Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 341

Tarnished Treasures

Now that at least five women have appeared to say that they were raped by Sir Jimmy Savile, it triggered an old memory of schoolboy jokes about him and underage girls – why on earth were we making them? How could we have known? It seemed as if Savile was around forever, and his penchant [...]

Anthology Horrors

I’m due to start work on a section of an anthology horror film about London entitled ‘Bloody London’, and it made me trawl back through the history of British anthology horror films. The first and best was ‘Dead of Night’, and is the only example wherein the wraparound story is the scariest of them all. [...]

It Came From Behind The Shelf No.7

Yes, it’s old money! And it was behind a stack of books! About seventeen and six altogether, minus a few halfpennies and a farthing, which had a robin on, and which I seem to have accidentally spent because it’s the same size as a modern penny. In the year I was born, a pound would [...]

Circus Of Horrors

On Saturday night I found myself in the innermost Dantean circle of Hell that is Piccadilly Circus. The Dilly was always disreputable, either for its ‘secret army’ of streetwalkers or renters, or its touts and pickpockets, but now it seems to have taken on a particularly horrible aspect.

The new hi-resolution ads are running so [...]

It’s a Church, Not A Nightclub

Anyone who knows me well will tell you I’m not remotely religious – what you believe is entirely up to you so long as you don’t try to sell it to others – but I regard the churches of London as among its greatest treasures. And one of the pleasures of visiting a new city [...]

Anyone who knows me well will tell you I’m not remotely ...

Anyone who knows me well will tell you I’m not remotely religious – what you believe is entirely up to you so long as you don’t try to sell it to others – but I regard the churches of London as among its greatest treasures. And one of the pleasures of visiting a new city [...]

Re:View – ‘Looper’

Hooray for Hollywood – at least in Autumn, when the movies with actual plots and characters appear, and hooray for Rian Johnson’s smart time travel movie starring a prosthetically creepy Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt. Set in two futuristic time frames, one thirty years ahead of the other, this involves victims sent back [...]

Advice From The Duchess of Death

Another republished portmanteau novel by the Detective Club has fallen into my possession after ‘The Floating Admiral’. This one features Dorothy L Sayers and the wonderful Gladys Mitchell, but a particular point of interest has been the essay in the foreword by Agatha Christie, from which I quote here;

‘What kind of people read detective stories [...]

Hammer Strikes Back

After years of disastrous mismanagement, Hammer is rising again under the auspices of Simon Oakes, who seems to genuinely understand how to restore the brand. You may be aware of their success with The Woman In Black, Let Me In and Wake Wood, but they are also branching into other areas in recognition of the [...]

The Fascination With The Victorians

This autumn one of the biggest Pre-Raphaelite exhibitions ever seen is being assembled at Tate Britain before heading to Washington and Tokyo. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it all before, but I’ll still go. Why does this era continue to fascinate?

First, for many of us it’s tangibly only just out of reach. My grandmother was [...]