House In Nightmare Park

OK, it's October.  The very best month of the year, officially!  Very soon, in this part of the world, we will start to have very short, chilly days but very long and cosy evenings.  Perfect for a spot of camp gothic horror!

At about the age of 15, I stumbled, quite by chance, across House In Nightmare Park (thank you graveyard slot, Channel 4).  I saw Frankie Howerd ("get your titters out") and a creepy gothic mansion and I was hooked

There are sweeping staircases and dusty candleabras everywhere.  The sets and camera work create a creeping sense of claustrophobia - but with Frankie Howerd about, of course you just have to watch with your tongue ever so slightly in your cheek.

 

The story commences with deluded ham actor Foster Twelvetrees (Howerd) delivering a reading of The Old Curiosity Shop to a spectacularly disinterested Victorian audience (look out for the encore scene, it's priceless).

He is invited to a large country mansion by it's owner Stewart Hendison (Ray Milland) with a view to perfoming one of his "inimitible renditions" for the household.  

Stewart lives with his ever silent and never smiling sister Jessica, played by the brilliant Rosalie Crutchley;   both of whom are converts to the Hindu faith and ardent Kali worshippers.

We are in time introduced to various other 'eccentric' family members and it soon becomes clear that all is not as it seems

 

What follows is a beautiful mix of piercing screams, dark corridors, encircling mist and a growing corpse count.  Throw in the classic mad relative locked away in the attic and, well, you get the picture.

  

You're my wife now Daaave

So if you like creepy Victorian mansions, creaking staircases and semi-aristocratic head-cases, this should be right up your street

Baffingly panned by the critics on release, it has since quite rightly become something of a cult classic.  Unfortunately it has never been released on DVD so its a pain to get hold of.  My brother in law recently did me a VHS transfer which I have been watching with renewed enthusiasm.  Unfortunately the quality is not great.

The house used for location is the beautiful Oakley Court in Windsor.

This glorious building is now a luxury hotel.  Check out this blog post which gives a history of the house and the different films in which it has featured.  You'll no doubt recognise some of them.

Go on, give this film a watch if you dare

Mwah ha ha ha