By Roy Mathur, on 2024-06-14, at 23:56:40 to 01:09:50 BST, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
Raised from the dead again by a judicious dunking in The Black Cauldron (see 547), the Hammer House of Horror revisit returns from beyond the veil for it's final leg.
For those of you sad about England's loss earlier tonight, console yourselves in something we do well.
Notable Cast: Michael Roberts: Ray Lonnen; prolific, inc. Doctor Who: Frontier in Space (pod 290), Charles Randolph (cult leader): John Carson; prolific, inc. Thunderbird 6, Allison: Rosalyn Landor; also Hammer's The Devil Rides Out, Simon Andrews: Paul Darrow needs no introduction.
Director: Don Sharp also dir. for Hammer and Psychomania, prev. actor.
Writer: David Fisher, also Doctor Who: The Stones of Blood, The Androids of Tara, The Creature from the Pit, The Leisure Hive, author of Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit, Doctor Who and the Leisure Hive
Producer: Roy Skeggs; ex-Hammer Films, formed spin-off Cinema Arts, returned to Hammer, moved production to Buckinghamshire and created Hammer House of Horror.
Locations: 1980 in and around Buckinghamshire. Ext. and Int.: Hampden House, Michael's home: Peterley Manor House, Laura's shop: Hill Avenue, Amersham, Andrews' shop: High Street, Amersham.
Production: Hammer Films, Cinema Arts, and ITC Entertainment
Distribution: ITV
Music: The memorable theme music was composed by ex-Jazz pianist Roger Webb.
Broadcast: Episode 10 of 13, first broadcast 22 November 1980, c. 54 minute running time (c. 1 hr inc. ads), following Carpathian Eagle (pod 543).
Media: DVD Hammer House of Horror: The Complete Collection (2002), Blu-ray Hammer House of Horror: The Complete Series (2017) is worth buying because the series was shot on 35 mm film, ITVX in the UK (2023), Apple TV
Blondie's The Tide is High is the UK no. 1. For years I thought very New Jersey Deborah Ann Harry (Angela Trimble) was from England. Hey, this was before the internet.
The leader of evil cultists fail to complete the Choronzon ritual to bring forth the demon Coronzon from the abyss via a dark mirror. The intended sacrifice is driven insane by the sight of the demon and she smashes her head against a pillar. The leader decides they need to restart the ritual afresh with a new victim and chooses a woman (Allison) from his congregation.
Antiques dealer Laura buys a black mirror at auction and is pressured to sell it by another dealer called Andrews. A third, her friend Michael, advises her not to part with it because it might be valuable and agrees to research the object.
While driving home, Michael picks up Allison who has escaped the Choronzons. He takes her home. They talk, she identifies the mirror as possibly the original and immensely valuable scrying glass of Elizabethan magician Dr John Dee. She steals it, tries to throw it into a pond, but finds she can't and returns it to Michael. Under the control of her leader, she sleeps with Michael. The leader visits Michael, hypnotically manipulates him, and warns him off Allison, though his motives remain unclear.
Michael and Allison drive to Laura to return the mirror. Laura sells it to Andrews for an inflated sum. Andrews runs into Allison and makes off with her.
Afraid that the cult has taken her, Michael stages a rescue, only to find that she is bait to trap him as their next sacrifice. A vengeful Andrews, a Choronzon, plunges a dagger into Michael's chest at the culmination of the ritual. Michael dies, a great storm ensues, the hideous horned demon Choronzon appears, then assumes Michael's form. Michael/Chorozon frees himself from his bonds, grasps Allison to his side, and points his forked fingers at his terrified disciples.
I loved the Satanic cult nonsense (well, Choronzonic, I suppose they aren't that ambitious). The first sexy sacrifice scene engaged me up until the point when the victim goes head banger and lobotomises herself against a fluted Greco-Roman Doric column. The foley is crunchy and wet. The sickening and tastless scene was a bucket of ice water.
While they don't always hit the mark because effects without CGI is hard, compliments not just for Guardian of the Abyss, but for the entire series go to the practical effects crew. Saying that, there isn't much in the way of FX in Guardian. There is the demon in the dark mirror portal effect, John Nathan Turner classic Doctor Who era-level creature design of the said demon (i.e. a bit on the budget side), blood squibs, and a dagger hilt stuck to the protagonist's chest.
The fetish doll props that devil priest Charles Randolph employs to get Michael and Allison in the mood, as in Witching Time, have underwear. It's okay to smash a cast members brains out, but woe betide the dread messy nest or dingle-dangle besmirching our British screens.
Paul Darrow is two years into playing Avon, with one year left to go, and it shows. Andrews, the character he plays, seems to have Avon's cold calculation and ruthless streak, plus a touch more cowardice and spite. Or is that me projecting as a fan of Blake's 7?
Rosalyn Landor (Allison) is the love interest, but I couldn't take my eyes off Caroline Langrishe. She only has a minor part as Andrew's secretary, but in the antiques trade, a business she would continue in, playing Charlotte Cavendish in Lovejoy more than a decade later.
Weirdos in black habits, chanting, candlelight, demons, pentacles, human sacrifice; The Devil Rides Out springs to mind. The famous horror film starring Christoper Lee is even linked to this story in that willowy Rosalyn Landor, as a child actor, played a sacrificial victim in that too.
A very similar possession scene is seen in the Dark Crusade fantasy novel by Karl Edward Wagner, also featuring a victim trapped by the deception of an evil cult and a black mirror that opens a portal to let a terrible and powerful being into our world.
It's a very straight story, with cultic horror and scantily clad women, an interesting McGuffin, a twist towards the end (sorry, New Who Whovians), and ultimately it is left uncomfortably unresolved, just how I like it.
Did John Dee know that his obsidian scrying mirror was Aztec in origin? I'm guessing that perhaps he did because he also used it as for that purpose, albeit in a very different cultural context; to contact Abrahamic angels and demaons. One supposes he thought a portal for one culture would work for another. Or maybe he was simply a charlatan.
The actual object itself, the obsidian mirror not the prop mounted in silver, can be seen in the British Museum today. Its accession number is 1966,1001.1 and it can be found at G1/fc20.
IBS and no sleep made my usual monthly London walk was more traipse than flanerie.
I dropped my rose tints as I took in Harrods and Hyde Park for the first time in decades. Harrods was an indecipherable mall full of rich fashion-victims, though the pen, chocolate, and food departments were excellent. Hyde Park was humid and getting anywhere was much further than Google Maps would have you believe.
...More Hammer House of Horror of course!