is there a name or a phrase for or anything much written about that distinctly British CREEPY VIBE prevalent in TV shows and movies of the '60s/'70s? (e.g. The Prisoner, Sapphire and Steel, Baker-era

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i saw your post upthread after i posted NV. I'm pleased to say it is definitely a load of old rubbish.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 05:49 (nine years ago) link

one of the major drawbacks of encroaching senility is when i post the same story to ilx twice :/

confessions of hellno (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 17 June 2015 05:51 (nine years ago) link

keeps things fresh and helps avoid a pass-agg "as I said upthread".

speaking of senility it's my birthday today and i might treat myself to rudkin's adaptation of the ash tree which i didnt realise was rudkin until i saw your earlier post.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 05:57 (nine years ago) link

Happy Birthday!

creepy thread to wish it on but marking the passage of time ties in nicely i guess

confessions of hellno (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 17 June 2015 05:58 (nine years ago) link

perfect thread for it. I'm hoping my incipient decay takes the form of a frail degeneration in the face of some sort of cosmic onslaught from the past.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 06:02 (nine years ago) link

and thanks!

Fizzles, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 06:02 (nine years ago) link

Hb!

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 08:08 (nine years ago) link

Hey Happy Birthday!

woof, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 09:42 (nine years ago) link

cheers everyone! no creepy vibe yet, just a day with gf around london, couple of galleries maybe (that thing helen dewitt contributed to) and some wine and food definitely. but who knows what lurks etc

Fizzles, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 10:30 (nine years ago) link

http://images.tvrage.com/people/14/39008.jpg

Happy 21st Fizzles!

feargal czukay (NickB), Wednesday, 17 June 2015 11:07 (nine years ago) link

If you want a birthday pint I'm not rushing home after work tonight.

woof, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 11:39 (nine years ago) link

What's the Helen Dewitt thing? xp

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 11:41 (nine years ago) link

Happy Day!

(If I'm remembering the stone children correctly)

demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 17 June 2015 11:42 (nine years ago) link

thanks one and all. am sitting in my garden right now drinking wine so won't make that post-work drink today - but soon, soon.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 17:05 (nine years ago) link

http://i.imgur.com/uwEkYzc.jpg

ledge, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 21:31 (nine years ago) link

substantial lol.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 22:27 (nine years ago) link

oh my

tokyo rosemary, Thursday, 18 June 2015 00:39 (nine years ago) link

hehehe

erry red flag (f. hazel), Thursday, 18 June 2015 02:03 (nine years ago) link

apologies for late night poor quality photoshopping

ledge, Thursday, 18 June 2015 08:25 (nine years ago) link

!!!

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 19 June 2015 22:56 (nine years ago) link

The Stone Tape is getting a radio adaptation this Halloween, to be directed by Peter Strickland (mentioned at the end of this article):

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/jun/17/duke-of-burgundy-director-peter-strickland-radio-play-len-continuum

painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Wednesday, 24 June 2015 11:50 (nine years ago) link

that's great news. every chance he'll do a better job than the original imo. this makes sense in terms of triangulating the PS aesthetic i think.

Fizzles, Friday, 26 June 2015 00:40 (nine years ago) link

four months pass...

Just got hold of a DVD of The Changes, an old 1970s sci fi for children. It looks fantastic. Can't wait to watch it.

canoon fooder (dog latin), Wednesday, 28 October 2015 12:01 (nine years ago) link

i remember seeing that around my cousin's at the time (was itv iirc, we were a bbc household. no magpie for us...)

koogs, Wednesday, 28 October 2015 12:24 (nine years ago) link

New radio version of The Stone Tape on Friday by Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06g63fh

suffeeciant attreebution (aldo), Wednesday, 28 October 2015 12:26 (nine years ago) link

Thanks for the reminder, aldo. As I said upthread, have a certain amount of expectation this will be better than the original.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 28 October 2015 14:27 (nine years ago) link

It was but I still have reservations. Sound design was superb and genuinely scary, even in not 3D. Horrifying 1970s banter was toned down (I wondered if they were going to give it a modern day setting but I suppose no-one could ever be excited anymore by the prospect of a new recording medium.) The ending still felt weak though and I'm not sure it would have made any sense to anyone who hadn't seen the original.

ledge, Monday, 2 November 2015 14:14 (nine years ago) link

this seems relevant:

Haunted half-hours – how the BBC made Christmas creepy

http://gu.com/p/4dmgq?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, 2 November 2015 14:19 (nine years ago) link

there's a 6 disc box of bbc christmas ghost stories, featuring a shedload of MR James and a bunch of stuff i don't remember.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009XD7M2Y

has nobody mentioned the Amazing Mr Blunden?

koogs, Monday, 2 November 2015 14:37 (nine years ago) link

That BBC box is great.

Stone Tape was really well done but, yes, I think you needed a little familiarity with the original for it to work properly.

suffeeciant attreebution (aldo), Monday, 2 November 2015 14:43 (nine years ago) link

three months pass...

Saw The Owl Service mentioned as a see also on some page about Penda's Fen so decided to watch it while waiting for the latter to download (still waiting). (I never read the book, always assumed it was owl service like postal service.) For a kid's show it's certainly far out there. The sexual undercurrents are very confusing given that the kids are supposed to be teenagers, they're played by actors in their 20s, and they behave like 12 year olds. The first episode is creepy and weird enough - aided by the fact that the stepmother, theoretically a significant character, is never seen or heard but has her pronouncements issued via other characters - but it soon succumbs to the deathly slowness of yesteryear; aside from occasional plot snippets over half the episodes feel not just dispensable but downright irritating, lovesick teenagers mooning about or being insufferable snobbish pricks. No holds barred for the batshit final episode though: torrential rain and muddy pratfalls, oilskin-clad gurning loony villagers, a darth vader moment, and a climax that seems to foreshadow The Exorcist.

ledge, Monday, 22 February 2016 09:28 (eight years ago) link

four weeks pass...

is there somewhere i can download penda's fen online?

started watching the Children's serial 'Box of Delights'. It's weird and unsettling and makes very little sense.

draxx them sklounst (dog latin), Monday, 21 March 2016 15:27 (eight years ago) link

I had to torrent it, one seeder.

Box of Delights definitely a favourite of my childhood, I can still remember the theme. One major caveat though which I won't spoil.

ledge, Monday, 21 March 2016 19:08 (eight years ago) link

I think I got pendas fen by downloading it from YouTube a couple of years ago when there were still iOS apps that'd do that

scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Monday, 21 March 2016 19:58 (eight years ago) link

Penda's Fen is getting a DVD release in May, if you're willing to wait/would rather obtain it legally.

emil.y, Monday, 21 March 2016 20:06 (eight years ago) link

Just watched a VHS rip on YouTube last night

JoeStork, Monday, 21 March 2016 20:15 (eight years ago) link

Another big tick for Box of Delights. It hit me squarely at the right time, when I was six or seven and in the lead in to Christmas. Have a strong sentimental attachment to it, and will still occasionally watch at Christmas. Both that and The Midnight Folk have similar 'anything anywhere' magic - with a very mutable human form and spirit that gives access to a total possible immersion into all corners of nature, time and mythology. It's quite appealing in one way - Raymond Lully escaping Troy but captured by medieval pirates, with Edwardian schoolboy in attednace - but has a knock on effect that the progress of events-in-settings are incoherent, the lack of restriction somehow dispersing a train of emotional investment. That's much less a problem in the TV series though, and the theme music is quite magical, I'm not sure it will ever leave me.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 23 March 2016 17:07 (eight years ago) link

never watched it but vividly remember the trailers for it (and even then i thought the sfx were shonky looking)

"Come, be a beast with me in my wild wood..."

wouldn't get away with that today...

koogs, Wednesday, 23 March 2016 17:26 (eight years ago) link

Just looked up the main title music. Fantastic. It's taken from A Carol Symphony by a composer named Hely-Hutchinson (looks like there is a recording on Naxos)

scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 23 March 2016 17:43 (eight years ago) link

oh ok. that's interesting! will seek out. it's so totally bound up with childhood that I'm incapble of fair critical assessment, which is always quite an enjoyable state.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 23 March 2016 23:13 (eight years ago) link

It's The First Noel, right? I thought everyone knew that tune?

draxx them sklounst (dog latin), Wednesday, 23 March 2016 23:20 (eight years ago) link

yes, but it's incorporated into a slightly sinister even sour sounding theme, which is what I'm assuming Jon is referring to.

Fizzles, Wednesday, 23 March 2016 23:35 (eight years ago) link

Yes it's some time before the first Noel really emerges and I like that opening material quite a lot

scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Thursday, 24 March 2016 00:32 (eight years ago) link

It's quite interesting how that music modulates into the carol, yeah.

draxx them sklounst (dog latin), Thursday, 24 March 2016 09:32 (eight years ago) link

What is the show that's being referenced as 'Tlentifini Maarhaysu' on Look Around You? I definitely remember a show like this being broadcast a little bit before the children's programmes came on during the 80s, and I thought it might be Box of Delights, but now I don't think so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8NUwZUlgV8

draxx them sklounst (dog latin), Thursday, 24 March 2016 09:34 (eight years ago) link

It's the title sequence from an old BBC2 documentary strand "The World About Us."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGTnZ0mAhMY

It's quite disturbing how much the obnoxious posh lad in the Owl Service resembles a young David Cameron, although appropriate given the class-heavy overtones of the story.

Pheeel, Thursday, 24 March 2016 10:09 (eight years ago) link

Thanks Pheel.

I do love a heavily processed flute, I must say...

draxx them sklounst (dog latin), Thursday, 24 March 2016 10:34 (eight years ago) link

For those interested in this sort of thing, I can recommend the Facebook group 'Folk Horror Revival'

draxx them sklounst (dog latin), Thursday, 24 March 2016 12:35 (eight years ago) link

one month passes...

Woke up this morning with an image in my mind from what I think was a TV show of this ilk. Two or three or four sinister figures loom supernaturally large over a landscape, peering down at our plucky protagonists. Large heads in the sky at the top of the screen, dark robes fading down to the horizon. Any ideas?

I've had Eno, ugh (ledge), Thursday, 5 May 2016 08:16 (eight years ago) link


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