Hammer House of Horror S01E02 The 13th Reunion

Welcome back to Midnight Viewing the Horror Anthology podcast. I'm father Alone, and this season we've left the terrestrial bonds of North America and traveled across the Atlantic to Hampton, England, a sleepy, unsuspecting town that became the headquarters of Hammer Horror, that upstart studio that revolutionized horror movies. Might dragging the old stalwarts of universal infamy into the twentieth century with vivid blood and voluptuous vampires. And Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Speaking of those two best his buddies, joining me to discuss these future little tales is none other than the Projection Booth's Mike White.

If you want to be independent, resign and write a bestseller. I have that written down, Mike. The question I think everyone is wondering is have you ever seen footage of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing interacting with each other? I know that I have. Yeah.

Oh my god, They're just like the best friends ever I see them. I saw them ones telling a story about how they got kicked out of a children's movie theater for laughing too uproariously. Oh god, I can't imagine. Can you imagine being on the fly on the wall as those who are just hanging out. Like one is so imperious and the other one is so reserved and ultimately silly that I don't I don't know that, I don't understand the dynamic, but I love it.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall. But anyway, we're not talking about then necessarily that we are talking about the studio that gave them notoriety. We're here to discuss Hammer. House of Horror sees in one episode oh Series one, Pardon Me, Series one, Episode two, the thirteenth Reunion. This one aired originally on September the twentieth, nineteen eighty.

Written by Jeremy Burnham, he got to start on The Avengers TV show before starring in Brigand of Candahar for Hammer Films in sixty five, and then he wrote horror Frankenstein, which also featured John Finch, which many think is a Hammer film, but it's not at CMI anyway, directed by Peter Sasdy. He was also a Hammer guy, having done Countess Dracula and Hands Ripper, Doomwatch and this one stars Julia Foster, Norman Byrd Gerard Kelly, Warren Clark, Paula Jacobs and James Cosmo. That's Renton's dad in Trainspotting. For some of you, he's also Campbell in Braveheart. He's the old guy who starts Chanton Wallace, so he's a He's a favorite of mine.

This one is about a newspaper's lifestyle correspondent who joins a new fad weight loss clinic and discovers that their regimen to be high in protein and low in basic human decency. What do you think of this one, Mike, I. Had a lot of fun with this one. You mentioned when we recorded last time about how you can maybe see the twist coming. Yeah, I think I started to get to some gleanings here, but I really liked this one a lot.

I also talked in the last episode about how many stars there were in this I didn't recognize very many people in this episode except for the one and only Warren Clark aka Dim from Clockwork Orange. But I also remember him showing up in all of those with Mick Travis movies like if An, O Lucky Man and Britannia Hospital. And I think there's a sequence in O Lucky Man that takes place at a hospital, and so when I see Warren Clark in a hospital, I'm just like, or this weight loss clinic, I should say, I was just like, oh, okay, I'm waiting for somebody to be turning into a human pig hybrid. They are in this with this whole long pig thing. And I loved when he was dosed and having a real episode on the road.

Yeah. I really enjoyed this one. I found it again, so many twists and turns and just a lot more than I expected from an hour long TV program. Totally agree. Now, I did mention this episode in the last episode as far as like, if you if you're so attuned to anthologies and twists as we certainly are having dealt with tails from the dark Side, as long as we have a nightgowner and all of them, really that you start to look for it and wait for it.

Nevertheless, I agree with you this one. It's obvious. It was obvious to me Weight loss Clinic and they're hiking up corpses that we're going to be eating somebody at some point, But that doesn't matter because how we get there is so interesting, and it does keep you guessing, like we're given enough clues here where where You could easily think that this clinic is offing their failures, that like they know longer, that like they can't control this fatty, so Fatty's got to go, and that would be like completely acceptable as a as a plot line, but it does, it does kind of keep keep you guessing the whole time. I will say, she is a fucking terrible reporter. Yes, she kind of reminds me of the main character in speaking of Brian de Palma from last episode Brian to Palmer's sisters, and when she shows up at the asylum there and just immediately, oh gosh, why am I blanking on the Fantom of the Paradise.

William William Finley. William Finley is just oh, yeah, Glinda, let's get you back to bed kind of thing. And I'm not Glenda. Yeah, you're you're pretty terrible, like your investigative skills. So yeah, it's interesting that this is a investigation.

I'm always curious as far as to see detective stories with people that aren't professional detectives. But she's I'm gonna break this story. This is gonna be huge, and I'm gonna be this big reporter and keeps digging and digging and digging and finding more stuff off, but ultimately it's going to be her downfall real quick. One of the most interesting things about this whole episode for me is one of those earliest shots in this episode where they show you mentioned in the last time we recorded that they will pick up shots from London and we've got Fleet Street here that shot from across the street and I see a Dunkin Donuts and I'm just like, they have dunkin Donuts in England. I never thought about that.

That's that's where Sweeney Todd got his start, Dunkin Donuts, making the donuts early in the morning. I wish I could remember any of those songs with the whole thing with their the razor being. The last rolling pin in it. Yeah, this cast is fucking crazy. Man like James Cosmo obviously is the one still working to this day, but not to be undone.

Julia Foster Our lead here. Like in the sixties, she's in long and she's in the loneliness of the long distance Runner. She was in Alphie. Recent like as recently as twenty twenty, she was on Doctor Who. So she's still out there fucking killing it.

And yeah, you mentioned Gerard Kelly or was it George Kelly, No, Warren Clark. I'm sorry as Dim Obviously he's great in this Yes, oh my god. Clearly in my mind he's Dim from Clockwork Orange, the brutish, fucking lout, and he's so sweet here. And then when he's having his hallucinations and his doppelganger shows up next to him, it was horrify. That was the thing too.

You're talking about twists and things. I'm just like, oh my god, did they give him something that's gonna break him apart into two people, like a Jeckyll and Hide potion or something. I had no idea what was going on with that, and I was there for it. Yeah, they It really did keep you guessing. Look, maybe I'm being flippant and saying that I knew where he was going, but like this one was even if it even if they had sent it to the beginning, we need you to go investigate these people.

We think they're cannibals. I still would have been like, what's happening next, because it's so fleet of foot. She is, though, a terrible, terrible investigator. It's a moment late in the episode where she has a confederate who's working at the funeral parlor where they're doing the butchering, and she interviews him in front of their building, in front of an open window where one of them is watching. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I'm just unfamiliar with this lead actress, Like I haven't seen as many kitchens and dramas as I probably should.

I still haven't seen Loneliness, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, even though I think this shows you how long I've had this. I think I still own this on VHS and still haven't watched that. So I need to sit down and watch that movie. So we should watch it. You'd like it, man, Yeah, is it one of the angry young men kind of thing.

Absolutely, that whole cycle of British British rancor. Yeah, it was weird. I've only seen like one of those older films. I think I saw the Luck of Ginger Coffee, and that was just because Irvin Kirshner was a guest at the Toronto Film Festival, so they were bringing up bringing back some of his early stuff and Irvin Kershner's right there with what Robert Shaw I think is Ginger Coffee. And yeah, yeah, that was definitely a very angry young man.

We had some Day for Night in this episode, and that really made me mad. Why were you angry about that? The first episode gave us such a cinematic look. Look Day for Night is obviously used in plenty of movies. It's just that it felt I felt like we'd left that Day for Night behind with the night Gallery, and I thought we weren't gonna have to deal with it again.

So I know it was brief, and it actually was confusing because it kept jumping around from actual nighttime to that weird twilight that you get with Day for Night, and then later like it was daylight. I didn't know what was going on. It didn't really matter. Ultimately, maybe I just I just see red when I see Faith, Dave Bissy faith Nighttime. Hated that anyway.

The first time that they show Warren Clark when he's out in the audience and they're shaming that poor woman, Oh my god, that was horrific. He looked like Oliver read to me from a distance. He did indeed, Yeah, I don't know. I got to see more of his stuff now because I found him really impressive. I don't remember him from the earlier that Malcolm mcdalflick's IF and so.

He's very brief, very brief appearance in some of those, and it might only be a lucky man, but I thought he showed up in multiple of those, So. I know he showed up in a lot of television. And obviously a lot of who we're going to be dealing with in this entire series are television stalwarts, so I do need to look a little bit more into those. But you brought up this segment where they're shaming that girl in front of that class, and that brings us to our latest segment was Brian de Palmer in England in nineteen eighty. I'm a director essentially, and I can direct anything Ghostbusters.

Terms of endearment, that scene just reminded me of fucking body double when Craig Wasason is up in front of the class being shamed. Oh yeah, yeah again, talk about we talked about a cuckhold in the last episode. It felt like he was just You're not a man. You can't handle these stressful situations. So you you deserve all the shame that we're pouring on you.

And and here here's a photo of you when you were twenty years old and haunt and beautiful. Look at you now, you horrible thing. And it's what compounds the horribleness of the whole sequence is that then they they bring up what's his name? Who is who? They're like, have you lost anyways?

Oh? I probably put on some weight. Huh you don't You don't you carry it? Well? Right?

Yeah, to see it. Oh at that point, double standards. Yeah, I would think that at this point she's doing an article about the suicide rate of dieters from this club. Also this this whole thing starts. Okay, I don't want to pick up a part too much because I really enjoyed it.

But it begins with a someone has written a letter saying that their self esteem had been ruined by these people? Why are they doing that? Shouldn't they be keeping a low profile like they have from people write to the newspaper, which is basically like sounding an alarm bell in nineteen eighty. Right, oh yeah, back when newspapers actually existed. Imagine that it had some heft.

Yes, actually had the power of the pen. That she was going to blow this case wide open. Yeah, and investigating the think thin peoples. Oh if you I'm just reading my note, which Is says, if you want to be independent, go write that novel. Yeah yeah, and this was the kind of perfect time for it.

I know that the weight loss industry has always been with us, probably from the time that food was invented, but this was a great time to take aim at the weight life industry. This is I can't remember when weight watchers and just all of those diet fads were just so big in the nineteen seventies and going into the nineteen eighties. This was right there with this stuff. And I think we even had a few Yeah, oh gosh, I just remember those horrible puppet vegetables and fruits from Tails with the Dark Size. I was like, what didn't we see day an episode?

Yeah, yep, yeah, this one is much better than that. I always find it funny when we look back at episodes like this from times long ago, when they're dealing with weight loss and the basic subjects are no different than your average midwesterner. They have no idea the level of obesity that this country can eventually get to. I haven't even got it started yet. Yeah, these people look just like happy, healthy folk.

They can probably eat a few more salads, but. Yeah, yeah, poor Warren Clark's wearing those really tight little white shorts and I'm like, yeah, if he just bought some bigger shorts, dude, you'd be fine. Heard a little the informant from the club that man, his face is all triangles. Oh he looks like. He was drawn.

I was shocked. I didn't see more of him and other things. He didn't really do a whole lot more than just television after that. No, he was great. I really liked him, and he was just I was like, can I trust this guy?

Is he really on the level? But yeah, on the level enough to get his throat cut. Okay, how did you feel about the twist at the end? I liked it. I liked it was strange how they just welcome her in to yeah we're having this party, come on in again.

Talking about that scene from Sisters to go back to to Palma where it's just oh, yeah, welcome on into this insane asylum. And I was thinking at first, I was like, are these people crazy? Because they're all from like these different walks of life and different nationalities. I was reminded a little bit of the baby shower that they have in Rosemary's Baby, where you see all the different Satanists from around the world kind of thing, and it felt very much like that, and I was like, oh, yeah, we were all in this flight together. So I was actually thinking when they talked about how they crashed, I was like.

Are they all? Are all of these people dead? And it took me a few more minutes before I finally realized like, oh, okay, this is a this is I crashed in the andes but I didn't eat the pilot kind of thing. This is a out of nowhere. Oh yeah, huge plot twist that I felt totally at ease with.

If this had been a Tails from the Dark Side or Night Gallery, I know I would be saying they needed to front load that information. We needed to know that there had been a crash. But for some reason, even though this is so out of nowhere, after forty some odd minutes of we don't know what's going on in this investigation, and yet it felt, oh yeah, that's absolutely It's definitely a bunch of plane crash survivors who now have a taste for human flesh. Makes sense. Yeah, we get together once a month and we feast and have a great time.

Was I disappointed that they didn't show what was under that close. Yes, you were. Yeah, I was pretty disappointed, especially had it been Warren Clark's head or something. And how easy would that have been. The last episode we had fucking decapitated crows and people being lit on fire and shit, and here they don't even give us like a hand on a plate.

Oh I know, I know. I was pretty sad about that. And they had that great distortion of the faces and everybody in the reflection of that, and I was just like, here it comes, here, we go, We're okay, they cut away, damn. It, God, damn it. Look Oh James Cosmo was on the plane too, ha look out.

Yeah yeah, yeah, but I do. Let this investigation takes a few turns as well. First she's at the fat farm, and then it's the whole thing of oh, now I need to pretend that I have what Verico's veins or something. I need to have this. Procedure surgery done.

Yeah. Yeah, I thought for sure they're going to do some surgery on her and we're going to have her walking around with one leg for the rest of this episode. Glad we didn't go there, But yeah, I was really expecting something else than this. And when that happened. To your point, I was there with it.

I stayed on this or didn't. Wasn't one of those twists and turns where I just flew off the roller coaster. Yeah, it al It kept making these incredible lefts, and it kept feeling, oh, okay, now we're here. Had I seen this when I was like ten years old, I probably would have flipped the fire out. Yeah, I'm glad that I could.

This series came to me late in life because I know how badly Dark Side fucked me up. This would have oh god, yeah, this is movie quality, this is all bets are off. We're getting swear, we're going to show nudity, We're going to show gore if we so choose. Yeah, I would have been sitting there as a fifteen, sixteen year old going, I saw this thing and it was this woman who's doing this investigation, and then at the end she's with all of these cannibals around the table, and I wouldn't have believed it. And I'm now watching it, and especially with the very end of it, the very end shot, Wow, I was taken aback in a great way.

There were certain series like that, certain episodes, right, you would see them and you tell all your friends and they'd be like, you're a fucking liar that was not on TV. Like this entire series qualifies in that regard. Yeah, we're two episodes into this thirteen episode series. I have to watch myself with this and and I am really excited for where we go. I know the image that comes up when I watch these on Plex has Denim Elliott on that image, and so I'm just like, you know him, Peter Cushing, a few other folks, but I'm just like, oh cool, Denim Elliott, and I think that's the next episode.

So I'm super excited. Absolutely. In fact, after watching these two in a row, knowing that we only have eleven more, I'm already sad. The rest of this can fucking nose dive and it still will be better than the last season of Night Gallery. I'm already wistful for the end of the series and to your point, to join us on our next episode that is going to be episode three from series one, that is called Rude Awakening starring Dnim Elliott.

It's another fucking banger. I've already watched that one. I watched a lot of the series in advance, particularly that Peter Cushing one. Holy fuck. Okay, Yeah, there's a lot of greatness on the way.

Everybody's mike until next time, tell people where to find you. Everything that I do is available over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, with the exception of one show that I work on with Chris Dashu and you stop by occasionally, and as well as our friend Richard HadAM and that is ranking on bond and you can get that over at the ten dollars level on my Patreon at patreon dot com, Slash Projection Booth, over at Chris's Patreon at patreon dot com, slash Culturecast, and yeah, everything else for free at Weirdowaymedia dot com. As for me, you're listening to it at midnight viewing, you know what. Actually, let me plug a couple of other shows. I show up on HP my partner during all of our Festu here.

He has a show called Noise Junkies. I occasionally drop on on that show, but mainly I'm a co host of his show. Night Mister Walter is the Taxi podcast. So that's about the television series Taxi. Go watch those, listen to those or something or I don't know anyway, Thank you for joining us here at midnight viewing.

Until next time, something funny, I don't know. Daylight, Daylight,