BAD MOON RISING THE MAKIng of SCARY AN ameRICAN MOVIE ROUNDUP weRewolf New DVDs AND BLU-Rays IN lonDON ReVIeweD! FREE! BOGEYMAN BABE SCReam QUeen SUZanna LOVE on DSD VIDeo NasTIes AND ANDY WARHol… 05 Check out the teaser issue of CultTV Times... covering everything from NCIS to anime! Broadcast the news – the first full issue of Cult TV Times will be available to buy soon at Culttvtimes.com Follow us on : (@CultTVTimes) for the latest news and issue updates For subscription enquiries contact: [email protected] Introduction MACABRE MENU A WARM WELCOME TO THE 4 An AmericAn WereWolf in london 10 dVD LIBrArY 14 SuzAnnA loVe DARKSIDE D I G I TA L 22 SuBSCRIPTIONS areas. “I remember watching them in the cinema,” Dave said. “A big cheer used to go up every time The Dog and Fox showed up in the background.” We love retro in The Dark Side and it seems to be selling us more and more issues each time. The next print issue is going to be very popular indeed with readers of a certain age, because we are taking a nostalgic look at the BBC2 horror double bills of the 70s and 80s, which introduced many of our readers to the best and worst of the horror genre. Many an impressionable young mind was bent out of shape in those days by late night exposure to the likes of The Crazies and Superbeast, alongside classic Universal monsters and the eerie chillers of producer Val Lewton. I’ve long wanted to tackle the BBC2 horrors in the pages of Dark ello and welcome to another fine issue ofDark Side Digital, this Side and who better to do the job for us than Denis Meikle, whose one celebrating the making of that modern day horror classic, absorbing, insightful pieces in the current issue on Oliver Reed and HAn American Werewolf In London. Can it really be over 30 Dracula AD 1972 are both a real treat. Why this man isn’t writing for all years since this first saw the light of a projector bulb? Time certainly the top film publications I’ll never know, but their loss is our gain. flies, and always in the wrong direction. By the way, did you know that Denis has just sent me his BBC2 feature along with a selection of when a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds. tasty stills. Here’s a taster just to whet your appetite: Over the years a phrase that I’ve used rather a lot in my reviews is “In the interval between the BBC’s fourth season of double-bills and to describe ‘cosy’ old-fashioned movies as “perfect for a rainy Sunday its sixth, a technological revolution had taken place and videocassette afternoon.” But it occurred to me the other day (while pushing a recorders, or ‘VCRs’, had hit the domestic marketplace. Early adopters shopping trolley round a very crowded Tesco store, er, on a Sunday of the system had paid the best part of £1000 for a piano-key Sony afternoon), that the saying belongs to a very different era. or Mitsubishi unit but, in 1979, Dutch electrical giant Philips Eindhoven What I mean is, when I was growing up in the 60s Sundays were had launched the N1700 and its corporate tie-in with high street TV a much different proposition to what they are these days. This was rental company Visionhire had opened up an entry-level market to an era before home video and even colour television, a time when all the public at large for a monthly fee; by 1980, two formats were set to the shops were closed, pub opening hours were severely restricted dominate the field – VHS in the hardware form of Matsushita affiliates and even the cinemas mainly showed old movies. Oh, and devout JVC, Panasonic and more, and Betamax, proprietary format of the churchgoers have my apologies, but I didn’t enjoy Sunday School groundbreaking Sony C7 wonder-machine with its 14-day time-shift much… do they still have that these days? ability, slo-mo playback and wireless remote control. To my mind the perfect snapshot of these times can be found in Horror film fans of 1980 were not only the recipients of a dedicated Galton and Simpson’s classic Tony Hancock show episode, A Sunday late-night slot on British television – for the first time ever, they could Afternoon At Home, where Tony, Sid, Hattie and the gang sit around also collect the films which featured on it (albeit technically illegally at bored mindless, “waiting for the next lot of grub to come up.” Hancock the time!).” observes that even the food’s not worth waiting for, telling Hattie: “I Yes, it’s a cracking piece and probably worth the cost of the mag thought my mother was a bad cook, but at least her gravy used to alone. But that’s not all, folks. I can reveal that we’re bringing our old move about a bit.” friend John Hamilton back to tell the fascinating story of the rise and Yes, Sundays were boring, but they were also very comforting and fall of Tigon films, and we’ll be interviewing Ian Ogilvy along with some relaxing, and formed a satisfying end to the week. Don’t you think that other great cult figures. But the biggest news of all is that issue 155 of one of the reasons life today is so much more stressful is because we The Dark Side will be 100 pages thick, at no extra price because we don’t have quiet Sundays any more? My question is addressed to older are giving you a free 32-page supplement on Cult TV shows as a taster readers of course because the younger ones don’t know what they for a totally new mag to run alongside The Dark Side. There may be a missed. I think that’s why I love watching old black and white British recession on but we’re doing very nicely with your support, and this movies from the 50s and 60s and I’ve been enjoying a lot of them issue will also be the first of the new run ofDark Side to be exported through my LoveFilm subscription because they have pretty much to the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. Anyway, that’s enough waffle, the entire back catalogue of Renown Films and Odeon Entertainment enjoy Digi 5 while I go off to muse on life’s many imponderables, like on there. My next-door-neighbour Dave has had a cab company in why is a boxing ring square and how come a pizza can get to your Wimbledon for over thirty years and he’s loved watching my Edgar house quicker than an ambulance? This sort of stuff keeps me awake Wallace Mysteries collection because most of these short and snappy at night. thrillers were shot at Merton Park Studios and in the surrounding Allan Bryce editor: Allan Bryce Web master: design & Production: Kevin Coward [email protected]. Advertisement Manager: Neville King. Website: www.thedarksidemagazine.com. Subscriptions Manager: Yannie Overton - Published by: Ghoulish Publishing Ltd, 29 [email protected] Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey SM2 7HX. online publisher: Neville King Printed in the EU. Distribution: Comag, C:7A6 = [email protected] Unit 3, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Advertising enquiries: Middlesex UB7 7QE. 16#-*4)*/( 56 [email protected] © Copyright 2012 Ghoulish Publishing Ltd ISSN 0960 6653 3 The DarkSide DIGITAL Horror Classics Simon Hooper on the making of An American Werewolf in London… 4 The DarkSide DIGITAL The Making of An American Werewolf In London efore becoming a director, been working in films for some time, I studios were unsure of this odd horror John Landis had done a thought “This kid is brilliant” (laughs). hybrid script from a director who had multitude of jobs, from I said, “My goodness.” At that time he established a reputation for comedy. mailman to stuntman. In 1979 was still corresponding with Dick Smith, Producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters he even had his hand up a who had had a similar reaction as I did. were now running Polygram and they muppet’s bottom, because Dick eventually hired him to assist on were the only ones who ‘got’ the comedy in the last scene of The The Exorcist. Dick saw the same thing, horror script and stumped up the cash. Muppet Movie, where dozens “This kid is brilliant.” So, Rick made the With the money ready, pre-production of muppets gather for the costume. I think his budget was $5,000. began, and Landis made the call to Bclimatic song, it’s Landis who’s operating The moulds for the body of Schlock had Baker. Disaster. Baker had been offered Grover. A young Tim Burton was also to be no larger than his mom’s oven. I and accepted The Howling. Worse still, it involved in that scene. remember Mrs. Baker said that her pies would use his ‘change-o-heads’. But let’s spool back 10 years, to when smelled of foam rubber for years!” Landis went berserk, livid that Baker Landis was working as an uncredited From an early age Baker had been was now on Joe Dante’s production, production assistant on Clint Eastwood’s using his mum’s oven to make moulds for leaving him with a major problem. Kelly’s Heroes (1970). That was when his creature masks, and by his late teens Eventually Baker relented and handed he started writing what was to become was making up his friends for Halloween over the reins on The Howling to his An American Werewolf in London.