Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 379

A Sinking Feeling

SPOILER ALERT: It sinks.
We've talked here before about TV's obsession with brands, which are used to safeguard audience figures – turn a well-known story into drama and you'll have a guarantee that some section of the audience will watch. Now comes the latest addition to the brand stable, with ITV's four-part drama of everyone's favourite [...]

Nothing In Common

I'm signed to Google Alerts, which helps me to pick up reviews I might have missed on blogs. I usually read them and offer comments or help to reviewers. But I also get copied in on other Christopher Fowlers, and have lately noticed that while quite a few of the European ones are scientists, most [...]

Sit On This

PAY & SIT: the private bench (HD) from Fabian Brunsing on Vimeo.

In the heartless 'Pay A Lot For Everything Forever' modern world, design student Fabian Brunsing has come up with one of the more unpleasant representations of capitalism-gone-terribly-wrong with this bench, which you have to pay to sit on….or else.

Dracula No Longer Missing Teeth

One of the reasons why there has never been a 'definitive' Hammer film collection available is that the rights were in such a spectacular mess that no previous owners of the company were ever able to fully unknot them. Worse, the films exist in different versions.

The new owners of Hammer have finally got it right, [...]

Ghoul School

There's a British Fantasy Society Open Night tomorrow, Friday 2nd March 2012 at The Mug House, 1-3 Tooley Street, London Bridge, London SE1 2PF. This is a treat way for fledgling writers to mingle with professionals in a no-hierarchy no-nonsense way. The BFS is currently going from strength to strength but we need new members. [...]

Awards! Tentacles! Goths! What's Not To Love?

THE KITSCHIES present annual prizes in the form of tentacles to the year's most progressive, intelligent and entertaining genre literature. This year, join me at Blackwell's as we explore dark and fascinating interpetations of THE GOTHIC. We'll be filling the venue with shadowy figures and haunting images.

The evening features a selection of mysterious figures from [...]

Ancient England

The thought sometimes crosses my mind; If I still manage to find lost pockets of London, how many more must there be around England? A friend of mine who has regularly contributed to these pages, Jan Briggs, sends me details of Saxon objects that still cling on in the landscape of England. This Saxon baptismal [...]

Now I Feel Really Old

Ah, the sixties.
You know you're ageing when stars from your childhood start popping their clogs. Davy Jones, the no-necked English one from the Monkees has died of a heart attack, aged 66. Youthful success did not become him, and he struggled to find his place in the world after that. For newcomers, the Monkees were [...]

The Death Of The Script

Here are just a few of the scripts that have been written from my books. I found them in a drawer when I was clearing stuff out recently. All of them are by writers commissioned by film companies. None got made.

After thirty years of hammering out my own scripts that never got made, I made [...]

Fairground From Hell

I posted about the creepiest amusement park I'd ever been to last year, but Shijingshan Amusement Park appears to be a close second. It looked far too similar to parts of Disney theme parks, so it had to die. Its characters bore strong resemblances to Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, although typically their Snow White [...]