That title caught your attention, didn’t it? Well, for a very select few of Picturenose’s readers (the current book’s on around two), that particular time, on a particular day (Friday, in fact) may have particular significance. For myself, it’s what I associate with the beginnings of my lifelong love of the horror genre so, if you can drag yourself away from Colin’s rave reviews of absolutely every film ever made for just a few minutes, pour yourself a decent Scotch and sit by a glowing fire. I’d like to tell you a little story. It’s all about Fear on Friday…insert your own diabolical laughter here.
For me, a child of the 1970s and 80s, the horror began one enchanted evening in 1981 (give or take). Previously, my only real experiences of cinematic fear were being scared witless by the wicked queen turning into an old hag in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) or the other wicked queen turning into a truly terrifying dragon at the end of Sleeping Beauty (1957).
At the tender age of ten, however, all that was about to change, when my mum and dad by mutual agreement allowed me to stay up and watch Tales From The Crypt (1972), Freddie Francis’ really rather good take on stories from the old 1950s EC comic strips of the same name, by Johnny Craig, Al Feldstein and William M. Gaines.
Of course, I didn’t know at the time that it was a really rather good take on anything – I was just excited about staying up and being able to watch a ‘proper’ horror film that had only been made nine years previously, and I knew I’d be able to crow about it in the playground on Monday morning. For those of you who paid attention to my Fear on Friday reference in the intro, fear not, all will be explained presently, but this particular fright-fest was being screened on a Saturday night, starting at 11pm. So, with the valves on my pride-and-joy black-and-white portable suitably warmed up, I settled down to watch the fun unfold.
And I was scared – the film follows a by-now very familiar (even hackneyed) format, with five strangers wandering off the tour-guide’s path in a suitably atmospheric crypt (filmed in fact at Highgate Cemetery, London Correction – Only the opening credits sequence was filmed at Highgate, see comments) only to be greeted by the cowled Crypt Keeper (Sir Ralph Richardson) in a hidden chamber, the door of which closes once the five reluctant (soon to be very reluctant) guests (Joan Collins, Roy Dotrice, Richard Greene, Ian Hendry, Nigel Patrick) have arrived. Because, you see, old CK has a yarn to spin for each – a peep into their truly horrific futures, and we’re along for the ride…
I’m not going to spoil any of the five tales for you, nor the dénoument. Suffice to say that the stories, acting and direction still hold up after a good 39 years, with three of the episodes (Reflection of Death, Wish You Were Here and Blind Alleys) being absolute belters. And when Sir Ralph, having despatched the miscreants to their ultimate fate, turned to the screen at the end and intoned: ‘So, who’s next? Perhaps you…’, my own destiny was sealed. The horror, the horror…
We were going to talk about Fear on Friday and that all-important time reference, weren’t we? Well, here goes – just so you know that I keep my promises. Thanks to my baptism, it goes without saying that I was now hooked on horror – luckily enough, I lived in a time before ITV had become a sprawling, generic behemoth and there were regional, independent stations. I lived in York, but we were able to receive the Tyneside and Teesside channel that went by the cunning name of, wait for it, Tyne Tees. Among the diverse delights on offer on TT (that had, fact fans, a link man who was to be the inspiration for Viz‘s ‘Roger Mellie – The Man on the Telly’) was a regular Friday night horror-film slot that began two minutes after ITN’s News at Ten had finished, with ‘local stories for local people’ filling the space before the magic 10.32pm arrived.
And it was here that my real love of things that slither by moonlight began – a truly marvellous collection of horror films drawn from after Universal’s Golden Age (ie the 1930s and 1940s), but not modern enough to mean that Tyne Tees had to cough up higher screening-rights payments. It was only a small station, you understand…
The list of films that I first saw here, huddled under my covers, rising only to give the rapidly failing TV increasingly boisterous punches, would fill two websites. I’ll offer you a selection, of course, to give a feel of the flavour – Robert Fuest’s marvellous The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971), Roy Ward Baker’s best-of-the-bunch installment, Quatermass and The Pit (1967), Jim O’ Connolly’s bloody awful (that’s me talking now) but wonderfully gory (talking then) Tower of Evil (1972) – but this kind of homework, you’ll really have to do for yourself. Let me point you in the right direction, with a handy link – Amicus Productions, who produced the lion’s share of the movies (including Tales From The Crypt) that were Fear on Friday‘s spiritual home, including several other examples of the compendium horror genre. NOT to be confused with Hammer, OK?
As a footnote, try if you can to catch Dr Terror’s House Of Horrors (1964). This was the first of Amicus’s multi-story efforts, again directed by Freddie Francis. It wasn’t actually any good, but it has a simply never-to-be repeated cast, including Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing (no real surprises there, fair enough), but with special appearances by a very young Donald Sutherland, Michael Gough, Roy Castle, and, get this, Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman. Is that scary? Not ‘arf…
And so, the Crypt Keeper draws the stroll down memory lane to a close. Any similar reminiscences you’d like to share? Don’t tell me you saw Fear on Friday too?
Heh, heh, heh…
Only the opening footage for Tales from the Crypt was filmed in Highgate Cemetery, (the opening credit sequence), the rest was studio bound. There are no catacombs like that at Highgate. I should know, I work there! Sorry to shatter illusions, but the cemetery never looks as good as it does in the movies.
Dear Alan,
Many thanks for the contribution – I shall insert a correction into the text, and make sure that I check all my Highgate references in future! Just out of interest, were you working there when the outside footage filming took place, way back in the early 1970s? You’ve seen the film, obviously…
Nice comment, thanks again.
Ah yes, those were the days, James. You’ve sent me on an extraordinary nostalgia trip!
I remember that the Friday night BBC2 horror double bills played around the same time. There would be a black and white film, something like The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) and then there would be a colour movie, such as The Ghoul (1975). The second movie, being on later and being more modern would always promise more gore, more violence and more heaving breasts. However tame these movies now seem in our jaded mid-30s (late 30s for James) it all seemed so transgressive back then. These were the days when everything looked interesting, when the quality of the script or the acting was of no importance – to me at any rate. These were the days when Damien: Omen 2 (1978) rushed straight to the top of our top ten lists, just because a man got cleaved in half in slow motion.
James used to torment me with Tales from the Crypt (1972) because, you see, my folks wouldn’t let me see it. And James had no qualms in telling me that it was a belter at every opportunity he could. I got my own back, because I saw Jaws (1975) before he did and when it comes to belting no film belts bigger than Jaws. Not even Alien (1979), really. But Poltergeist (1982) we saw together, on James’s birthday as I remember. I slept over at his house on Millfield Lane in Poppleton, near York, and we watched it over and over. Happy days. If it wasn’t for horror films, I don’t think I’d ever have got into cinema.
However cheesy the genre can be, there’s always a certain flair and imagination in horror-movie mise en scene and montage. How do you maximise threat in each set-up? How do you cut away to hide the limits of your budget? Horror movies are often cheap, dirty and nasty, but the great thing is that good mise en scene can be cheap and an edit costs no film at all. So, you get The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Wolf Creek (2005) both of which are in fact anemic when compared with their contemporaries, but both shattering in their effect. Horror movies are where visual directors can flex their muscles and still make a profit.
All the way back to the very first moving images there have always been two strands in cinema – realism, from the Lumière brothers and trickery, by George Méliès. And trickery is where cinema has its strength. You see, when Kubrick slices out a few million years of evolution – not to mention exposition – from the story in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and the bone cuts seemlessly into an orbiting bomb, it’s not only very witty, it’s magical. When Tarkovsky encapsulates the entirety of the author’s world within a cathedral at the end of Nostalgia (1983) in one elegant reverse dolly, it’s trickery again, this time through a developing mise en scene. In both cases, meaning and emotion are conjured from thin air, just like The Beast with Five Fingers did when I was ten. Tricking the eye is the be-all and the end-all of cinema – even if it is just an actress walking through a door to a new set that’s a thousand miles away.
Chris – an ENORMOUS pleasure to sub that comment of yours, and I don’t say that very often.
Don’t think I can sum up the time, emotion or genre any better than you have – if truth be told, I was even getting a little misty-eyed when I wrote the post, and the same goes for when I was reading your piece.
Truly, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, eh? Both of us have grown up now (you less so) with an encyclopedic knowledge of the art form and, like you, I can only attribute that to falling in love with being scared/horrified/grossed out (to paraphrase Mr King) at the age that we did.
It’s a genre that will fascinate as long as there are shadows flickering on the wall – or just out of the corner of the eye, when kids are sat round a camp fire, trying to scare each other. So I’ll say it again – thank you, thank you, Fear on Friday...
Yes, I have to admit I went on a little sentimental trip back to our childhood. For young lads growing up in the wonderful countryside surrounding York we didn’t half make good use of it, staying in and watching video nasties in the dark all day.
Remember Reg and the ciné club? And showing the budding film scene in York how it was done with our own ‘trilogy of terror’: The Risen (1983), Yuletide (1984) and The Mutilation Show (1984)? I wonder if they thought that we were a bit odd, making films in which we killed each other!
I don’t know if you’ve seen Son of Rambow (2007) yet, but it’s all very poignant.
But, then again, they sent you to Archbishop Holgate’s Grammar School. You never really recovered from that. Mind you, I don’t know how you would have fared in a ‘real’ school…
Yes, I’ve never forgiven you for not giving me the lead in Yuletide (1984) – I threw an entirely justified little strop at the time, as I recall, which was of course entirely out of character for me…
I lived in Cumbria, which had the less-than thriling Border Television and its 11pm closedown, but managed to see Fear on Friday (sometimes called Horror Night) on Tyne Tees when over in the North East. I managed to catch such gems as The Legend of Hell House, From Beyond The Grave (1974), Tales from the Crypt (1973) and John Badham’s 1979 remake of Dracula. Fear on Friday gained extra kudos from me, as most of the films were British.
Kudos to yourself, Glenn, for your taste in 70s British horror.
I too adored Freddie Francis’s Tales from the Crypt, and also have a real fondness for From Beyond the Grave – as I say, those were the days to watch horror.