Tag: UK

Really Awful Movies: Ep 439 – Don’t Open Till Christmas

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There are a lot of Santa Claus slashers. But with Don’t Open Till Christmas, Kris Kringle characters are the vics not the perps.

Don’t Open Till Christmas is a 1984 British slasher film. It is directed by Edmund Purdom, who also stars. But based on the end project, viewers can tell it is the work of >1 director in the chair.

The flick introduces a mysterious killer murdering Santa Claus impersonators in London during Christmas season, first off, through a Black Christmas-like POV shot.

Thereafter, a Santa at a nightclub is murdered in front of dozens of witnesses. Turns out, it’s the father of one, Kate, whose boyfriend soon becomes embroiled in a giallo-like murder investigation by New Scotland Yard.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 408 – Attachment

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Two women, actress Maja and academic Leah, meet in a Copenhagen library. They soon connect and move in together, first in Denmark, then at Leah’s mom’s place in East London.

Is this the stuff of a rom-com, or a horror? Fear not. Or, rather…fear. Before too long, strange occurrences begin happening.

Attachment is set in an Orthodox Jewish community in London, and incorporates things like the Dybbuk, Kabbalah, and other mystical elements.

Tune into the podcast, for a longer discussion of this Shudder production, released in 2022.

 

 

Really Awful Movies: Ep 388 – The Barge People and Daughters of Darkness

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Two very different movies on the podcast this week. The first, is a low budget British horror called The Barge People. It’s about, of all things, creatures that lurk about near canals and torment canal boaters. Hey, there’s something for everyone in horror, apparently.

Two couples get together for a weekend getaway…floating down canals in the English countryside in what’s known as a narrow boat. Apparently, 8500 or so people in the UK have registered these vessels as permanent homes. Weird.

Anyway, things begin to go a bit awry, as this is, after all, a horror movie. A series of murders takes place nearby and adjacent to the canals the couples are travelling on. And they eventually encounter….well, look at this poster!

Daughters of Darkness, by contrast, is a brooding, slow burn, vampire flick that’s set in Belgium. It’s very um…deliberately paced, but also visually very appealing.

Stefan Chilton, raised in the US, is the scion of an upper crust aristocratic British family.

He is traveling with his newly-wed wife, Valerie, through Europe and by all accounts is having a great old time.

The couple check into a grand hotel on the Belgian seaside, intending to catch the cross-channel ferry to England, where Stefan’s mother lives. As it’s off-season, the hotel is empty.  At nightfall, however, a mysterious Hungarian countess, Elizabeth Bathory, arrives, driven by her “secretary,” Ilona.