Category: horror

Retro LadyLand: First class cult!

I wanted to push a site that I’ve been a fan of for a while. If you like cult movies and TV, you’ll dig this too. 1467460_10152165045539319_1349466104_n

Retro Ladyland is the brainchild of Charlotte Cooper, an old friend of mine. She runs a vintage shop, Missy Lil’s, and writes for vintage fashion magazines. But she’s a big movie buff, and has poured her passions into Retro LadyLand. She’s managed to snag exclusive and slightly twisted interviews with all sorts of interesting figures from the world of cult and trash film and TV, making the site a bit of a must-read if the notion of reading exclusive interviews with Heather Langenkamp or Betsy Baker floats your boat. 

I caught up with Charlotte recently and asked her to explain herself.

ROB:

How did you come up with the notion for Retro LadyLand?

CHARLOTTE:

I was and still do write for a vintage fashion magazine and love it, but sometimes talking endlessly about floral designs and skirt lengths can be a bit… I hate to say it, but a bit dull…

I have always been a celebrifile (I have just invented that word) and thought, lets try and contact someone and interview them and to my amazement the first person I asked said yes! Then I thought about the format, something that would make my interviews ‘stand out’. I had never written fan fiction before, but knew the market was vast, so I thought, why not incorporate both? An interview with a back story and viola, Retro LadyLand (Two capital L’s) was born.

ROB:

What’s the philosophy behind the site. Or rather, to put it in a slightly less wanky way, what is Retro LadyLand designed to do?

CHARLOTTE

I see it like your favourite band singing all your favourite hits at a concert, instead of going to see a band and them playing their new album, which you don’t know and frankly aren’t there for (I think we can all relate to that). In the majority of my interviews, although I do skim over the more up to date aspects of their career (as in Adrienne Barbeau talking about her time in Argo), I like to concentrate on why we love them, their heyday… How we remember them. But most importantly, Retro LadyLand is designed to entertain.

ROB:

You’ve snagged some great interviews with some amazing figures. How on earth did you get hold of them?

CHARLOTTE:

I just e-mail them, politely and sincerely and once I got one ‘biggy’, they all started to say yes… Although the Krankies asked for money!!!

ROB:

What’s the favourite interview you’ve done for Retro LadyLand?

CHARLOTTE:

My favourite is hard, as they are all such lovely people. Listening to Shani Wallis talk about Sinatra, Liberace and Garland was a rush and Heather Langenkamp was a teenage hero of mine. But I think it has to be David Bradley (Kes). He was so lovely and sincere and was so young when he played Billy, but still loves to talk about his time filming with Ken Loach, plus it is also one of my all time favourite films.

ROB:

We love spoilers here at Excuses And Half Truths. So, are there any upcoming treats you can let us know about?

CHARLOTTE:

I have a festive treat for our Christmas special: an interview with Eileen Dietz. Now horror fans will know that name straight away, but if not, she was the Pazuzu, the devil in The Exorcist. The face that gives you nightmares! Also coming up we have Dana Barron, who was the first Audrey in the Vacation movies and I’m very excited about Nancy ‘Robocop’ Allen, coming soon too! Happy reading!

Well, that’s a sack full of goodies. Retro LadyLand is a solid read, and full of interesting material for those of us that love a bit of cult. Thanks to Charlotte for chatting to us. Check out the site, and say hi. Tell ’em I sent ya.

RETRO LADYLAND THIS WAY>>> CLICK on MICHAEL MYERS FOR ALL THE GOODIES!

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The X(&HT)Mas Bonus Speakeasies: Slayride

Merry Santa!

Xmas Bonus- Slayride

As our Xmas gift to you, dearest Listenership, here is the second of our bonus Speakeasies. Clive and I are reading each other’s stories from last year’s Zombie Christmas anthology, The Dead Files Vol. 3 (pick it up at Amazon for the zombie fan in your life). This time around, Clive is reading my story of the best Christmas Day ever: Slayride.

Tales Of The Black Meadow

An evening of hauntology to launch a great new exploration of the unexplainable…

To Reading Library I stepped my way. I had received an invitation from Chris Lambert, host of last year's Z-Day and a Dead Files colleague. He was launching a new venture–a literary and musical examination of one of the North of England's strangest phenomena.

 

North of R.A.F. Fylingdales, on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors, lies a place known locally as the Black Meadow. It is a place that has been the nexus of folklore, songs and stories for a very, very long time. Strange things happen in the Black Meadow. There is a mist that will rise from the woods even on a clear and cloudless day. There are things in there, the stories say. A man made out of rag and bone. Dancers with horses heads and men's bodies. And a village that will appear and disappear without a trace.

The note sent by Lord Brightwater to a petitioner as the Royal Commission was set up. It would come back to haunt him...

 

The Black Meadow has devoured many souls over the centuries. The songs and stories that have developed in the local area warn against the place and even now, should the mist rise, people will not leave their houses until it has dissolved again. It is these disappearances that have sparked interest over the decades, with a Royal Commission in the 1930's under Lord Thomas Brightwater tasked with the investigation of the mysterious incidences. That inquiry was plagued with controversy, and Brightwater abandoned it, and his political ambitions under a cloud of opprobrium.

In the late 1960s Professor Roger Mullins of the University of York picked up where the Commission had left off. His initial exploration of the folklore around Fylingdales led him in strange directions, and his research took an increasingly esoteric turn. He disappeared in 1972, and he has never been found. The Black Meadow has a way of keeping its secrets to itself.

Mullins, with the radomes of R.A.F. Fylingdales in the background.

 

Or perhaps not. Mullins left behind a stack of research material that have formed the basis of this new project. Chris, along with musical collaborator Kevin Oyston, have put together a package that explores the folklore that has formed around the phenomena of the Black Meadow. Chris's book of tales, beautifully illustrated by Nigel Wilson, gathers many of the best known tales and poems in a neat little volume. Meanwhile Kevin has taken on the musical side of the legend, collating the songs and ballads that are regularly sung in the taverns of the area–songs that will reliably reduce a room to silence, and many of the listeners to tears.

The launch evening was a huge success. A packed room enjoyed a presentation of the legend and its history, along with readings of some of the poems, and a dramatic re-enactment of the tale of The Devil and The Yoked Man.

It seems, however, that the more you try to explore the phenomena of the Black Meadow, the less clear it becomes. You become mist-blind, and the truth slips through your fingers like fog.

 

If you'd like to find out more about the Black Meadow, Chris's book is available from Amazon. Kevin's music, which includes a remastered version of a 1978 Radio 4 documentary on the phenomena, is available through Bandcamp as download or, if you insist, CD (this does contain a 4-page booklet with new art and a preface from writer and hauntology fan Warren Ellis, so the physical form has that going for it).

The Book Of The Black Meadow

The Music Of The Black Meadow

The Brightwater Archive, which gives more information about the Black Meadow, is open to the public at http://brightwaterarchive.wordpress.com/. Go more deeply if you wish. But for God's sake, stay out of the mist.

 

(Illustrations courtesy of The Brightwater Archive, apart from the photo of Prof. R. Mullins, reprinted with permission of Prof. Philip Hall of the University of York.)