..?

Elsewhere meanwhile, we get billowing green smoke, scratched-in blue lightning crackles, deafening synthesizer squalls, Andy Milligan-esque camera swirl, putrid, multi-coloured goo (“it looks like blood… mixed with some other thing”), dialogue about “a special fungus which only existed during the eighteenth century”, lots of senseless screaming and shouting and… laser beams? Could there be laser beams at some point? I don’t entirely recall to be honest, but signs point to ‘yes’.

It’s a good ol’ descent into complete delirium in other words, rendered all the more enjoyable by the sight of Daria and Donald (once he reappears) hamming it up in appropriately eye-rolling fashion, in stark contrast to the younger cast members, who seem largely bamboozled by the experience, staring blankly into the middle distance whilst looking faintly aggrieved, whenever they’re not being asked to run around screaming each other’s names.

So, what exactly does all this have to do with the simple tale of an undead Paganini returning from the grave to ice a bunch of galoots who have had the audacity to steal his music? And, given that we’re clearly very much in supernatural territory here, how the hell is that giallo-esque matricide prologue going to factor into things? And what about all the Mr Pickett, deal-with-the-devil stuff, for that matter?

I wish I could to tell you that all this is tied up satisfactorily at the film’s conclusion, but… well, instead of fretting about it, let’s just put it this way – excluding those directed by Argento or Soavi, when was the last time you watched a late ‘80s Italian genre movie which suffered from having TOO MANY ideas? Count your blessings, readers.

Cheap, tawdry and nonsensical as it may be in fact, I can put hand on heart and say that there is not a single element of ‘Paganini Horror’ which I did not enjoy. By cross-breeding poorly dubbed comic book mayhem and last gasp slasher hangover vibes with adorable Luigi Cozzi brain-wrongs and genuine gothic flair, it actually stands as pretty much perfect comfort viewing for someone of my particular inclinations.

Unlike the majority of his increasingly grizzled contemporaries, Cozzi’s heart was clearly still full of love for what he was doing at this late stage in the game, and even when talent, resources and opportunity all faltered, that love still shines through brightly in ‘Paganini Horror’, as if this were the work of some Italio-horror Daniel Johnson. Which, perhaps in a sense, it is? Don’t worry friends, ‘Paganini Horror’ will find you in the end.

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(1)Given that Pleasence was also a veteran of ‘Nosferatu in Venice’, and given that most of his footage here was shot on Venetian locations, it’s tempting to speculate that Cozzi might have actually grabbed these shots during downtime on the Kinski film, subsequently crow-barring them into ‘Paganini Horror’? The fact that Pleasence also appears in scenes in which he interacts with the rest of the ‘Paganini Horror’ cast, in addition to the film’s Venice-shot prologue, suggest that this may not actually have been the case, but who knows.

(2) For those who are unaware of his background, Cozzi began his film career as the Italian correspondent for ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’, filing set reports from assorted horror productions during the ‘60s, before he befriended Dario Argento and began to work as his assistant through the ‘70s, branching out to make his own directorial debut with the giallo ‘The Killer Must Kill Again’ in 1975.

October Horrors # 14: The Monster Club (Roy Ward Baker, 1981)

Yet another British horror film that I’ve put off watching for a long, long time, ‘The Monster Club’ sounds on paper like a uniquely unappealing prospect.

The very last gasp of Milton Subotsky’s Amicus productions, it saw the company considerably toning down the more violent elements of their long-running horror anthology series, going instead for a family friendly, tongue-in-cheek approach, whilst simultaneously making a desperately misguided attempt to court a youth audience more interested in slasher and zombie flicks by adding a pop music / variety show aspect to proceedings.

Clearly smelling embarrassment a mile off, both Cushing and Lee declined to participate, and I wonder to what extent they regretted their decision in subsequent years, given that, against all the odds, ‘The Monster Club’ somehow turned out to be an absolute delight.

Vincent Price, always game for this sort of caper, conversely described it prior to shooting as “..the best script I’ve been offered in years”, and indeed he anchors the anthology’s extensive framing sequences with gusto, playing an urbane vampire who takes a midnight snifter from the neck of the miraculously-still-alive John Carradine, portraying these stories’ real life author, R. Chetwynd-Hayes.

I confess, I’m not familiar with the work of Mr Chetwynd-Hayes (despite having spent much of my life skulking around second hand bookshops, I don’t recall ever actually seeing one of his books), but, based on the version of stuff that made it to the screen here, I think Price had a point.

Although each of the three stories presented here (four if you count the framing narrative) sounds pretty twee on paper, they all manage to temper their Halloween party silliness with a reassuring edge of pitch-black nastiness that causes them to linger longer in the memory than they really should.

The “monster genealogical chart” – tracing the complicated results of inter-breeding between vampires, werewolves, ghouls and humans – which provides a jumping off point for the three segment is a strange and imaginative conceit that I’ve never really seen explored elsewhere, and most people’s pick for the best of the stories will probably be the tale of James Laurenson’s lovelorn ‘shadmock’ (a creature who makes up for his position as the lowest and most diluted form of monster with his uniquely destructive whistle).

Aside from the fact that everyone treats Laurenson as if he is hideously deformed when clearly he’s just a fairly normal looking fella with heavy make-up and a bad haircut, this tale is really beautifully done, mixing some doomed, fairy tale-style emotional yearning with some proper, EC Comics style poetic justice and a cat-incinerating gimmick reminiscent of Jerzy Skolimowski’s then recent ‘The Shout’ (1978).

Furthering the spirit of the in-jokery introduced by featuring Chetwynd-Hayes as a character, the stakes are upped when the movie’s second story is introduced by a much-loved movie producer named, uh, “Lintom Busotsky”(!), who introduces what is purportedly a preview of a film he has made based upon his own childhood.

You see, Lintom’s dad (Richard Johnson) was a vampire – an exiled Count who now has to “work nights”, commuting from the suburbs to the West End for his nocturnal fix, leaving the youngster in the care of his adoring mother (Britt Ekland!). Admittedly, this business skims pretty close to the realms of tweeness, but the stuff about the exiled aristocratic vamps having to slum it as down-at-heel refugees, bullied and feared by their neighbours, adds a nice bit of verisimilitude, and things get considerably more interesting once Donald Pleasence is introduced as the chief of “The Bleeney”, a sinister, black bowler-hatted police division charged with the investigation of “blood crimes”(!).

Splendidly enjoyable stuff, this segment ends up toying with our sympathies in an uncomfortably ambiguous fashion; where do we stand, between the cheerily blood-thirsty, family-man vampire, and the cold, pinched-lipped cops who want to make poor Britt a widow..?

Somewhat surprisingly, both of these first two stories boast pretty solid production values, with some impressive set design, striking compositions and beautiful photography. (The vampire story even achieves some Bava-esque moments, with saturated gel-lights blurring into deep shadow.) Having presumably put the ignominy of Scars of Dracula far behind him, the sixty-four year old Roy Ward Baker proves here that he was still capable of knocking out of the park when circumstances allowed.

The third story, it must be said, looks considerably more poverty-stricken, but its tale of a ghoul-haunted village lurking just off the M4 nonetheless delivers the film’s most sustained dose of fetid, horror-ish atmosphere. As several commentators have noted, the fog-shrouded village with a graveyard at its centre seems like a deliberate call back to Amicus’s very first horror film, 1960’s ‘City of the Dead’, and the self-aware vibe continues as we’re introduced to a film director - a brash, Porsche-driving American played by the perpetually hungover-looking Stuart Whitman. (Named “Sam”, and notable for his cantankerous attitude and insistence upon realism, I briefly wondered whether this character was intended as a kind of vague skit on Sam Peckinpah.)

After he finds himself imprisoned in the village inn whilst in the process of scouting locations for his latest horror movie, Sam befriends a sympathetic young “humegoo” (human / ghoul hybrid), and also enjoys a few run-ins with the one and only Patrick Magee. It must be said, Magee doesn’t really seem to be putting a lot of effort into his role as the inn-keeper here (perhaps he was miffed at the absurd make-up he had to wear?), but it’s nice to have him around nonetheless.

Sadly this segment is regrettably over-lit (nixing the fancy lighting seems to have been a common Baker move when pressed for time), which serves to draw attention to the iffy sets and abysmal ghoul make-up (green faces all round), but things are once again saved by the strength of the writing, including some grisly details of the ghouls’ corpse-chomping lifestyle, and some interesting reflections on the torn loyalties of the unfortunate Humegoo.

A strong as these stories are however, I think it’s fair to say that ‘The Monster Club’ will always be chiefly remembered for what goes on in-between them, as Price introduces Carradine to the pleasures offered by the titular club, including performances from a selection of the very finest rock n’ roll acts that a bunch of elderly men working for a small film company on the verge of bankruptcy could persuade to record vaguely monster-themed songs for them during the uncertain, transitional year of 1980.

First, we get a sort of tough, new wave-aspirant pub rock band called The Viewers, whose members are probably still lurking in various North London pubs bitterly complaining about the fact that the only thing anyone remembers them for is this stupid bloody film. Though blighted by a truly dreadful set of lyrics, their song ‘Monsters Rule OK’ has a good, Stiff Records style power-pop chug on the verse and an affirmative, sing-along chorus that you’ll find impossible to shake after hearing the track twice during the movie.

Next up, the bitter ending to the Shadmock story is swiftly forgotten as we head straight into a performance by some character named B.A. Robertson. I confess, I’d never heard of this guy before, but according to Wikipedia he recorded for the Asylum label through the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with a certain amount of success, before becoming a bit of a minor celeb on UK TV.

‘Sucker For Your Love’, Robertson's contribution to ‘The Monster Club’, is actually a bit of a banger - in fact it’s easily my favourite song in the film, and I’d definitely commend it to any contemporary garage / punk band in search of a good, off-beat song to cover.

Filmed entirely in sweaty close-up (we never get to see his band members – maybe they didn’t make it to the shoot?), Robertson works through some fairly bizarre shtick here, alternatively rolling his eyes and staring at the ground whilst delivering extraordinary lines about “making love to a colander” and such like. Wild stuff indeed.

Probably the most awkward segment in a film that often seems entirely predicated on awkwardness comes from a band named Night, who deliver the next musical performance. The musicians here resemble a Rorschach test of guys who all got kicked out of different bands for being too sleazy and/or thuggish, whilst out-front a Bonnie Tyler styled female vocalist belts out a tune entitled ‘I’m a Stripper’, which I refuse to describe further, simply on the basis that I don’t even want to think about it anymore.

After this traumatic experience, our septuagenarian protagonists enjoy The Monster Club’s own strip routine. Filmed in silhouette, this is actually a quite inventive bit of animation in which – surprise, surprise - the performer strips right down to her skeleton! (“What a glorious set of bones,” exclaims Price).

In what seems to be a bit of an R. Chetwynd-Hayes trademark, all of this jolly business suddently takes a darker turn than expected, as Price instigates a debate with the “club secretary” (who resembles a member of The Goodies dressed as a werewolf) over whether or not the author’s fictional analogue should be allowed to become the first human to attain membership of The Monster Club.

“Can we truly call this a monster club if we do not boast amongst our membership a single member of the human race?” Price asks, before running through a quick list of humanity’s more monstrous achievements before an audience of startled-looking extras in Halloween masks. The death camps, the trenches of WWI, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the witch trials and the horrors of the inquisition all get a look-in – oh, such laffs.

A celebratory closing number was clearly needed after that jarring bit of heavy-handed moralising, and who better to provide it than pioneering ‘60s/’70s psyche-rock wildmen The Pretty Things? As a fan of the band, I was very much looking forward to seeing them close the show, but - oh boy.

I know it has often been said that most survivors of the ‘60s found themselves in a pretty dark place at the dawn of the ‘80s, and, on the evidence of this footage, it seems as if the Prettys were feeling the pain more than most. I’ll spare you the sartorial details (although vocalist Phil May’s short-sleeved shirt must be singled out for its sheer awfulness), but, far more onerously, the band seem to have been taking some tips at this point from the cod-reggae sound of UB40 (who also contributed something or other to ‘The Monster Club’s soundtrack, although mercifully they declined to appear on-screen) and the results are… not good, to put it mildly.

The Pretty Things’ Wikipedia page notes that “the new wave sound did not improve their sales figures,” and that they split up shortly after filming their appearance for the film, but their gently skanking, prog-funk direction nonetheless apparently held enough appeal to get Price and Carradine out on the dance floor, where they proceed to boogie away unsteadily for a few minutes, Vincent dancing hand in hand with a young lady in an alien mask and a fat suit. It is not a sight easily forgotten.

Despite the evident silliness of these Monster Club segments, it’s still a shame I think that Cushing and Lee turned this one down. In spite of everything, the evident good feeling and ‘anything goes’ attitude that characterised the making of this film could have make it a delightfully irreverent farewell for the old gang.

I know that the wizards at Cannon deigned to bring us ‘House of Long Shadows’ a few years later, but, aside from the wonderful performances from all the horror stars, I’ve always found that film to be a rather dour, poorly conceived mess, in which director Pete Walker’s darker sensibility mitigated against the gentler, more whimsical take on gothic tropes that his stars (and their fans) might have preferred for their final curtain call.

If they’d all decided to call it a day with ‘The Monster Club’ though, well, just imagine – Vince, and John, and Peter all arthritically jiving to the last, spluttering gasps of The Pretty Things’ career, as Sir Chris sits glowering at a table in the corner, spluttering at the indignity of it all. Never fear though, I’m sure Vincent could have had a quick word in his ear, promising to insert some high-falutin’ reference to The Seal of Solomon into the script or something, at which point he’d have perked up a bit, and perhaps even smiled and snapped his fingers. Ah, it would have been lovely.

But -- he have what we have, and happily ‘The Monster Club’ is still far better than it really has any right to be. More than anything, it feels akin to watching a top quality Amicus anthology movie interspersed with a particularly barrel-scraping instalment of Top Of The Pops 2 - and what better entertainment could we in the British public possibly ask for than that? Why this hasn’t become a much-loved Christmas TV fixture, I can’t possibly imagine. I almost felt like swapping my usual hard liquor for a box of Quality Street and a milky cup of tea whilst watching it. Perfect comfort viewing for all the monster-lovin’ family.

Intermission: HALLOWEEN HORROR-ROCK SPECIAL: Born Too Late Radio Show # 4.

Well, it had to happen. How could it not?

As you’ll be aware if you’ve been reading this weblog for a while, I used to make a downloadable Halloween mix CD every October, and posted it both here and on my music weblog. [Check the mixtapes tag to peruse mixes from past years – links are probably dead, but always happy to re-up on request.]

Last year, I knocked this tradition on the head simply because filling eighty minutes with a consistent mix of top quality horror-related material was becoming a bit of a stretch, but since I’ve now started doing an irregular podcast/fake radio show thing (CHECK IT OUT), what more reason did I need to trek back through a whole decade’s worth of Halloween mixes, picking out my favourite bits and assembling an All Time Greatest Hits of Horror Rock / Best Halloween Radio Show Ever type play-list, with a little bit of added talking thrown in?

So, here it is. I can’t speak for talking bits, but if the music herein doesn’t get you in the mood for a ragin’ good All Hallows Eve, nothing will.

(Lacking the time or energy to pull together any original artwork, I did the next best thing and stole some promotional artwork for ‘The Monster Club’.)

Mixcloud box, full track-list with time-codes and mp3 download link follow.



00:30 Goblin - Tenebre
04:48 Roky Erickson & The Aliens - It's a Cold Night for Alligators
08:17 The Misfits - Night of the Living Dead
10:13 The Cramps - Teenage Werewolf
14:53 *blather one*
18:19 Blood Ceremony - Oliver Haddo
26:56 Exuma - Dambala
32:30 The Del Aires - The Zombie Stomp
34:46 *blather two*
36:35 H.P. Lovecraft - The White Ship
42:38 The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets - Goin' Down to Dunwich
45:44 Acanthus - Le Frission des Vampires
49:56 The Spits - Witch Hunt
51:40 *blather three*
53:18 Mike Rep & The Quotas - Donovan's Brain
59:28 Ultimate Spinach - (Ballad of the) Hip Death Goddess
67:36 The Factory - Path Through the Forest
71:34 *blather four*
73:09 Greg Stone - Here in the Darkness
75:00 Gravediggaz - Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide
78:56 B.A. Robertson - Sucker For Your Love
82:25 *blather five*
84:41 SSQ - Tonight (We'll Make Love Til We Die)
88:40 Electric Wizard - Devil's Bride
95:10 *blather six*
96:13 Mount Vernon Arts Lab - While London Sleeps
104:28 Michael Hurley - The Werewolf
110:11 *blather seven*
111:57 Roky Erickson - Bloody Hammer (acoustic)
117:36 Anaal Nathrakh - Pandemonic Hyperblast
121:32 Ada Moore - The Devil

(Download link.)