Have you ever wondered what would happen if Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, and several other well-known but sadly out-of-work horror film characters were to gather together in a pub in London's East End? What would they talk about... old times? Or would the liquor loosen their tongues and allow them to have a story-telling competition to see who could relate the ghastliest ghouliest scariest tale?
Well, if you've a mind to find out, but are, like me, not a fan of the Horror film genre in general, fear ye not, for these podcasts have their collectives tongues firmly in their cheeks. It's a little like a pot-pourri of The Addams Family, Mel Brooks comedies, Carry On films, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, The Hammer House of Horrors spoof, and pretty much any 1950 /60s B-Movie all thrown into the mix with appropriately over-acted characters, accents, and "spine-chilling" organ music in the background.
My knowledge of (and interest in) the horror film genre in general is very minimal, and so I have to admit to not being able to recognise some of the characters being lampooned, nor the storylines which they followed, but the stories in themselves were entertaining and performed with macabre enthusiam, meaning I was at no time bored of listening to this mini-series of 6 half-hour episodes.
During the course of the six episodes we meet a wolfman, vampires, ghosts, mummies, zombies, a wailing woman, dealings with the occult, and other stuff too. There is an age restriction to listening to these productions which is set at 15. This is because there is a deal of swearing peppered thoughout, but mostly because the themes they discuss and ridicule are very adult: including one episode which chooses to include the much more contemporary issue of gender transitioning and other LGBTQ gender-related issues.
I have to say that a knowledge of and/or an interest in Horror films in general would perhaps make these podcasts more enjoyable. I am not familiar with the works of H P Lovecraft and yet the entire first episode and some of the second are performed in his style for example. They are cleverly compiled, intelligently enacted, and are indeed something different from the usual Hallowe'en fayre. The podcasts have a style all of their own, and somehow manage to coherently amalgamate all these disparate horror characters into a single narrative, with the ingenious use of...... (wait for it, wait for it......) a narrator.
All in all, we are not scared nor even shocked at the podcasts' content, they are parodies and are not meant to be taken seriously, and the cast of five stalwart performers covering all the voices required between them were: Delmar Terblanche (also the writer), Joshua Manning, Anna Chedham-Cooper, Percival Fagent, and Sena Bryer. The podcasts were directed by Jamie Boucher.
They are available to listen to for free on all major podcast hosting sites.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 7/11/20
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