Quantum Of Friendship

Our Halloween special, marking two years of our podcast, looks at Ken Russell's 1986 "Gothic". During 1816, volanic ash created a Year Without A Summer, with many cold storms keeping people indoors. Among those losing their minds in a Swiss villa, were bad-boy Lord Byron and SJW Percy Shelley. A writing contest among the guests led to the inspiration for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidori's The Vampyre, paving the way for a century of flourishing Gothic horror literature. That is what the opening and conclusion of this movie is about. Everything in-between is a discordant nightmarish phantasmagoria of steampunk porcelain robots, eye-boobs and "nudey Nick-Nacks". Jonathan gets into some context for what actually happened to the people depicted while Richard notes comparisons with Darren Aronofsky's Mother! And the latest Bond news reveals an upcoming biopic of Nick-Nack actor Hervé Villechaize, where Peter Dinklage plays him and it actually exists. Happy Halloween.