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Recent books, chapters and essays on film and television

As Hammer horror struggled to evolve, the conventions of the vampire film received a refreshing overhaul from Brian Clemens and his…

The first film in director John Gilling’s highly-regarded ‘Cornish’ double bill injects new life into the zombie mythology for Hammer.

The British horror film that confirmed Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as stars and redefined Bram Stoker’s vampire for a new generation.

In their first film collaboration Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter explore the cracks in the veneer of English social class and sexuality

Hammer’s circus horror brimming with shape-shifting vampires, surreal imagery, feverish eroticism and gore.

Realism, class and landscape in Granada Television’s adaptation of Lionel Davidson‘s young adult fiction ‘Run For Your Life’.

Director Terence Fisher revives Christopher Lee’s Dracula for Hammer’s lush, atmospheric sequel.

Ealing’s evergreen satire on commerce and manufacturing, industrial relations, progress and class.

Granada Television’s ‘little experiment’ pleaded “Let me write what I know about” and, twice-weekly in 1960, he did.

Female revenge, hereditary madness and Freudian architecture in Roger Corman’s first Edgar Allan Poe adaptation.

What you secretly see and hear isn’t necessarily the truth in Coppola’s classic 1970s paranoid thriller.

Domesticity, violence and the anti-hero in Hollywood exile Jules Dassin’s transatlantic film noir.

Joseph Losey’s brutal excavation of memory, sexual obsession and toxic masculinity.

Mario Bava’s technicolour portmanteau horror classic

A rummage through the early edits of my 2019 book on Stephen Gallagher’s celebrated Doctor Who story.

Recent books, chapters and essays on film and television

“Although I never got to see the early days, I know it’s not as good as it used to be but I’m still terribly interested.”

‘On Varos the Doctor learns that video games aren’t always fun.’ (Radio Times, January 19, 1985)

‘As an invasion weapon, you’d have to agree that it’s about as offensive as a chicken vol-au-vent.’

‘The survivors of planet Earth lie in cryogenic suspension. But the Doctor finds there has been a sinister intrusion.’ (Radio Times…

‘An Unidentified Flying Object lands on the English coast. Unit investigates…’ (Radio Times, March 13, 1971)

‘The TARDIS materialises in a bleak wasteland. The Doctor and his friends encounter the primitive Gonds and hear of their mysterious unseen…

‘When the wandering Tardis sets its four passengers down in this beautiful and cruel world… both the Doctor and Ian as students of the…