Hope you are well. I’ve been lucky enough to be invited on to two more excellent podcasts recently – Here Lies Amicus and I Don’t Do Sci-Fi.
Here Lies Amicus is the brainchild of Cev Moore and is an in-depth review of the films of legendary Sixties and Seventies exploitation studio Amicus. Run by Milton Subotsky and Max J Rosenberg, Amicus were one of Hammer Films’ main rivals and often fished in the same pool of actors and filmmakers as the people at Bray Studios. Probably best remembered now for their horror anthology movies like Tales from the Crypt and Asylum, Amicus also made pop music vehicles, thrillers and also two low budget science fiction movies: The Terrornauts and They Came From Beyond Space. This double bill was the subject of the October 2022 episode Amicus in Outer Space!
Here is a link to the Spotify page. The podcast is also available on most popular platforms.
To be honest I thought I had mentioned this at the time but looking back through my blog I shamefully omitted to post about it. I know Cev through our mutual association with the Official Talking Pictures TV podcast, where he also has an interest in reviewing the channel’s fantasy output. He kindly provided some useful background info on the two films, in addition to us re-watching them. Whilst neither film is great, they both have a lot of interest in them. The Terrornauts is more ambitious, featuring scientists being abducted and taken to an ancient alien space station to defend the solar system from an invasion fleet, but consequently it falls so much further, betrayed by wooden dialogue and bargain basement model work. They Came from Beyond Space is another variant on the alien possession trope, set in the Home Counties and having more than a touch of The Avengers about it. Unfortunately, the thin plot is padded out with a lot of busywork about infiltrating the aliens’ base and has a dull lead in Robert Hutton. Nevertheless, I had an excellent time discussing both titles with Cev.
Moving bang up to the date with a podcast only released yesterday – I Don’t Do Sci-Fi is the spiritual sequel to last year’s impressive Tripodscast, from the same team of Dani Wray, Rebecca Wray, John Isles and Kevin Hiley. It’s a conversational podcast based on the concept that Dani is an SF novice who in the past has had little exposure to a lot of the genre. So her friends are showing her examples of futuristic fiction, starting with the cult BBC drama Star Cops. Most episodes will feature a special guest and kindly I was invited to be part of the debut. Recording in person is always fun and we had a lively time revisiting the series which I covered in my own podcast last year.
You can listen to the series here or on your favourite podcast app. Hope you enjoy both series.
The Phantom Frame 