The Creeper

Last night I watched an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called "The Creeper", which was about a blue-collar New York neighbourhood which is plagued by a serial killer, called The Creeper, who targets women who are home alone while their husbands work nights. The story focuses on a woman left alone who spends a nightmarish evening dealing with her unsympathetic husband, sadistic ex-boyfriend, strange janitor and the completely evil woman next door, along with her own increasing paranoia about The Creeper. Despite containing no violence at all it was probably the scariest thing I have ever seen on TV, with a memorable shock ending. It had that feeling that the best episodes of The Twilight Zone had that anything could happen at any time.

It was another pretty quiet day at work. I got in at nine and left at half past five. Back home I had a microwave spaghetti and meatballs ready meal.

Mr. Denton on Doomsday

Last night I listened to a radio adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called "The Blanched Soldier" in which Sherlock Holmes helps an ex-soldier track down his missing friend, while Dr. Watson is away enjoying his honeymoon. It wasn't a bad story at all. Later on I watched an episode of The Twilight Zone called "Mr. Denton on Doomsday", with the audio commentary on which featured Martin Landau (who is probably best known for playing Bela Lugosi in the film Ed Wood). It was an interesting commentary, where Landau revealed that in his early days in Hollywood he appeared in so many Westerns that he developed a very painful rash between his legs from having to sit on horseback in saddles for so much time, he also said that during the early days of television the sets were so flimsy that it was a genuine worry for actors that the sets could fall down on top of them. I always think the best audio commentaries are ones where the speakers do have genuine affection for the show or movie, but at the same time are not blind to the flaws. Later on I watched another episode of True Blood on DVD.

It was another quiet day at work today. One of the team leaders had brought in food for one of the other teams and about two tables were full of four or five pizzas, platters of sandwiches, crisps, tortilla chips, miniature sausages, scotch eggs, dips, spicy chicken, cakes and so on as well as about six large bottles of fizzy drink. Most food at work, after about an hour, looks like it has been attacked by a plague of locusts, but because there was so much there was actually still a lot left and so a few of us who were staying in a bit later managed to have a couple of platefuls each, which was nice. I've taken tomorrow and Thursday off work for no real reason, but I think it'll be nice.

It's my Dad's birthday today and he phoned me up before I left for work this morning to thank me for his present, so I'm glad that he liked it.

Following

Last night I was listening to another radio adaptation of a 1959 episode of The Twilight Zone called "Time Enough at Last", in which a bank clerk never has enough time to do his reading until a new type of H-bomb is detonated in his city, while he is taking his lunch break in the bank's vault, and soon finds himself with enough time to do all the reading he wants. It was probably one of the best known episodes of the TV series. I also listened to an episode of Classic Tales of Horror called "My Own True Ghost Story" by Rudyard Kipling about an Englishman who spends a terrifying night in a haunted bungalow in India.

Later on last night I watched the 1998 film Following, directed by Christopher Nolan. The film is a really low budget, black and white thriller set in London about an unemployed would-be writer (Jeremy Theobald) whose main interest in life is following random people around without their knowledge. Until one day he meets a charismatic burglar (Alex Haw) who plays psychological games with his victims, and finds himself drawn into a dark and dangerous world. The movie was shot in London over the weekends and is probably best known as the debut of Christopher Nolan, who has since gone on to be a major Hollywood director (with films such as Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight and the up coming Inception). The movie has a very complex flashback structure and is kind of too tricksy for it's own good at times and a lot of the acting is enthusiastic to put it mildly, but it is still worth watching.

Today I went out to the city centre and got some wrapping paper for my dad's birthday present (it's his birthday on Tuesday) and I got the second season of True Blood on DVD and a book called Human Is? by Philip K. Dick, it's a selection of his short fiction and includes the stories that inspired the films Total Recall, Screamers, Paycheck and the up coming film The Adjustment Bureau.

Commentary

Last night I listened to another episode of Classic Tales of Horror on the radio. This one was called "The Mezzotint" by M. R. James, in which a university professor who buys art works on behalf of his college and is annoyed to be sent an average print of an unknown country house by an anonymous artist, however he is shocked that night when the print begins to move and reveal a gruesome secret.

Later on I was watching an episode of The Twilight Zone on DVD. The episode I watched was the original pilot of the show from 1959 called "Where is Everybody?" In which a man arrives in a small town and is disturbed to discover that he is apparently the only living thing around. I listened to the audio commentary by actor Earl Holliman, which was pretty interesting, with lots of interesting bits of trivia about the show (the set they used for the town was later used for the 1950s scenes in Back to the Future, and the scene where the guy finds himself trapped in a telephone booth was based on something that happened to writer Rod Serling in an airport where he thought he was trapped in a telephone booth only to eventually realise that he was opening the door the wrong way). Audio commentaries on DVDs can sometimes be really bad, but they can often be really interesting.

It was another really dull day at work today, but at least it is Friday and time for the weekend.

Red Riding

Over the past few days I read Nineteen Eighty and Nineteen Eighty-Three by David Peace, the final two volumes in the "Red Riding" series of dark crime thrillers. In Nineteen Eighty the Yorkshire Ripper killings continue and the police are heavily criticised for failing to stop the murders and honest cop Peter Hunter is assigned to look over the investigation and basically police the police. However Hunter soon finds that he has lifted the lid on a world of horrific violence and police corruption and before long his investigation threatens to destory him and everyone he loves. In Nineteen Eighty-Three three seperate plot lines, linked by the investigation into a missing girl, bring the series to a bleak and brutal conclusion. Read seperately the books don't really make much sense, although I thought Nineteen Eighty was the best in the series, which actually has a more conventional plot-line and a more sympathetic narrator. It's been a very good and very well-written series but the problem is that it is so unrelentingly gloomy and violent.

Last night I listened to the second part of a radio adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, and also an episode of The Price of Fear in which Vincent Price introduced the story of a writer who decides to spend a night locked in to a wax museum's Chamber of Horrors in order to get inspiration, however next morning he has mysteriously died of fright.

Later on I listened to a radio adaptation of a 1964 episode of The Twilight Zone called "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" based on a story by Charles Beaumont, about a future society in which at the age of nineteen everyone is forced to undergo a form of plastic surgery in which their face and body is changed to one of a series of templates, and so everyone looks and acts exactly the same. It was a good story and worked really well on the radio.

It was another really dull and ordinary day at work again today and I was glad to get back home.

A Terribly Strange Bed

Last night I was listening to a show on the radio called Classic Tales of Horror, which was a reading of a story called "A Terribly Strange Bed" by Wilkie Collins about an English tourist in Paris who wins big at a disreputable gambling den and unwisely accepts the hospitality of a complete stranger. I also listened to the first part of a radio dramatisation of Murder on the Orient Express based on the novel by Agatha Christie. I also listened to a couple of radio adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the first one Holmes is called in to investigate when a dead man is found with some plans for a top secret submarine, and in the second Holmes appears to be dying of a fatal tropical illness.

Much later on I listened to a radio adaptation of a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone called "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" by Richard Matheson, in which a nervous flyer, on a turbulant plane journey, is horrified to see a monsterous creature on the wing of the plane messing around with the engine. To make matters worse, he is the only one who can see it. The show was one of the most famous episodes of the original TV series with William Shatner as the frightened flyer, and was also adapted as a segment of the 1982 Twilight Zone movie. The show worked really well on the radio, partly because you did't have the unconvincing monster from the TV version which, according to Matheson, looked like "a surly teddy bear."

It was another really dull and ordinary day at work today. I got a steak pie and chips on my way back home today, so that was quite nice.

Hansel and Gretel

Last night I watched the film Hansel and Gretel, a 2007 horror film from South Korea directed by Yim Pil-Sung. Following a car crash a young salesman Eun-soo (played by Cheon Jeon-yeoung) finds himself lost in a deep dark forest when he encounters a young girl (Shim Eun-kyung) who tkes him to her house in the middle of the forest where she lives with her older brother and younger sister and their parents. The house is like a child's paradise full of cakes, sweets, toys, picture books and Christmas decorations, and the family are seemingly completely perfect. However Eun-soo soon discovers that there are dark supernatural forces at work in the house and the children have their own ways of exacting on anyone who displeases them. The film is very stylish and very strange, belonging very much to the "fairy-tale for adults" genre. It's kind of like a cross between Pan's Labyrinth and that Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" about the psychic boy who can read minds and turn people into monsters or make them disappear.

It was another quiet day at work and fairly dull, as usual. I've been reading a biography of The Beatles, which is really interesting. It's hard to think of any bands of recent times that have had such a huge level of adoration and fame.

Escape Clause

Last night I was watching another episode of Doctor Who from 1964. It always surprises me how little the design of the Daleks has changed in the past forty-six years. They've updated them a bit, but they are still basically the same. I was also watching an episode of The Twilight Zone called "Escape Clause" in which a paranoid hypochondriac makes a deal with the Devil for eternal life, however he soon gets bored and attempts to add some excitement to his life yields some surprising results.

Today I went in to work and it was pretty much a dull ordinary day. However, I am now off work for about two weeks, except for a week on Tuesday when I've got to be in for a day. It will be really good to be off for a bit.

Memories of "Casino"

Last night I was watching an episode of The Twilight Zone from 1959, about a stressed out executive who returns to his old home town and finds himself transported back in time and meets his family and himself as an eleven year old. I also watched one of the first Doctor Who episodes from 1963, it was the first story to feature the Daleks (the show's most popular adversary). It's really interesting going back to the earliest epsiodes of shows that you like and seeing how they begin. It often takes awhile to get everything worked out in a series. It's interesting that Doctor Who was originally conceived as an educational series to teach kids about history, and most of the stories were not intended science-fiction elements aside from the central premise of time-travelling, however they would put in the odd trip to the future and other planets for a bit of variety. However it soon became apparent that viewers much preferred the science-fiction stories to the historical ones and they were quickly phased out after a few years.

I also watched a documentary about the true story behind the Martin Scorsese film Casino. It was really interesting although I knew a lot of it already because I had read the Nicholas Pileggi book that the film was based on. I remember watching the film with my Gran and in one scene where Joe Pesci's character had comitted a brutal murder and was going on a swear-laden rant, my Gran piped up with: "Eee, Joe, you don't want to be using language like that. You'll get your mouth washed out with soap and water." Bad language was the only thing that ever really bothered my Gran. I remember she was once complaining about something she had seen on TV and I said to her that I thought she liked her murder stories, and Gran replied: "Oh, I love my murders, but only the nice ones." I asked her what exactly a nice murder was, and she thought for a bit before replying: "Well, one where no-one uses any bad language."

I had a really bad night's sleep last night and I was absolutely stuffed up with the cold this morning. The whole day was freezing cold and there was a very thick mist. It was really cold at work as well, where there was hardly anyone in.

More Quiet

Last night was really quiet again. I was watching an episode of Pennies From Heaven, one of the first episodes of Doctor Who from 1963 in which the first Doctor (played by William Hartnell) travels back to the Stone Age, and an episode of the original Twilight Zone series in which an ageing movie actress tries to enter the world depicted in her old films.

It was another very quiet day at work, even for a Friday. I think the next couple of Fridays will be pretty much deserted at work due to office Christmas parties and so on.

Fear in the Night

I managed to do another thousand words of NaNoWriMo last night. Less than usual but I wasn't really feeling into it yesterday. Later on I watched a 1972 movie called Fear in the Night, directed by Jimmy Sangster. It's about a young woman (played by Judy Geeson) who is attacked by a mysterious assailant with an artificial arm. Later, she and her teacher husband go to a remote, deserted rural school, where she meets the creepy headmaster (played by Peter Cushing) who has an artificial arm, and who wanders around the deserted school corridors in full headmaster regalia playing tape recordings of classes in the empty classrooms to preserve the illusion that the fire-damaged school is still in session. At the school, the woman is again attacked by a mysterious, one-armed figure. Of course she immediately suspects the headmaster, but there is a twist. It was actually a pretty neat thriller.

Fortean Times magazine came yesterday, featuring this month articles about the British thriller author Dennis Wheatley, who was massively successful in the 1930s to 1970s but is almost completely unknown now, and also an article celebrating fifty years of The Twilight Zone.

I woke up and I still wasn't feeling well. I was really feeling the area where my tooth was taken out and I've still been taking painkillers. I took Monday and yesterday off work on sick leave and I've booked for the rest of the week off on annual leave so, hopefully, I'll be able to do something fun later on in the week, but for now I'm having another quiet day at home.

Dimensions of a Dialogue

Last night I was listening to an episode of The Twilight Zone radio series called "Long Live Walter Jamieson", in which a history professor turns out to have lived since Ancient Greece due to a spell that has stopped the ageing process. It wasn't bad but not really one of the best. I also watched a few of the Jan Svankmajer short films that I got on Wednesday. One of them, Don Juan was an adaptation of an old Czech puppet play and featured the story of Don Juan, who murdered his father, his girlfriend's father and his brother before taking to the woods to live as a robber, being performed by giant puppets in and around a crumbling old house. Another one, Dimensions of a Dialogue, which was named by Terry Gilliam as the best animated film ever made, and featured two heads made of fruit and ordinary household and office items eating each other several times, before male and female clay figures kiss and merge into a clay mass, and finally two clay heads have various household objects such as a shoe, shoelaces, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a pencil and a pencil sharpener coming out of their mouths. It was really weird!

Today was yet another dull day at work. I was very happy to get home.

Surreal Animation

Last night I listened to an episode of The Twilight Zone on the radio, in which a British pilot from the First World War finds himself landing at an American Air Force base in the 1950s. It was a pretty good one. I've also been watching a few of the Jan Svankmajer short films that I got yesterday. Most of them are deeply surreal animated films. They don't really have storylines for the most part, frequently they involve ordinarly objects moving around with weird puppets and strange sound effects. Because most of them are so short they don't really outstay they're welcome. Apparently they were a big influence on the animations of Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton. I've often thought it would be fun to try animation but I have no talent whatsoever.

Later on I watched the latest episodes of True Blood and Generation Kill. I've really been getting into True Blood.

I think it's a hugely entertaining show.I was back at work today, and it was pretty much the usual stuff.

Two Horror Movies

Last night I listened to an episode of The Twilight Zone radio series. The story, adapted from the first season of the TV show, was called "The Hitch-Hiker" about a woman driving alone across America and haunted by the strange figure of a hitch-hiker that she sees everywhere she goes. It was actually a genuinely scary episode with a great twist at the end.

I was only in work for the morning today, because I took a half-day and went along to the movies. The first film I saw was Halloween II, directed by Rob Zombie, which was a sequel to the 2007 Halloween remake. Set a year after the previous film, the movie tells the story of masked serial killer Michael Myers (Tyler Mane), who is guided by the ghostly figure of his mother (Sherri Moon Zombie), as he sets after Laurie Strode (Danielle Harris) who stopped his previous rampage, and has since been plagued with nightmares. Meanwhile, Myers' one-time psychiatrist (Malcolm McDowell) has become wealthy after he wrote a sensational book on his patient. The movie is extremely gruesome and really kind of over the top. It's not a great film, but it's probably worth watching if you liked the previous one.

After that I saw Zombieland, directed by Ruben Fleischer. The movie is set in the USA some two months after the world was ravaged by a plague of flesh-eating zombies, and focusses on four survivors trying to stay alive long enough to find safety, and if possible find a Twinkie bar. It's a blend of horror, comedy and action and it works really well. The comedy is really hilarious (featuring Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray delivering their funniest performances in years), and it is full of action. Basically it is just non-stop entertainment.

Since I am off work tomorrow I stopped off on my way home and bought a bottle of wine. When i got back I made myself a microwave chicken Tikka Masala, that tasted pretty good.

The Mezzotint

Last night I listened to an episode of The Twilight Zone radio series called "From Angus With Love", which was written for the original TV series but never produced, and told the story of an experimental computer which falls in love with it's programmer, and becomes jealous when he tries to get a real girlfriend. It was funny, and had a surprisingly dark twist. That was followed by an episode of Classic Tales of Horror called "The Mezzotint" based on a story by M.R. James, in which an old engraving hides a dark secret.

Later on I saw an episode of The Corner on DVD, before watching the latest episode of Peep Show, which was as funny and dark as ever.

Today I walked along to the shops and bought a couple of books: Song of Kali by Dan Simmons and Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson. On my way home I stopped off and got my groceries for the coming week.

Night Watch

Last night I was listening to an episode of The Twilight Zone radio series called "Free Dirt", which was originally written for the TV series, but never produced. The story revolves around a man who gets free soil from a cemetery in order to grow his vegetables, however the vegetables are of an unusual time and won't stop growing. Afterwards I listened to an episode of Classic Tales of Horror called "Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand" based on a story by Sheridan Le Fanu in which a family are plagued by strange tapping sounds and the unexplained print of a single hand. It was pretty good.

Later on I watched a Russian movie from 2004 called Night Watch, directed by Timur Bekmambetov, and based on the novel by Sergei Lukyanenko. Basically in the movie , alongside humans live a race of vampire-like supernatural creatures called "The Others" of which some are good ("Light Others") and some are evil ("Dark Others") and according to an ancient truce, they are policed by the "Night Watch" (on the side of the Light Others) and the "Day Watch" (on the side of the Dark Others). However in present day Moscow it appears that the truce is about to be broken which could bring about the final battle between good and evil. The film is kind of a blend of horror and action, and it certainly is action packed from beginning to end. It's really stylish and full of special effects. In fact the problem with the movie was that it was too stylish at times. Even the English subtitles are heavily stylised (moving around the screen, appearing in unexpected locations and in different sizes, and in a couple of instances appearing in blood red text which then seems to dissolve like blood in water). There are four books in the series, and there is a sequel to the film (Day Watch) with a third film on the way.

Today was another really dull day at work. We all had to work a full day, so I couldn't do my regular six hour day.

Elegy

Last night I listened to a radio adaptation of an episode of the original series of The Twilight Zone called "Elegy" in which a damaged spaceship from Earth arrives on a remote planet. The astronauts in the spaceship are shocked to find that the place they have landed is identical to 1950s America. Except that all the people seem to be completely frozen, until they discover a mysterious figure known as "The Caretaker". It was a pretty good episode. It was followed by an epsiode of Classic Tales of Horror which was presenting a reading of a short story called "Caterpillars" by E. F. Benson, in which a man recalls his stay at an Italian villa and his recurring nightmare about one of the bedrooms being haunted by giant caterpillars.

Later on I watched the first episode of True Blood, based on a series of novels by Charlaine Harris and set in a world where humans and vampires have an uneasy co-existance which I really thought was a lot of fun. That was followed by the first episode of a series called Generation Kill, which was based on a non-fiction book by Evan Hunter about his experiences as an embedded reporter with a group of marines in Iraq. That was a really good one as well.

Today was another very dull day at work. They have stopped people working short days on Fridays, which has not gone down well at all.

The Chaser

Last night I listened to an episode of the radio series of The Twilight Zone called "The Chaser". The episode told the story of a young man who is madly in love with a woman who is oblivious to him, until he buys a love potion which turns out to work far too well. It was a pretty funny story and very enjoyable. After that I listened to a story being read in a series called Classic Tales of Horror. This one was called "Man in the Bell" and was about a man who is trapped at the top of a church bell tower as the bell is rung.

Then I finished reading the graphic novel of The Sandman - Volume Seven: Brief Lives written by Neil Gaiman. The comic book series of The Sandman ran from 1989 until 1996, and tells the story of Morpheus, more commonly known as Dream, and also known as The Sandman, the Master of Dreams. He is one of the Endless, a family of immortal beings, who also include Death, Delirium, Desire, Destiny, Despair and Destruction. In Brief Lives, Dream joins his sister Delirium as she searches for their brother Destruction who abandoned the family 300 years previously. It is a great book, and I really thnk that The Sandman is probably the greatest comic book series ever made, and probably one of the best fantasy stories ever published.

After that I finished reading A Most Wanted Man by John le Carre. The book is set in Hamburg and concerns Tommy Brue, the wealthy owner of a failing British bank based in the city. One night he gets a call from a young lawyer, Annabel Richter, whose new client is an illegal immigrant from Chechenya, who has the key and details for the largest account in Tommy's bank. Tommy has to find out how the man came by the information and also why he is being trailed by three of the world's most powerful intelligence agencies. It is a pretty good book, and a fairly exciting thriller, but not as good as the classic le Carre novels.

Today was a really quiet day at work. In the afternoon there was a meeting about a new rewards scheme being implemented at work, which involves giving people gift vouchers. The meeting itself could have just taken twenty minutes, but due to all the questions, comments and debate it ended up taking an hour and a half.

We also all got new chairs, and they have hired consultants to help teach people how to sit in them. Despite the fact that they are pretty much ordinary chairs, and I would have thought that most people would already know how to sit in chairs. On the way home I got a pack of blank VHS video cassettes.

There is also a vampire series starting on TV this week called True Blood, which I have heard of before but have never actually seen, and that is followed by a new series called Generation Kill, created by David Simon and Ed Burns (the creators of The Wire), so that should be a good night on TV.

Piano in the House

Last night I listened to a radio adaptation of The Twilight Zone, it was presenting a story called "Piano in the House", about a bitter theatre critic who buys a player piano for his wife's birthday, however the piano has the power to make people admit their deepest secrets, and the critic's plan to use it to humiliate his friends at his wife's birthday party very quickly backfires. It was pretty good, and it was a very faithful adaptation of the TV episode.

Later on I was rearranging the posters that I got on Sunday on my walls, and I came across some old catalogue that was stuck between the radiator and the wall and which had obviously been there since before I moved into this place four years ago. It was just kind of odd to find. I watched a pretty good documentary about the writer Douglas Adams (who created The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy).

Today it was a really dull day at work, as usual. However, there was a meeting of the trade union about proposed cuts in pay. The meeting took about an hour.

The Zygon Who Fell to Earth

Last night I listened to the last in the current series of the Doctor Who radio plays. This one was called "The Zygon Who Fell to Earth". In the story, the Doctor (played by Paul McGann) and Lucie (Sherdian Smith) arrive in England, 1984, to visit Lucie's Auntie Pat, only to find out that Auntie Pat's husband, Trevor is in fact a Zygon Warlord named Hagoth in disguise. Also there are another group of Zygons (a race of shapeshifting aliens) along with a Skarasen (a giant cybernetic water monster the Zygons keep as a pet) who want to recruit Hagoth in their latest plan to invade the Earth. It was a pretty good story.

I went in to work today, but I was only working for six hours. I left at around three. Even then there was barely anyone in the office when I left. I had about two hours where I was the only person sitting at the table, which wasn't too bad because I just listened to my iPod, and luckily there weren't any telephone calls. It was really wet today so I had to take the bus, instead of walking.

When I got home I watched Twilight Zone: The Movie from 1982, directed by John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller. I recorded it on video last night. It's basically a comilation of four self-contained stories, bookended by a prologue and epilogue. Three of the four stories are based on episodes of the TV series. The first story stars Vic Morrow as an angry, bigoted man who is finds himself taken back in time where he finds himself on the receiving end of violence and prejudice. The second story, "Kick the Can", stars Scatman Crothers as an elderly man who rejuvenates the inhabitants of an Old People's Home with the help of his magical tin can. The third story, "It's a Good Life", featured Kathleen Quinlan as a school-teacher who meets a young boy with devestating psychic powers who traps people in a bizarre cartoon-like world. In the fourth story, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", John Lithgow plays a nervous flyer who, during a bad storm, believes that he is the only one that can see a monster on the wing of the plane, tearing apart the engine. Mostly it is a good, if very uneven, film. It is pretty faithful to the style of the series.