Supernatural

A vague childhood memory of creepy organ music and a lizard and a big house. Somehow these elements do make sense more than 40 years later now that I view Supernatural again. I was surprised to learn that only 8 episodes were made . Of uneven quality, yes. Studio bound ..yes. But convincing sets and the contrivance of the stories taking place in confined indoor locations makes the lack of location shooting immaterial . My first revisit to these episodes was the one with Gordon Jackson and the Marionettes. What a good actor he was and the acting is first rate on all the episodes I have so far revisited. Ian Hendry and Billie Whitelaw also give stand out performances in my view. It seems a shame that these performances have been hidden away for so long . Worth watching just to see these actors again in contexts that are not the ones we most commonly see them in on the oft repeated shows . Gordon Jackson after all , was not just Mr Hudson or overseeing the antics of Bodie and Doyle ! These stories are slow by today's editing standards but serve as showcases for the talents we alas miss . If you like the old gothic classics and prefer horrors which are implied rather than shown in CGI ( which is rarely convincing anyway ) , you could give this short series a try.

I too vaguely remembered this from my childhood (even though none of my mates of the same age do) - specifically, images of a man with white eyes laughing creepily and a coffin full of maggots, both of which caused me a few sleepless nights as a 9 year old. I knew it was screened once in 1977 and never again, but all other information (especially in the pre-internet days) was scant to say the least. After a long, long search, I recently tracked down a copy of the complete series and, with the organ music and images of gargoyles on the titles just as I remembered them, I settled down to a nostalgia fuelled extravaganza.

So is this series some lost masterpiece? Sadly no. The few remembered images I mentioned above all come from the last episode 'Dorabella' which is the best of the lot by a country mile and is an offbeat vampire story with a genuinely creepy atmosphere. The rest are rather hit and miss, and at 50 minutes each, some of the extremely flimsy stories stretch well past breaking point. This is especially noticeable in the two part 'Countess Ilona/Werewolf Reunion' which could easily have been done and dusted in 30 minutes flat. At virtually 2 hours, it's almost unbearable.

Although it features a veritable who's who of British TV stars of the 70's (Billie Whitelaw, Ian Hendry, Robert Hardy, Gordon Jackson, Leslie Ann Down et al), production values on the series are noticeably low, with all the action happening in one or two sets per episodes and with the camera virtually fixed in one place. There isn't much in the way of a suspenseful soundtrack, and any sudden close ups or panned shots are invariably accompanied by an over the top blast of organ music. The stilted dialogue is rather wooden and pretentious too; the writer (Robert Muller) seems to have aspirations toward the MR James end of the horror market but sadly, his talent seems to suggest more of a Clive James, but without the wit.

Ultimately, the series is worth sitting through on it's own merits, and these just about drag it above the curiosity/novelty value of watching a long forgotten series, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to sit through them all again.

While many people are familiar with the anthologies of Hammer House of Horror and Amicus productions, I had to learn about this particular BBC horror series from a random YouTube video. I am delighted to have found something compelling, well-written and of relatively high quality if you like subtle horror from the time period.

The magnificent queer episode Viktoria was a huge surprise considering the conventional morality of mid-20th century Brits (at least the middle class sort who were in charge) and the legendary censorship of Video Nasties in the following decades. Clearly it was inspired to a degree by the German 1930s film Viktor und Viktoria, better known to English speaking audiences in the 1982 Julie Andrews version.

There was at one time a tradition of late night horror that seemed to abound in the seventies in Britain.This is an episodic collection of tales linked together by the telling at a club of the damned.Ghosts,vampires and werewolves alongside other nightmarish scenarios (creepy Victorian dolls anyone?) and an interesting take on the Frankenstein story feature.This is what the BBC does best. Well written, intelligent and well acted stories.

The richly Gothic sounding organ music of Poulenc set to images of gargoyles tells you what kind of series this is. The sort they don't make any more. "Supernatural" is a series for people who may enjoy reading old Gothic horror short stories or the original novels "Dracula" and "Frankenstein". Not for those who like today's style of horror movie. Beneath the horror fantasy "Supernatural" may as well be called "Unnatural" as it focuses on Victorian sexual repression almost as much as it pays homage to Mary Shelley, Sheridan Le Fanu etc.

A little peaceful time to yourself is essential if you really want to escape into this slow building wordy world of sinister misty nights. Join the Club of the Damned,or at least damned good actors achieving mixed results. Two episodes are much too peculiar and addled (like "Mr Nightingale" - ear-trumpets and all - too boring). "Mr Nightingale" and the one with Denholm Elliot would make the M.R. James "Ghost Stories For Chritmas" look modern and sexy. However Billie Whitelaw is so beautiful, elegant and lethal in the two-parter "Countess Ilona" and "Werewolf Reunion"."Night of the Marionettes" is worth seeing with Gordon Jackson and Pauline Moran on the trail of Mary Shelley(in which Sdyney Bromley, the little actor who whees up the wall as the Porter in Polanski's MacBeth, adds to the tone). You'll be trying to place the mysterious looking actor Vladek Sheybal too - ("From Russia With Love").

"Dorabella" is another atmospheric piece of escapism before bedtime. If you have a lot of patience!

There are some nice twists regarding some of the storytellers.

Join the club.