"Just my husband frightening the life out of me- it's quite normal">
You may be wondering what is this new series I've started to blog, because it's somewhat obscure. Dead of Night was a horrow anthology series broadcast on BBC 2 in late 1972. This being British television of the early 1970s, only three episodes exist of the seven which were made. I'm going to blog all three of them. Let's just say that all three may just be possible on a certain online medium known for pronouns and tubing...
Anyway, this is simply a superb piece of horror and social commentary, once you get over the shoch of seeing Clive Swift looking so young, with a full head of ginger hair. It's Christmas, it's a remote thatched cottage which is rather charming, if renovated with all mod cons such as, er, a rotary telephone, a big wooden television that needs to warm up, and (gasp) a stereo. And two rather posh couples in their mid-thirties are looking forwards to a slap up Christmas dinner with lashings and lashings of booze.
It's the most early '70s dinner party of all time, with talk of the mind's hidden potential, the recent three days week and the recent miner's strike, as well as lapsed Marxist views, something which will become relevant later. These couples are privileges, and know they are.
I won't spoil things, but lets say that odd things increasingly happen, and the bleak and brutal conclusion has a very pointed subtext about rich, poor and the evils of living in luxury as others starve. It's all so very astoundingly political, yet as horror it's no less effective. Superb.
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