Originally broadcast in 2001, Dr Terrible's House of Horrible is a six-part pastiche of 1970s Hammer Horror from Steve Coogan's Baby Cow production company. Each episode is topped and tailed by Coogan beneath a mass of prosthetics in a high-back leather chair as the avuncular, flatulent, faintly morally debauched Dr Terrible. "That was truly diabolical", he concludes of each show, a verdict with which one or two critics unkindly and unfairly concurred. Coogan also stars in each as six different characters. In "And Now the Fearing...", for example. he plays rat-faced,... unpleasant millionaire Denham Denham; in "Frenzy of Tongs"--a mickey-take of the Fu Manchu films--he's the insufferably suave Nathan Blaze, a Jason King-a-like; in "Scream, Satan Scream", meanwhile, he superimposes a parody of Peter Sellers over a lampoon of the Vincent Price film Witchfinder General. Although most of these episodes are elaborate period pieces and genuine care has been made to render them as scary as possible, the real period detail has been in recreating the luridly quaint, over-acted, hammy feel of the 70s productions to which these episodes pay affectionate homage. Although hardly a perfect series, the camped-up daftness of the entire enterprise, a star-studded cast that includes Honor Blackman, John Thompson and Ronnie Ancona, some nice scripting and Coogan's versatility all make for a programme that's hard to dislike. On the DVD Dr Terrible's House of Horrible is quite generous in its extras. These include "An Appointment with Terrible", a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show, much of which was shot in the studio hangars where the original Hammer horrors were made, dry audio commentary by cowriters Graham Duff and Henry Normal and director Matt Lipsey, and "Behind the Screams" a mock-70s film journal ("only 10p!") reflecting on the making of one of the episodes. --David Stubbs [show more]
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Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play. Steve Coogan takes on a different guise in each of these self-contained chilling tales. From the grisly results of a ballroom dancer’s encounter with a giant pair of scissors, to the depths of vampiric lust and the misadventures of a 19th Century medical pioneer, each tale is introduced by the enigmatic Dr Terrible, and features well known performers from TV and cinema. Appointment with Dr Terrible is an opportunity to see Steve Coogan talking about his art.
Six episodes from the BBC comedy series. 'And Now the Fearing...', set in 1972, features three people trapped in a high rise lift. 'Frenzy of Tongs' is the story of Nathan Blaze and his meeting with the fingered menace from the East, Hang Man Chang. 'Curse of the Blood of the Lizard of Doom' follows Dr Baxter and his search for a cure for the common burn in 1880's Edinburgh. 'Lesbian Vampire Lovers of Lust' follows a newly wed couple who find themselves at the mercy of luscious undead ladies, and 'Voodoo Feet of Death' tells of a ballroom dancer who loses his feet in a freak accident with giant scissors. Finally 'Scream Satan Scream!' is the story of Captain Tobias Slater and his encounter with a genuine coven of evil in Blackburn in 1645.
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