Mark Gatiss celebrates the horror film in a new three-part series for BBC4, starting tonight at 9pm.Mark begins his exploration of the genre by looking at the golden age of Hollywood horror of the 1930's and 1940's, examining some iconic films directed by James Whale (including Bride Of Frankenstein - which gets a screening straight after this episode).
The second episode looks at Hammer's 1958 remake of Dracula, which made stars of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. It was at this time that horror films turned to colour and sex, tapping into an increasingly permissive society.
The last programme in the series explores the graphic new wave of horror cinema from 1968's Night Of The Living Dead to John Carpenter's Halloween 10 years later, which also heralded the era of the slasher film.
Sadly, it looks as though Mark doesn't touch on Roger Corman's contributions to the genre with his successful Poe/Price efforts... but hopefully he can save that for a three-part special of its own sometime soon.
1 comment:
Gatiss is all over the BBC these days, but his particular brand of adolescent posturing does us no favours: http://bit.ly/dofrOn
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