Quite enjoying this reflection on Lifeforce, even if it is difficult to know whether ROP enjoyed the film or not...(can disdain actually drip from your speakers? Find out here)

It's very nearly a year since I published my collection of ten short stories inspired by the golden age of mid-20th century horror writing, TV and film. I've sold 47 copies at this point, if you felt like helping round that up to 52 (a book a week! A nice average), I won't be mad at you at all.

I am reading this book now and it's terrific. Wyver's enthusiasm for his subject is ridiculously infectious.

C15 memento mori panels, depicting a dead woman in a shroud and a decaying couple. Sparham in Norfolk.

Have temporarily changed my profile pic to promote my forthcoming collection of short ghost and folk horror stories Cover art and design by @raynewman.bsky.social. Foreword by @vanjpes.bsky.social. Buy their fantastic respective short weird horror books!

Michael Wincott.

Happy cinematic birthday to an iconic character, Little Tramp debuting in US cinemas this date, Feb 7th, in 1914 youtu.be/SfhVui4rKV8

Big fan of this title page for EF Benson’s Spook Stories (1928)

Occasionally, when I'm overwhelmed and need a distraction, I make long lists of films on Letterboxd, mostly 20th century comedy and horror. If you're looking for something to watch this weekend to make you laugh or scream that isn't current events, you could probably find it here: boxd.it/1g9BM

It's been busy, but still managed to book-end this week's Chaplin filmography run-through with a comedy classic and a horror great #LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched

Time to announce the winners of the 2025 Silent London poll! silentlondon.co.uk/2026/02/04/t...

Melvyn Bragg held a door open for me. He looked annoyed, but that may just have been his regular expression.

🦇

ICYMI

Tonight's 📽 A revisit to glorious late-period Hammer horror Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974, dir. Brian Clemens). Horst Janson and Caroline Munro lead a great cast including John Carson. It's brilliantly, thrillingly weird, stuffed full of beautiful frames, black humour, action and invention.

BLOG POST: Conversations about the definition of folk horror on here the other day have turned into some thoughts about why this game is so difficult, and so irresistible. precastreinforced.co.uk/2026/02/03/w...

W.C. Fields serves hotdogs, the Marx Bros play ball, Greta Garbo eats peas and Katherine Hepburn salts celery in Hollywood Picnic (1937, dirs. Arthur Davis and Sid Marcus)

Jill McDonald in Puffin Post absolutely rinsing the poets & I include myself in those being absolutely beautifully bodied here

Apropos of nothing in particular in the discourse youtu.be/oDlIzjGkSmc

Tonight's 📽 Way Out West (1937, dir James W. Horne), a joyously silly feature film for Stan and Ollie. Delivering a deed for a mine brings them to a wild west town. Repetitive gags aplenty, songs, wit, fourth wall breaking. Probably love their short films more, but this is still just wonderful fun.

Got to love Scars of Dracula (Ward Baker, 1970). Terrifically bad in places and yet so much fun Highlight was Dennis Waterman barging the door down and smashing Jenny Henley’s bowl of poisoned broth to pieces by throwing a rock at it rather than just taking it out of her hands 🤣

I wrote a piece...i believe they call it "an appreciation"... about one of my comedy heroes: Ms.Catherine O'Hara. www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv...

For this week’s Silent Sundays I spoke with professor and programmer @hennefem.bsky.social about her work in silent film, and why the era still speaks to us today.

We can be glad 70%(ish) of Feed 'em and Weep (1928, dir. Fred Guiol) exists to enjoy, because it was a shame enough Anita Garvin and Marion Byron only made three shorts together. This first one follows a traditional setup, but their style, timing and performances make it very entertaining slapstick.

Nightmare stills from a early 20th century film of a variety act based on a weirdly detailed pig costume. You know, for an audience to enjoy.

Desire, lust, jealousy, and fear of our own sexuality in Cat People (1942, dir. Jacques Tourneur, cinematography Nicholas Musuraca) Still thinking about this one again, huh, Jamie? Yeah...

Tonight's 📽 Cat People (1942, dir. Jacques Tourneur), a film that's barely subtextual about a fear of unleashed sexual desire, the 'evil' inside. Irena keeps herself away from people, so that she does not hurt them. But then she falls in love... Beautifully written, by a gay man, DeWitt Bodeen.

Second 📽 of the day: Distilled Love (1920, dirs. Dick Smith and Vin Moore), a fascinating, barely coherent mix of broad occasionally innovative comedy and dark-hearted melodrama, as Alice Howell gets involved in several weird scrapes, trying to survive a devilish, mugging Oliver (here 'Babe') Hardy.

First 📽 of a day off: Outside the Law (1920, Tod Browning), a solid crime melodrama enlivened by a hardworking, luminous Priscilla Dean as a jewel thief and Lon Chaney as the gangster out to get her. A gorgeous opening gives way to a static hideout section, capped by a brutal, action-packed ending.

If you have ever wanted to hear me talk about the role of Forteana and folklore within Hookland in an East End pub …. April is your lucky month.

On the subject of Kevin Brownlow, there's also a rather lovely recent interview with him (by Chaplin's grandson), which covers Charlie and much more, and is delightful youtu.be/DemUOyaVXyg

Up to the Louise Brooks chapter in my 'The Parade's Gone By...' read through and it's just a wonderful window into an endlessly fascinating mind. "She lives alone in Rochester, New York; she seldom goes out, she seldom receives visitors; and she spends most of her time of in bed."

New episode of Monstrosities Mon Amour. See the National Theatre through the eyes of an archaeologist: @reblambert.bsky.social explains how it’s like a henge. Also her love for Dolph Lundgren’s Masters of the Universe! johngrindrod.substack.com/p/monstrosit...

#WyrdWednesday From The Reader’s Digest Folklore, Myths & Legends of Britain. The lanes around Longridge in Lancashire were haunted by the Headless Woman. A malicious, boggart, from behind she looked like an old lady, but she would turn around & pursue travellers carrying her head in a basket.

Coming soon… 11 short ghostly, weird and folk horror stories by, erm, me Draft cover design by @raynewman.bsky.social Newman, fantastic author of Municipal Gothic and Intervals of Darkness #ShortStories #Fiction #Publishing

I still love this cover for my book. Ray is a great writer, artist and designer.

As I meander through Chaplin's early filmography, the films really vary in quality, but the fascinating, embryonic tramp character is remarkably consistent, in that he's one of cinema's most casually malevolent, deeply disturbing, horniest, meanest, most violent creations and terrifying for it

Enjoying revisiting Evil S1 despite oh 35% of it being pure bollocks. Still a favourite horror series this century thus far.

If you like 1930s escapism, with all of its soppiness and its wisecracks, you can’t do much better than Trade Winds boxd.it/cQ3U5L

Excellent appreciation of the director we all sort of know:

In today's installment of 'weird, you say ex-library like it's a BAD thing', this beauty - which had seemed lost in the international postal system - has finally arrived

We're closing out our month of silent era films about modern women on a high note: THE GIRL IN TAILS is a Swedish romantic comedy and feminist satire directed by Karin Swanström. A young woman causes a scandal when she wears a tuxedo to her own graduation ball. moviessilently.com/2026/01/26/t...

Promotional packaging for an appetite suppressant, from a 1970s Graphis magazine feature on designs created for pharmaceutical company Roche

Centenary day on the blog, with a Magic Rays extract, recounting JLB's 26 Jan '26 public presentation of 'true television', plus links to Don McLean's article at The Conversation, and contemporary reports at Andre Lang's History of Television website. www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/centenary-day/

Feels like the visual representation of this I didn't know I needed

Reading some comics for kids this morning

Got to do something to shake this malaise. Maybe a little adventure. Who's in?

Happy Birthday Tom Baker, born this day in 1934.

I’m not in the habit of reposting my own content but have to on this occasion, what with it being Poe’s birthday

Enjoying that the Peter Outerbridge films are often almost comically bleak slices of Victorian-era social grimness and melancholy. An impressive counterpoint the series followed with being quite nice and sweet. But you know, also with murders.