Day 3079 : (4)4555175 steps

The long over due post....

I've been kinda busy but that doesn't mean I haven't been seeking out things to review. So without further excuses on my part...

Armchair Thriller : Quiet as a Nun

After seeing that Hammer House of Horror I got to thinking about other things that had scared me witless as a child. 'Armchair Thriller' was a show from Thames Television back in the late 70's. I always remembered two things about it. The first was the spooky intro sequence which pictured an armchair (duh!) in a semi-darkened room. Along comes a shadow of a man which walks up to seat and appears to sit in it. And, just to make that final impact the eerie music swells as the shadow opens it's hands and the camera zooms quickly into the face of the spectre. Always used to put the willies up me then and I'm not sure if I have childhood issues or something but I still find it unnerving now, wuss that I am!

So to the episode in question. Well, I thought it was just an episode but it turns out to be six but memories of the show are limited to one scene inparticular. The scene in question is when Jemima Shore, the lead character (who later went on to have a series dedicated to her investigations called, origianlly, 'Jemima Shore Investigates'), while expolring an old tower near the nunnery encounters the Black Nun (no relation to the Blue Nun, that awful table wine favoured by elderly brits abroad). Here is the clip....here!

Now, even now I still think the nun looks pretty evil but back when I was about eight years old I thought it was terrifying, espescially since I then had to go up to my room on my own and tidy up my lego that I'd been playing with earlier. It didn't help having two older brothers telling me that the Black Nun was going to get me while I was up there. No sirrreeee!

Anyway, nostalgia aside, the entire saga is on youtube so you can go and check it out for yourselves if you really want to but I wasn't overly impressed with the entire thing. Although some of the performances are great and there are some very atmospheric moments, it is generally a bit slow and also ends in a very contrived manner, almost like an episode of Scooby Doo. It does have a mixed bag castwise too,including David Burke (Dr Watson in the Sherlock Holmes TV show by Granada), James Laurenson (who appeared in 'The Monster Club' amongst other things...but more about that later!) and a very young Patsy Kensit as one of the convent schoolgirls who doesn't give too bad a performance to be honest.

So, perhaps more Armchair Thrillers soon (as there is another episode that creeped me out back then but for different reasons)...? Maybe.
Dead Snow

Horray for zombies!! Double huzzah for zombie nazis!!!! Had a voucher for a free DVD rental from our local Blockbuster but since they didn't stock my preferred title ('Tokyo Gore Police') I went for this Norwegian effort instead. That makes it sound like I was disappointed and that this film turned out to be a chore but that's not true. I'd heard good things about 'Dead Snow' and seen a few clips and was intrigued enough to want to see it. I mean, it's not often that a decent zombie flick comes around so make the most of 'em when they do.

It's the usual premise of the bunch of teenagers go holidaying in an isolated cottage and unwittingly unleash an old evil that'll kill them all. This time the cottage is a chalet in the snowy mountains and frozen fjords of Norway, the teenagers are a group of medical students that provide the usual death fodder for the ol' evil...yes, nazi zombies!!! Do they kill them all? Well, without this being a spoiler for a number of reasons, yes they do. Why is this not a spoiler? Firstly, I'm really struggling to remember any zombie film where the undead lose to the living. Can anyone think of any? Secondly, my oldest son asked what happens and I told him everyone dies. Thinking this rather sad, I comforted him by explaining how horror flicks will often add a twist ending (sometimes for no reasonable reason!) in which the final survivor will die or at least left in mortal peril. To illustrate I showed him the final scenes from the original 'Friday 13th' and 'Nightmare on Elm Street'! Much humour was gleaned from Nancy's dummy Mom being dragged through the window (especially as I showed it over and over again quickly adding my own daft sound effects). Anyway, I digress...

'Dead Snow' goes overboard on the grue when things eventually get going. Yes, it's a bit slow to start but it soon warms up. The setting is nice and bleak, the zombies are always more evil-looking when dressed in the garb of the Third Reich and the gore is slapstick and sickenening in equal doses. For a low budget film it does very well, delivering what it says on the tin with aplomb! I only ask, please, no sequal!! There is no need and it just wouldn't work.

Hammer House of Horror : Rude Awakening

Yes, I've also seen another episode. This one, I believe was the first one to be aired and featured Denholm Elliot as an estate agent who gets caught up in a macabre 'Groundhog Day' sort of plot. He plans to leave his wife and marry his secretary but when he visits a rundown country house for a valuation he is accused of murdering his wife by a disembodied voice as the body of his spouse tumbles out of the dumb waiter. He awakes, writes it all off as a bad dream but then it all starts to happen again, in a roundabout way. Each dream is different slightly (for example, the secretary goes through a variety of fashion disasters, the house is delapidated, then not there at all and then back but well kept, etc) but they always end with the voice accusing him of murder. The voice is provided by the man who enters the office at the beginning of the story and sends Denholm to the house...James Laurenson again!!! Okay, so it's only a minor coincidence but these things have a habit of snowballing in my tiny mind.

This episode was nowhere near as unnerving as the Doppelganger story mentioned earlier but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I'll probably mention more episodes as I see them.

Now, talking of coincidences, I mentioned zombies never lose, yes? Well, I had a quick game of Top Trumps with my son earlier using the Horror deck. After a long, drawn out game, I eventually won. Why do I mention this? Well, I beat his last card with a none too special one of my own. Yeah, you guessed the twist ending to this tale. It was the zombie card!!! What are the chances of that happening, eh?

:p