Cheery Me
Last thing I wrote here was a brief obituary and here I am doing it again. I'll try to right something more cheery here again sometime soon. In the meantime, two people to acknowledge.
First up, Ingrid Pitt. You might expect me to remember her for her two roles in Doctor Who (in The Time Monster and Warriors of the Deep), but to be honest, neither of them really displayed her working at the top of her ability. Indeed, she made a rather embarassing decision on how her character should behave in WotD (her character was doomed, but she really should have gone with the scripted death rather than deciding that a scientist would attempt to karate-chop a reptilian sea creature over twice her height which could electrocute people). Instead, I would like to celebrate some of her roles in 1970s horror movies - a small role in The Wicker Man; a segment in The House That Dripped Blood; the starring role of Elizabeth Báthory in Countess Dracula; and, most notably, her performance as Carmilla in The Vampire Lovers, the first and best of Hammer's loosely connected "lesbian vampire trilogy". She gave a very effective and commanding performance in the role which finally made me understand that her reputation did in fact have a basis in her acting, not just her looks. Apparently she even had a role in the BBC's production of The Comedy of Errors, with which I look forward to catching up.
The death which prompted me to make this entry was that of Peter Christopherson, one half of the band Coil. His (and the band's) other half, John Balance, passed away six years previously. I don't actually own that much of their prolific output, and what I do own is mainly from their work as remixers, but they produced a wide range of interesting work. I first became aware of them when I spotted their rejected Hellraiser soundtrack (supposedly rejected due to being too disturbing), although my first purchase was their highly atypical cover version of "Tainted Love". I remember noticing one of their remixes of Nine Inch Nail's "Closer" being used on the opening credits of "Se7en" and being pissed off that the remixers weren't credited, as the end product sounded a lot more like Coil than NIN. Their golden period for me is the early 90s, with albums such as "Love's Secret Domain" and "Stolen and Contaminated Songs". John Coulthart has written his own reminiscence.
Two more people whose work I must revisit soon in remembrance.
First up, Ingrid Pitt. You might expect me to remember her for her two roles in Doctor Who (in The Time Monster and Warriors of the Deep), but to be honest, neither of them really displayed her working at the top of her ability. Indeed, she made a rather embarassing decision on how her character should behave in WotD (her character was doomed, but she really should have gone with the scripted death rather than deciding that a scientist would attempt to karate-chop a reptilian sea creature over twice her height which could electrocute people). Instead, I would like to celebrate some of her roles in 1970s horror movies - a small role in The Wicker Man; a segment in The House That Dripped Blood; the starring role of Elizabeth Báthory in Countess Dracula; and, most notably, her performance as Carmilla in The Vampire Lovers, the first and best of Hammer's loosely connected "lesbian vampire trilogy". She gave a very effective and commanding performance in the role which finally made me understand that her reputation did in fact have a basis in her acting, not just her looks. Apparently she even had a role in the BBC's production of The Comedy of Errors, with which I look forward to catching up.
The death which prompted me to make this entry was that of Peter Christopherson, one half of the band Coil. His (and the band's) other half, John Balance, passed away six years previously. I don't actually own that much of their prolific output, and what I do own is mainly from their work as remixers, but they produced a wide range of interesting work. I first became aware of them when I spotted their rejected Hellraiser soundtrack (supposedly rejected due to being too disturbing), although my first purchase was their highly atypical cover version of "Tainted Love". I remember noticing one of their remixes of Nine Inch Nail's "Closer" being used on the opening credits of "Se7en" and being pissed off that the remixers weren't credited, as the end product sounded a lot more like Coil than NIN. Their golden period for me is the early 90s, with albums such as "Love's Secret Domain" and "Stolen and Contaminated Songs". John Coulthart has written his own reminiscence.
Two more people whose work I must revisit soon in remembrance.