In this special live episode of General Witchfinders, recorded on stage at ActOne Cinema in Acton on 30 October, we bring you the live podcast panel following our sell-out screening of Hammer’s gender-bending 1971 horror classic, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.

Directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Ralph Bates alongside Martine Beswick, this Hammer Film Productions spin on Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde remains one of the studio’s most inventive offerings.

Joining us on stage for the post-screening Q&A is director and producer Sam Cl...

Welcome to the third episode of the General Witchfinders Book Club – a spin-off from our regular British horror podcast, run in partnership with Teasel & Skylark, an independent bookshop in Dorchester.

To accompany our real-life, face-to-face book club meet-ups, host Ross Cleaver invites a special guest co-host onto the show every two months to discuss our latest reading choice.

On this episode, Ross welcomes Brontë Schiltz. Brontë is a journalist, writer, and PhD candidate researching Televisual Gothic at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research and writing explore gothic literature, horror film, and the uncanny, with cont...

In this episode, we conclude our deep dive into screen adaptations of Nigel Kneale’s legendary sci-fi creation, Professor Bernard Quatermass. We take a look at the 1979 Euston Films/Thames Television serial The Quatermass Conclusion (also known as Quatermass IV or Quatermass), starring Oscar-winner John Mills as the titular professor.

Plus, stick around after the end credits for an exclusive clip preview from Room 5064 and B7 Media’s full-cast audio adaptation of Ramsey Campbell’s iconic folk horror novel, The Hungry Moon – starring Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Louise Jameson, Mina Anwar, and Jemma Moore.

In Th...

Last time, the files of General Witchfinders Department X revealed how psychic powers and parapsychology grew to be one of the leading frights of 70s horror culture. Now, we look closer at one of the key texts from the 60s counter-culture milieu that drove the psychic boom: Pauwels and Bergier’s ‘The Morning of the Magicians’.

Join James and Ross as they take a white-knuckle ride through a book that’s a who’s who of the occult: Charles Fort, H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen and the Golden Dawn, generous amounts of alchemy, ancient aliens – and Nazis!

This ve...

Welcome to the second episode of the General Witchfinders Book Club – a spin-off from our regular British horror podcast, run in partnership with Teasel & Skylark, an independent bookshop in Dorchester.

To accompany our real-life, face-to-face book club meet-ups, host Ross Cleaver invites a special guest co-host onto the show every two months to discuss our latest reading choice.

On this episode, Ross welcomes Dylan Rees. Dylan is an Emmy-winning producer and line producer across British television and independent film. Alongside his screen production work, Rees writes about the history of cult television and th...

Alternative 3 (1977) – Conspiracies, Secret Mars Bases, Brian Eno and 1970s TV Hoaxes

Our #SummerOfStrange continues. We step away from Hammer, Amicus, vampires, and classic screen monsters to explore British television’s most infamous media hoax: Alternative 3. Produced for Anglia Television’s Science Report and written by David Ambrose, this 1977 mockumentary sparked widespread paranoia regarding climate emergencies, the UK "brain drain", secret space programmes, and covert Mars bases.

We unpack the production history, cultural legacy, and fringe theories stemming from the broadcast – from its delayed April Fools’ Day airing to its impact on UFO literature...

The 16th episode of the fourth season of the BBC anthology series Play for Today, Penda’s Fen – originally broadcast on 21 March 1974 – is widely celebrated as a visionary masterpiece of British folk horror and 1970s television drama. Written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke, Time Out London named it one of the 100 best British films.

The Visionary Realism of Alan Clarke

Director Alan Clarke is renowned for his stark social realism and controversial depictions of institutionalised communities. His 1977 borstal drama Scum was banned by the BBC, later returning as a 1979 featur...

Welcome to the very first episode of the General Witchfinders Book Club – a new spin-off from our regular British horror podcast, run in partnership with Teasel & Skylark, an independent bookshop in Dorchester.

To accompany our real-life, face-to-face book club meet-ups, host Ross Cleaver invites a special guest co-host onto the show every two months to discuss our latest reading choice.

On this inaugural episode, Ross welcomes author Ray Newman. Ray is the author of the novel The Grave Digger’s Boy, as well as three exceptional collections of short stories: Munici...

Summer is the season of the spin-off at General Witchfinders. We have a few episodes beyond our usual format to share, starting with James’s exploration of parapsychology in the 1970s.

Why did that decade see such a dramatic rise in the cultural obsession with ESP, telekinesis, and psychic premonitions? James has been digging into the archives and thinks he has the answer.

Join James and Ross for an intriguing journey into the seventies counterculture in our new spin-off: ‘General Witchfinders – Department X: Mysterious Powers & Strange Forces’.

For people who struggle with backgrou...

https://www.actonecinema.co.uk/movie/general-witchfinders-present-dr-jekyll-sister-hyde/

We are bringing General Witchfinders to London on Halloween-eve – Friday 30th October at 7:30pm.

We really want to make this night a success – and by success, we mean not spending a load of money just to watch a film in a cinema all on our own! If you can make it, please grab a ticket and bring along a Hammer-friendly friend or two to help us fill the room. We would also massively appreciate your help to spread the word so we can reach as many peop...

Hammer Horror delivered one of its finest 1970s films with Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, despite a notoriously cursed production. This 1971 British release is the studio’s fourth and final Mummy film, loosely adapted by Christopher Wicking from Bram Stoker’s 1903 novel The Jewel of Seven Stars. Crucially, it remains the only entry in the franchise where a physical mummy never actually appears.

The trouble began early when a gap in the studio schedule forced the film into premature production. Wicking wanted to keep Stoker's original book title, but James Carreras refused, leading to a brainstorming sessio...

In this special live episode, we dive deep into the world of Folk Horror, discussing the legendary Big Christopher Lee, the ghost stories of M.R. James, and the groundbreaking television work of Nigel Kneale.

Recorded live at the King’s Arms Hotel in Dorchester, this event was hosted in partnership with our local independent bookshop, Teasel & Skylark, to celebrate the launch of our new zine. We explore the roots of British weird fiction, the enduring legacy of classic horror cinema, and the stories that keep us up at night.

This episode features the main di...

The Medusa Touch (1978): Richard Burton and the Power of Catastrophe

In this episode, we investigate the 1978 supernatural horror thriller The Medusa Touch. Directed by Jack Gold and adapted from the Peter Van Greenaway novel, The Medusa Touch is a quintessential piece of seventies British cinema that sits at the dark intersection of the disaster movie and the occult thriller. The film follows the investigation into the apparent murder of John Morlar, played with volcanic intensity by Richard Burton.

Richard Burton is the undeniable gravitational centre of The Medusa Touch. Despite Richard Burton only filming...

LIVE EVENT: General Witchfinders x Tasel & Skylark Books

Join the General Witchfinders for our first-ever live show! We are partnering with Dorchester’s premier bookshop, Tasel and Skylark, for a night of high-strung atmosphere and folk horror.

Tickets are strictly limited – grab yours now at www.generalwitchfinders.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) | Hammer Horror & Peter Cushing Deep Dive

Welcome to another atmospheric installment of the General Witchfinders podcast. In this episode, we are throwing chronology to the wind and jumping straight into the heart of the Hammer Films oeuvre. Having previously explored the Baron’s first experiment in The Curse of Frankenstein and his final bow in Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell, we now settle into the middle of the franchise with the 1967 cult classic: Frankenstein Created Woman.

Directed by the undisputed master of gothic cinema, Terence Fisher, and featuring a career-defining performance by...

The Asphyx (1972)

In this episode, we dive deep into the 1972 British science fiction horror cult classic, The Asphyx (also known as Spirit of the Dead or The Horror of Death). Set in the Victorian era, this unique period chiller follows a wealthy philanthropist and amateur scientist, Sir Hugo Cunningham, who stumbles upon a way to photograph the "Asphyx"—the Ancient Greek spirit of death that appears at the precise moment of a person's demise.

A Quick Mea Culpa on Picture Quality

Before we get into the meat of the fi...

In this episode, we explore the 1981 television pilot K-9 and Company, a unique and historic entry in the Doctor Who universe. Produced as a proposed Doctor Who spin-off, K-9 and Company stars the legendary Elisabeth Sladen as investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith alongside the robotic dog K9, voiced by John Leeson. While both were iconic former companions of the Fourth Doctor in Doctor Who, they had never appeared together on screen until the K-9 and Company pilot episode, titled A Girl’s Best Friend. Broadcast on BBC1 as a Doctor Who related Christmas special on 28 December 1981, K-9 and Company re...

The Ice House is part of the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas tradition, originally broadcast under the banner A Ghost Story for Christmas. First shown on BBC1 on Christmas Day 1978, it marked the final instalment of the original 1971 to 1978 run. This episode completes our podcast coverage of that era. -

Written by John Bowen, who previously delivered The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, The Ice House was produced by Rosemary Hill and directed by Derek Lister. Its Christmas Day broadcast made it only the second entry in the strand to air on 25 December, following Lost Hearts, securing...

This time we watched the 1973 British horror film Psychomania, a cult biker horror oddity originally filmed as The Living Dead before the title changed. In the United States it appeared as The Death Wheelers. Not to be confused with the 1963 American film Psychomania, also known as Violent Midnight.

The film was produced by Benmar Productions, better known for Spaghetti Westerns shot in Spain. They also made Horror Express later the same year with the same writers, which we covered back in episode 7. Psychomania was created in association with Scotia Bar Distributors who had director Don Sharp...

We return to our rundown of Flash Gordon, just as Flash and Prince Barin are being taken to the Hawkmen’s planet to fight to the death!

Flash Gordon was directed by Mike Hodges, the British filmmaker behind Get Carter and Pulp, and produced by the legendary Dino De Laurentiis. Based on the King Features comic strip created by Alex Raymond, the film stars Sam J. Jones as the all-American hero Flash, Melody Anderson as Dale Arden, Ornella Muti as the dangerous Princess Aura, Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless, and Topol as the eccentric scientist Dr...

Sorry this one’s a bit late — but to make up for it, we’ve gone all in with an extra-long episode of General Witchfinders, split into two parts. This week, we take you through the extraordinary, over-the-top world of Flash Gordon (1980) — the space opera superhero film that blended camp comedy, science-fiction spectacle, and Queen’s iconic soundtrack into something truly cosmic. The second half of this intergalactic adventure will land next week.

Flash Gordon was directed by Mike Hodges, the British filmmaker behind Get Carter and Pulp, and produced by the legendary Dino De Laurentiis. Based on the Kin...

Hammer horror reaches peak gothic chills with The Plague of the Zombies (1966), a Hammer Film Productions classic that defines British horror cinema. Shot at Bray Studios from 28 July 1965 and filmed back-to-back with Hammer’s The Reptile (see episode 19), it used the same eerie Cornish village set designed by Hammer’s celebrated production designer Bernard Robinson. Director John Gilling – the so-called “gentleman pig farmer” behind The Shadow of the Cat and The Mummy’s Shroud – stages a story of graveyards, curses and the undead that became a template for Hammer zombie horror. Writer Peter Bryan, who joined Hammer Film Productions in 1948 as a c...

This time on General Witchfinders, we’re heading into deep space — and hell itself — with the notorious 1997 science fiction horror film Event Horizon.··

Directed by Paul Anderson and written by Philip Eisner, Event Horizon is set in 2047. A rescue crew investigates the ship Event Horizon, which vanished years earlier and is now orbiting Neptune.··

After Mortal Kombat (1995), Anderson was suddenly in demand, linked to Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and even X-Men. Instead, he wanted a darker R-rated project. Paramount gave him Eisner’s script, first about alien creatures, but Anderson reworked it into a haunted house in space, dr...

Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970).

We’re back to Hammer Horror, back to Christopher Lee, and back to Dracula. In this episode of General Witchfinders, we sink our teeth into Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), the fifth official film in Hammer’s Dracula series and our sixth Hammer Dracula review to date. You can find links to all previous vampire escapades at https://tinyurl.com/Witchdrac.

This British gothic horror classic, directed by Peter Sasdy and written by Hammer regular Anthony Hinds (under the alias John Elder), was nearly a Dracula-free affair. Christopher Lee...

In this episode of General Witchfinders, we revisit one of the most unsettling and prophetic dramas ever broadcast by the BBC – Survivors (1975), created by Terry Nation, the man behind the Daleks and Blake’s 7. Specifically, we’re talking about The Fourth Horseman, the chilling first episode of this 1970s British post-apocalyptic classic.

💀 Trigger warning / content note: this episode contains discussion of global pandemics, mass death, and social collapse. If the subject feels a little too close to home after recent years, we completely understand if you choose to skip this one.

Survivors imagines a world whe...

This time on General Witchfinders, we’re heading back into the blood-soaked, Rage-infected streets of post-apocalyptic Britain with 28 Weeks Later — the 2007 zombie horror sequel to Danny Boyle’s groundbreaking 28 Days Later.

Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later builds on the legacy of 28 Days Later (which we covered in episode 43), expanding the world of the Rage Virus and the aftermath of a collapsed society. While Danny Boyle didn’t direct this time around — due to commitments on Sunshine — he stayed on as executive producer and even directed key sequences himself, including the ferocious opening scene.

This time we watched Tomorrow, the Rat — Episode 4 from Series 1 of Doomwatch, first broadcast 2 March 1970 and written by Terence Dudley. That’s four years before James Herbert published The Rats (which we covered in episode 4). It’s highly likely he was inspired by this vintage BBC sci-fi thriller—pen in hand, watching Doomwatch unfold.

Doomwatch was a vintage BBC science fiction series that aired from 1970 to 1972. A prime example of British sci-fi, it followed a government scientific agency led by Dr Spencer Quist (John Paul) investigating futuristic environmental and technological threats. Think of it as classic BBC sci-fi w...

Sorry to audio-spam you all, but we've got two things on the go that we thought you might like to hear about:

First up, Jon’s teamed up with his designer mate Sean Rees to create a photography book celebrating his 25-year love affair with the South Wales Valleys. It’s 72 pages of full-colour images and B5 sized.

He’s currently crowdfunding it, so if you’d like to get a copy, head here:

👉 https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/valleys-photography-book

And secondly, the second issue of our General Wit...

In this episode of General Witchfinders, we take a close look at The Creeping Flesh (1973), a British horror film from cult studio Tigon British Film Productions. Best known for low-budget horror that ran alongside the likes of Hammer Horror and Amicus, Tigon was founded in 1966 by Tony Tenser and operated out of Hammer House on Wardour Street in London. This marks our first dive into their back catalogue—and what a place to start.

The Creeping Flesh stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (#BigChrisLee) as brothers on opposing ends of a bizarre scientific discovery involving an ancient sk...

Join us for Hammer’s Hands of the Ripper, a 1971 British horror film released as the second half of a double feature with Twins of Evil. Directed by Peter Sasdy, produced by Aida Young, and written by L.W. Davidson from a story by Edward Spencer Shew.

Making good use of the large Baker Street set at Pinewood Studios—left over from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes—the production was denied permission to film its final scenes at St. Paul's Cathedral, so a replica was constructed instead. If the Pritchards' home and staircase look familiar, it’s becaus...

Bear with us this month, listeners, as we take a left turn down Duckett's Passage to talk about something a little different from our usual classic British horror.

Nicholas Simon Lyndhurst, born April 1961, is an English actor who began his career as a child actor and is best known for his role as Rodney Trotter in the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses, which ran from 1981 to 2003.

PART ONE:

Tonight's first topic covers his role as the time-travelling bigamist Gary Sparrow in the British sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart. Created by Laurence Marks and...

It’s 17th February 1964 – You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ by The Righteous Brothers is at number one in the UK. Sir Alec Douglas-Home is Prime Minister, Beatlemania has erupted in the United States, Southampton has been granted city status (can you tell this script was running short?), and the Channel Tunnel Agreement was signed, with an estimated completion time of five years (though it would actually take 30). Meanwhile, at the cinema, released as a double feature with The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, is today’s topic – The Gorgon.    

Anthony Nelson Keys, one of four filmmaking sons of...

The original run of A Ghost Story for Christmas aired on the BBC from 1971 to 1978, bringing classic ghost stories to television and keeping alive the tradition of sharing supernatural tales during the Christmas season. 

In our journey through the series, we’ve covered A Warning to the Curious and The Signalman in Episode 21, Whistle and I’ll Come to You and Stigma in Episode 32, and The Stalls of Barchester alongside The Treasure of Abbot Thomas in Episodes 41a and 41b. 

Just five days ago, on Christmas Eve, we delved into The Ash Tree. If you mi...

A Ghost Story for Christmas is a series of annual British short films first broadcast on BBC One from 1971 to 1978, and sporadically revived by the BBC since 2005. With one exception, the original films were directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and shot on 16 mm color film. The series aimed to adapt classic ghost stories for television, echoing the tradition of telling supernatural tales at Christmas.

So far, we’ve covered A Warning to the Curious and The Signalman in Episode 21, Whistle and I’ll Come to You and Stigma in Episode 32, and The Stalls of Barchester along with The...

Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter is a 1974 British swashbuckling action horror film, written and directed by Brian Clemens in his directorial debut. Clemens was celebrated for his work as a screenwriter, particularly for his contributions to British television series. Prior to Captain Kronos, he wrote and produced Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde for Hammer. Other films he wrote that fall into and circle around our areas of interest include And Soon the Darkness (which he wrote with Dalek creator Terry Nation), See No Evil (the 1971 Mia Farrow film,), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Watcher in the Woods (one of Di...

The Dæmons is the final story in the eighth season of Doctor Who, with Jon Pertwee playing the eponymous hero (see episode 48 covering The House That Dripped Blood for some fantastic Pertrivia). It aired over five weeks on BBC1 from 22 May to 19 June 1971.

In The Dæmons, the Master, played by Roger Delgado, awakens the ancient horned alien Azal, hoping to gain his immense power. Delgado, a close friend of Pertwee, worked extensively on stage, TV, film, and radio. His work included the BBC’s Quatermass II, Battle of the River Plate, Hammer's The Mummy's Shroud, and...

This time, we listened to and read Ringing the Changes by Robert Aickman.

Robert Fordyce Aickman was an English conservationist and writer. As a conservationist, he played a key role in preserving and restoring England's inland canal system. As a writer, he is best known for his supernatural fiction, which he described as "strange stories."

On his mother’s side, Aickman was the grandson of the prolific Victorian novelist Richard Marsh. Marsh is known for his occult thriller The Beetle, a book as popular in its time as Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Ai...

"The House That Dripped Blood" is a 1971 British anthology horror film directed by Peter Duffell and distributed by Amicus Productions. The film is a collection of four short stories, each concerning a series of inhabitants of the eponymous building.

Denholm Elliott appears in the segment "Method for Murder," playing Charles Hillyer. He is joined by Joanna Dunham, who portrays Alice Hillyer, Charles' wife.

Peter Cushing stars in the segment "Waxworks," portraying Philip Grayson. Joss Ackland (known for "Lethal Weapon 2," "Watership Down," and "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," among over 100 other films) plays...

Inside No. 9 is a British black comedy anthology series that aired from February 5, 2014, to June 12, 2024. Written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith and produced by the BBC. The only recurring elements are a setting related to the number 9 and a hidden brass hare statue. The show blends comedy, horror, and plot twists.

The episode we watched, "The Devil of Christmas," is a Christmas special and the first episode of the third series, aired on December 27, 2016. Directed by Graeme Harper and written by Pemberton and Shearsmith, it took heavy inspiration from 1970s anthology programs...

Intro music from:

Arthemis - Survivor (Destiny's Child Cover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjYCOtYjCY4

The Survivor is a 1981 supernatural horror Australian-British co-production directed by David Hemmings and starring Robert Powell, Jenny Agutter, and Joseph Cotten.

In Adelaide, Australia (not Eton in the UK as in the original novel written by James Herbert), airline pilot David Keller (played by Powell) survives the crash of his Boeing 747-200, unhurt despite all 300 passengers dying in the accident. With no memories of the accident, he starts to suffer strange supernatural visions.<...