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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

British Sci-Fi and Horror Films

13:38 / 05.08.04

A conversation about 28 Day Later led a friend and I to discuss British sci-fi and horror films and we quickly realized think we couldn't think of any from after the 1960s. There’s Village of the Damned, obviously. Day of the Triffids and The Crawling Eye. The Quatermass films, Cushing Dr. Who films.

But what since?

There's probably a bunch that I didn't even realize were British, but I'm guessing some of you might be able to recommend some real gems that I've never heard of.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:13 / 05.08.04

I'm assuming it was just an oversight that you didn't mention The Wicker Man.

Hmm... let me think... I do agree we've been a bit shit, but it seems to be picking up- recently, 28DL excepted, we've had Dog Soldiers, Deathwatch... umm...
Event Horizon was one of ours, I think.

And, of course, we had the BEST (okay, probably ONLY) EVER romantic comedy with zombies, Shaun of the Dead...

I'll get back to you.

14:23 / 05.08.04

Howling II
American Werewolf in London
The Omen
Reign of Fire
Talos, the Mummy!
Xtro

16:06 / 05.08.04

Does the Omen count? Surely it's an American venture through and through.

Or are we talking about horror set in England?

16:24 / 05.08.04

It's set in America and various other places but it was a British production. Fair enough.

I suppose movies set mainly in England/Britain.

17:31 / 05.08.04

To clarify, I was thinking of movies made by British directors and British studios.

Madman in the ruins.

17:46 / 05.08.04

What about "Hardware" late 80's horror film contaning apperances by Lemmy! (You can't get more British than Nazi memrobelia collecting Uncle Motorhead) Carl McCoy. Keller Robots and if memory serves it was filmed in London.

19:23 / 05.08.04

Well Nicolas Roeg is British, so does Don't Look Now qualify as British Horror? And The Man Who Fell to Earth would be sci-fi, no?

Think they were Britich production companies as well.

21:05 / 05.08.04

The Bunker had a supernatural spark, if you factor in the creeping horror of the tunnels.
Long time dead was also a horror in a strickly teen ensemble shitefest way.

08:48 / 06.08.04

Death Machine. Stephen (Blade) Norrington's first film. American money, Japanese F.X., BRAD FUCKING DOURIFF! and it's a James Cameron pastiche. And I'm the only person on Earth to ever have seen it, apparently.
Come on, guys, it's BRAD DOURIFF! Doing all those Douriffey things that make him so fucking wonderful. In fact, I propose Brad Douriff be accepted into the list of all things Barbelicious, along with Ace, M.O.D.O.K., Donnie Darko, The Beak, and Our Porgie's shiny silver pants.

09:34 / 06.08.04

You've missed Dog soilders there !
I know Equalibrium isnt really a supernatural film but most of the cast are British and its a good film !

pointless and uncalled for

11:12 / 06.08.04

I appreciate that it's rather older than the remit but Captain Kronos is an amazing film and a lot of contemporary work owes it's success to it.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:56 / 06.08.04

Ministry of Fear is a slate of films by Little Bird. It's supposed to be the return of smart Brit Horror. Shine Entertainment had a slate called "The Dark". Since Kenton Allen's departure and the reshaping of Shine, however, I don't know what's happened with that.

There was Shaun of the Dead, of course, and apparently also The Last Horror Movie - though at seventy minutes that last one falls in a kind of weird no-man's land of movies. There was The Bunker, which seems not to have won hearts and minds.

You're having trouble because the British Film Industry is in a state. We had a domestic industry, but it got Gimme'd out of existence in the 70s, and now we have this weird stop-start setup where the government feels able to rip funding schemes away over night and leave the UK as the leper of the film finance world. A large number of projects - good and bad - died the death in February for no good reason I can see. It would have been entirely possible to phase out tax equity funding, rather than cutting it dead from one day to the next, and the instability which this decision conveyed to foreign investors has significantly damaged the viability of our film projects internationally - I mean, would you invest in an industry where you knew that the government had a history of pulling the plug over night? No, nor would I. It's like doing a land deal in Zimbabwe right now.

Oh, and there are no UK studios. Which is both a good and a bad thing. I could go on...

19:54 / 06.08.04

LIFEFORCE

nekkid space vampires roaming the English countryside, patrick stewart sucking face with steve railsback, and peter firth and frank finlay looking somewhat taken aback by the whole affair.

05:04 / 07.08.04

Lifeforce? Oh jeez, that guy had to be the pussiest S.A.S. officer I've ever seen.
How about Friendship's Death? Maybe if I was an alien stuck in an apartment with that blithering twat I'd go off and join a terrorist cell.
Ooh, The Killing Edge! It's got that horrible little shit Adric from Dr. Who! Ghod, I love that fillum. "Sawn-off shotgun at a hundred yards. What do you know, Teddy? This might be our lucky day." Now that's a line right up there with "Benton? Chap with wings, five rounds rapid. And hurry! I'm out of ammo."

13:26 / 07.08.04

post-60s you say.. hmm..

Well Hammer still did a lot of films in the 70s didn't they? I don't think many of them were much good though..

And don't know if it QUITE counts as post-60s, but 1971's Psychomania (imdb link) is FUCKING FANTASTIC - a much under-recognised cult classic, featuring an undead biker gang, hippie weirdness, aristocratic devil worship and a huge body count mixed rather jarringly with a low budget world of 70s suburbs, Morris Minors and moustached policemen going "Ere! What's all this then!".

Also features some of the best dialogue in motion picture history, much of it delivered by the lead actor in classic Malcolm McDowell posh/menacing style..

"The reason the fuzz called mother, is that we totally blew a fellows mind last night.."

Brilliant, brilliant film.

lord nuneaton savage

10:26 / 09.08.04

Other great Psychamania lines;

"Sometimes you really scare me"

"It's not me who scares you...it's the world"

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:03 / 09.08.04

Psychomania's got that fucking ace soundtrack as well...

"and the holy sound of revving filled the air"...

genius.

17:31 / 09.08.04

"I'll teach you a lesson you long-haired git!"

"I don't have to take that sort of talk anymore. Not from anybody."

"AARGH!"

vroooooomm...

02:57 / 10.08.04

Hmm. We seem to have a consensus- shall we make it official and dub "Psychomania" Barbelicious?

05:56 / 10.08.04

Yes.

07:01 / 10.08.04

Theatre of Blood! - another Hammer House of Horror,IIRC correctly. Saw this whne I was little and it completely freaked me out, the fact it was on telly means it wasn't hideously gory, I guess. I've seen it since, and the last time, it rocked. 12 actors are murdered, by a deranged Sir John Gieguld tpe character, each one based on a Shakesperian death. Any one else remember this one?

08:02 / 10.08.04

Searching for a review of Theatre of Blood, I found this site: British Horro Films

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

08:44 / 11.08.04

Gothinc (I meant Gothic but the typo amused me), Lair of the White Worm, Mr. Inbetween, the Jerry Cornelius Film, Rawhead Rex (all I can remember about this is a monsterous golden shower and Clive Barker describing the monster as a great big cock, there's something terribly British about an enormous penis terrorising a sleepy West Country village, Urban Gost Story and er...anyone remember Hellraiser. There was also tha film about the clubbers who accidently summoned a Djinn but I can't remember what it was called.

I even worked on one called Cold Heaven but I don't think anything ever came of it. I can probably think of some more.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

09:04 / 11.08.04

If you're talking about SF there's the woefully underrated Welcome II the Terrordrome and I think even Shopping is set in the future.

There's also the up and coming (unofficial) remake of the Warriors called the Purifiers, which I may start a thread about if I have the time.

12:46 / 12.08.04

I just stumbled upon this one the other day. Never watched it, but thought some of you might, so here it goes:

Luna

16:36 / 12.08.04

Was Pitch Black a British production? I know the cast was American, but it felt different somehow.

And, since someone else mentioned Clive Barker, what about the Hellraiser movies?

I also wonder if Alien should count -- Ridley Scott being one of those sorts of people.

16:47 / 12.08.04

There's also the up and coming (unofficial) remake of the Warriors called the Purifiers, which I may start a thread about if I have the time.

Written and directed by ex-Skids frontman Richard Jobson, no less.

The Purifiers, says Jobson, "is made for a pre-teen audience and it’s fun. It’s a kung-fu, sci-fi, skateboarding movie set in Glasgow. It’s borne from a love of comics..."

When did Richard Jobson turn into Grant Morrison?