the continuity’s having the night off tonight, as are the regular features/series. though i might run the next strange paradise after 7pm just to see how it stacks up with this marathon.

the usual anthology roulette material was getting a little stale/repetitious, so i thought that something i’m probably never going to find a slot for in the schedules for and “speed run” some of it.

Christopher Lee’s Theatre Macabre

Recommended from a friend and Leodensian Goth/Schlock culture connoisseur as follows:

“The dramas themselves appear to show Polish theatre and TV at the time as stuck in a tradition of Stanislavskian realism so rigid that it’s almost like hallucinating – as if a Russian theatre troop from the 1910s had been left doing a constant production on a desert island, until they can only walk in straight lines

This Polish TV equivalent of ‘Tales Of The Unexpected’, topped & taled by Christopher Lee, has dozens of episodes but absolutely none of them land – all running the gamut from trite to downright incomprehensible. The Lee segments often bear absolutely no relation to the stories themselves, seemingly based on the original stories rather than the rather loose adaptations on the show, and they are often so disingenuous as to stretch all credibility (the story isn’t by Tolstoy, but *a* Tolstoy, and Lee doesn’t appear to know or care about the distinction).

All in all, absolutely nothing works in them and absolutely no one involved appears to know what they’re doing. It’s a collosal failure on every level.”

breaking for a half hour shortly after 6pm (so i don’t miss one when i head home from graft – where i’ll find some audio or other to keep the vibe going) when we come back a couple more episodes of it, along with shite knock off of Death Race 2000 (which inexplicably stars the insane clown posse and wrestler Scott “Raven” Levy, and a compilation from Vincent Price’s “escapes” anthology then a couple more Theatre Macabre to finish off the night.

throughout the night there’ll be episodes of trapdoor in random order as well as other stuff (except for the one that’s the full theme tune – that will appear three times over the stream – once at 4pm, again as we come back from the audio break, then at closedown – it’s a banger. sorry)