Cult TV Blog

This post is about the Thriller episode Kill Two Birds (1976) which I think might have been released as Cry Terror in some markets. Since my last post I hatched a plan to write alternating posts about Tales of Unease and Thriller, simply because I don't want to rush through the seven episodes of Tales of Unease and thought they might compare and contrast well to another anthology series. I hadn't watched any Thriller for several years, although a few episodes have appeared here before, so it seemed the obvious choice. And this is where my plan hit a snag, which is that I frankly found myself wondering why I had bothered to keep the boxed set of Thriller at all, apart from a few episodes. So in the past week I have actually watched the whole of Thriller and can confirm that my personal preference would be for Tales of Unease anyday. Thriller struggles with a few disadvantages to my mind: the episodes are too long and the available material would be enough for a shorter programme...

I must start this post by correcting something I said, ooh, two or three blog posts ago, which was that I thought the episodes ran on to play a bit again, on the Network DVD box set. This was completely wrong and in fact the way the shows are arranged on the DVD is to show the whole episode as originally seen in the UK, and then there are the opening and closing titles as made for the US market. Very complete indeed, but a bit confusing for a bear of little brain like myself. Personally I would have preferred the US titles put separately as an extra, because I can't find a way of watching the whole DVDS episodes through without seeing different titles over and over. Here in the UK we got the ATV In Colour titles as seen above. What memories those titles bring back for me - one of these days I am going to get round to writing the post I keep talking about, about UK regional TV stations, not least because it will force me to get the matter finally clear in my own head. Then after th...

A haunted car. What a twentieth century variation on the staple of ghost stories, the haunted this, that, and the other. The use of the plot device gives this episode a lift to a more established folklore milieu from its otherwise completely 1970s setting. The use of a car also has the advantage over other haunted items, because having wheels the car can seem to develop its own sentience and move on its own. A further classy touch is given by the fact that the car isn't just any old car but a Rolls. Ironic that the one in this episode was bought for seven grand which seems nothing for a car now, and I see that a 1970s Rolls can be got for two grand now. How the mighty are fallen! - however I'm sure maintaining an elderly luxury car is never cheap. Personally I prefer the MGB GT which also features in this episode, but not in the characteristic 1970s orange colour scheme. I started watching this show while cooking - of course I was listening, not watching, and I was very surp...

Yesterday I went to Leamington Spa, which is not far from here but is always an expensive journey because there is someone there with the same taste in TV as me, who keeps selling his or her DVDs to the entertainment exchange, and I keep buying them. Yesterday I bought series 1 of a series I have never heard of before, Rogue's Rock, but which I find I like because it is definitely out of the same stable as Freewheelers, even down to some of the same music. In non-TV I bought the horror film spoof Young Frankenstein, and bought the boxed set of Thriller. I have seen the show before but not for some time and have somehow never blogged about it here. Thriller is one of those series which is described as legendary by some, and since it is an anthology series, you can often find it described as mixed. Lady Killer is the first episode, and it's excellent, despite embodying virtually everything I dislike in television of this era! For a start the three main characters are played by...