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The Horror Of London
How well do Londoners know their city? Behind that cosy-looking hedge row or lurking down the tube station, there are terrors unimaginable. We look at eight films which brought horror to the capital.
28 Days Later
On the day after Lady Diana's death, this writer stumbled upon the haunting sight of a seemingly deserted Piccadilly Circus, save for a lone motorcycle cop. And, driving through certain parts of the City of London in the small hours at Christmas, it's almost possible to imagine the capital has emptied itself, a pre-emptory purging for an abstemious New Year. Danny Boyle's conceit of a desolate metropolis (achieved by roping back pedestrians during early morning shoots) is so powerfully effective precisely because of its implausibility. A nightmare for some; a wonderful dream for others.
An American Werewolf In London
Animal House director John Landis drops a slavering lycanthrope in the middle of a picture-postcard, tourist London. For a laugh. Cue naked Americans at London Zoo, bestial attacks at Tower Bridge and detective inspectors getting their heads gnawed off in Piccadilly Circus. The Brits have always had a soft spot for comedy-horrors (see Theatre Of Blood), and Werewolf's juxtaposing of the arcane and the mundane would directly influence Edgar Wright's Shaun Of The Dead (shot in Finchley of all places). Incidentally, Wright's 'Spaced' and Hot Fuzz both homage the line spoken in Werewolf by a panicked commuter, responding to growling noises emerging from the tunnels in Tottenham Court Road tube station: "I can assure you that this is not in the least bit amusing." Well, it is. And it really isn't.
Animal House director John Landis drops a slavering lycanthrope in the middle of a picture-postcard, tourist London. For a laugh. Cue naked Americans at London Zoo, bestial attacks at Tower Bridge and detective inspectors getting their heads gnawed off in Piccadilly Circus. The Brits have always had a soft spot for comedy-horrors (see Theatre Of Blood), and Werewolf's juxtaposing of the arcane and the mundane would directly influence Edgar Wright's Shaun Of The Dead (shot in Finchley of all places). Incidentally, Wright's 'Spaced' and Hot Fuzz both homage the line spoken in Werewolf by a panicked commuter, responding to growling noises emerging from the tunnels in Tottenham Court Road tube station: "I can assure you that this is not in the least bit amusing." Well, it is. And it really isn't.
Death Line
The London tube network has long proved fertile territory for fantasy and horror, with its subterranean positioning, pungent, atmospheric environs, potential for an agonising death by electrocution just a stumble away, and blackened, rat-teeming tunnels giving rise to all manner of primal fears - and following the fire at King's Cross and the attacks of 7/7, very real ones. With an honourable mention for Quatermass And The Pit (Martian skulls and spaceships in Central Line tunnels!), granddaddy of London Underground horrors is surely 1972's cannibal shocker Death Line, a transparent influence on Creep (both were filmed at the now defunct Aldwych Station) and others, including An American Werewolf In London (Tottenham Court Road), Reign Of Fire (Westminster) and 28 Weeks Later... (Charing Cross Road station doubling as pitch-black charnel house).
The London tube network has long proved fertile territory for fantasy and horror, with its subterranean positioning, pungent, atmospheric environs, potential for an agonising death by electrocution just a stumble away, and blackened, rat-teeming tunnels giving rise to all manner of primal fears - and following the fire at King's Cross and the attacks of 7/7, very real ones. With an honourable mention for Quatermass And The Pit (Martian skulls and spaceships in Central Line tunnels!), granddaddy of London Underground horrors is surely 1972's cannibal shocker Death Line, a transparent influence on Creep (both were filmed at the now defunct Aldwych Station) and others, including An American Werewolf In London (Tottenham Court Road), Reign Of Fire (Westminster) and 28 Weeks Later... (Charing Cross Road station doubling as pitch-black charnel house).
Night Of The Demon
This most celebrated of Brit-horrors includes scenes shot at Clapham Junction station, Savoy Place W1 and at the British Museum's famous circular reading room (also featured in The Ipcress File). Here, Dana Andrews' sceptic encounters Niall MacGinnis's warlock, Julian Karswell, who hands him a card with spooky vanishing handwriting on it. (Ah yes, the old lemon juice and light bulb trick.)
This most celebrated of Brit-horrors includes scenes shot at Clapham Junction station, Savoy Place W1 and at the British Museum's famous circular reading room (also featured in The Ipcress File). Here, Dana Andrews' sceptic encounters Niall MacGinnis's warlock, Julian Karswell, who hands him a card with spooky vanishing handwriting on it. (Ah yes, the old lemon juice and light bulb trick.)
The Omen
Distinguished by being one of the few American movies of the period to genuinely employ the capital as more than just a leafy backdrop peopled with cap-doffing, routemaster-driving chimney-sweeps. Parliament Hill, All Saints Church, Bishop's Park (the scene of Patrick Troughton's impalement by church spire) and the US Embassy all feature prominently, and for sound dramatic reasons, imbuing the film with a sense of grounded location that render the fantasy elements all the more shocking when they arrive. Such attention to detail clearly didn't trouble the makers of the 2006 remake, also set in the UK but shot in Prague, whose film features characters driving on the right hand side of the road, a cardboard 'Bishop's Park, London' sign pasted on a wall and tram lines in the middle of 'Central London'.
Distinguished by being one of the few American movies of the period to genuinely employ the capital as more than just a leafy backdrop peopled with cap-doffing, routemaster-driving chimney-sweeps. Parliament Hill, All Saints Church, Bishop's Park (the scene of Patrick Troughton's impalement by church spire) and the US Embassy all feature prominently, and for sound dramatic reasons, imbuing the film with a sense of grounded location that render the fantasy elements all the more shocking when they arrive. Such attention to detail clearly didn't trouble the makers of the 2006 remake, also set in the UK but shot in Prague, whose film features characters driving on the right hand side of the road, a cardboard 'Bishop's Park, London' sign pasted on a wall and tram lines in the middle of 'Central London'.
The Quatermass Xperiment
Hammer's remake of Nigel Kneale's 1953 TV serial mightn't have pleased its creator (who due to contractual obligations had no input into it), but it remains a thoughtful, hard-hitting and strangely touching story of man versus space-cactus. In one of its most moving scenes, Carroon the infected astronaut (played by William Wordsworth's great-great-grandson) stumbles across a very young Jane Asher having a dolls' picnic down by Deptford Creek, South-East London. Unlike Universal's Frankenstein's monster, instead of drowning her he merely decapitates her dolly and she lives to inspire Paul McCartney's 'Here, There And Everywhere' and make extravagant cakes for Gerald Scarfe's tea.
Hammer's remake of Nigel Kneale's 1953 TV serial mightn't have pleased its creator (who due to contractual obligations had no input into it), but it remains a thoughtful, hard-hitting and strangely touching story of man versus space-cactus. In one of its most moving scenes, Carroon the infected astronaut (played by William Wordsworth's great-great-grandson) stumbles across a very young Jane Asher having a dolls' picnic down by Deptford Creek, South-East London. Unlike Universal's Frankenstein's monster, instead of drowning her he merely decapitates her dolly and she lives to inspire Paul McCartney's 'Here, There And Everywhere' and make extravagant cakes for Gerald Scarfe's tea.
Repulsion
In Roman Polanski's psycho thriller Catherine Deneuve becomes horribly unglued and murders a potential suitor and her landlord in her Earl's Court bedsit, at 15 Kensington Mansions, Trebovir Road. A film to be filed alongside 'Mod Horrors', which also include Michael 'Witchfinder General' Reeves's The Sorcerers (Boris Karloff subjects Ian Ogilvy to mind control), Psychomania, Scream And Scream Again, and, belatedly, Dracula AD 1972, which sees the groovy dolly birds and butterfly-collared chaps of the King's Road fall under the toothy one's influence.
In Roman Polanski's psycho thriller Catherine Deneuve becomes horribly unglued and murders a potential suitor and her landlord in her Earl's Court bedsit, at 15 Kensington Mansions, Trebovir Road. A film to be filed alongside 'Mod Horrors', which also include Michael 'Witchfinder General' Reeves's The Sorcerers (Boris Karloff subjects Ian Ogilvy to mind control), Psychomania, Scream And Scream Again, and, belatedly, Dracula AD 1972, which sees the groovy dolly birds and butterfly-collared chaps of the King's Road fall under the toothy one's influence.
Theatre Of Blood
A tour-de-force of comic horror, and Vincent Price's greatest role, shot almost entirely in and around the capital (with the majority of the filming concentrated on South-West London.) Locations include 8 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where Price's Shakespearian ham tricks Critics Circle member Jack Hawkins into murdering wife Diana Dors, and a Brompton Road salon opposite Harrods, where Price's real-life wife Coral Browne (he met her on set) is electrocuted by hairdryer in homage to Joan of Arc's burning in 'Henry VI Part 1' (see pic). The eponymous theatre itself was the old Putney Hippodrome, Felsham Road, now the Odeon Putney, a few minutes walk from Bishop's Park where Patrick Troughton met his demise in The Omen.
A tour-de-force of comic horror, and Vincent Price's greatest role, shot almost entirely in and around the capital (with the majority of the filming concentrated on South-West London.) Locations include 8 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where Price's Shakespearian ham tricks Critics Circle member Jack Hawkins into murdering wife Diana Dors, and a Brompton Road salon opposite Harrods, where Price's real-life wife Coral Browne (he met her on set) is electrocuted by hairdryer in homage to Joan of Arc's burning in 'Henry VI Part 1' (see pic). The eponymous theatre itself was the old Putney Hippodrome, Felsham Road, now the Odeon Putney, a few minutes walk from Bishop's Park where Patrick Troughton met his demise in The Omen.
