Talking Spectacles

I spoke to film critic and stand up comedian Nick Bartlett about the Karl Strauss technique in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the mirror gag in Airplane! and the old school effects used to create the beautifully macabre world of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 1. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) I love the transformation scenes in An American Werewolf in London and The Howling but this scene beats even those. It’s a POV shot where we see Dr. Jekyll (Fredric March) transform into Mr Hyde. They put red (...)

In the first instalment of Talking Spectacles I spoke to Matt Houlihan from The Garden Cinema about the drooling aliens of Alien, Event Horizon’s gothic spaceships and the wonderfully absurd animatronics of The Thing. Alien - This is essentially a haunted house film since it’s set in an enclosed space where people are faced with a malign presence. My favourite scene is where Harry Dean Stanton sees the alien for the first time. The way it’s introduced is so clever, you don’t see it (...)