Peter Cushing used to live in Whitstable

So goes the song by The Jellybottys, and that’s exactly where he lived – when not hammering stakes into vampires, travelling through time and space, journeying to the centre of the earth or ensuring a certain Death Star was fully operational.

Hammer and all round film and horror buff, Alex Norman, stumbles across the village that never forgot Peter Cushing.

Who knew that a day trip to the south east coast could end up as a walk in the footsteps of a celebrated legendary British actor?

Located on the north coast of Kent in south-east England, Whitstable has a population of roughly 32,000 and is famous for its oysters and historical landmarks such as the castle and Black Mill.

Its coast is lined with a mixture of shingle and sandy beaches and the scorching hot day sees many sunbathers, swimmers and water sports enthusiasts taking advantage. A jet ski has just arrived and is being carefully released into the water.

If you look out to sea, off the coast, you can see a windfarm consisting of 30 wind turbines which power 70,000 households and even further out, roughly nine miles, you can make out small black forms of the Maunsell sea-fort, armed towers built during the Second World War to help defend UK shores. A close-up photo of them is being sold in the marina market and, to me, they resemble the AT-AT combat walkers first seen The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

Little was I to know that it was the home of Grand Moff Tarkin, and no doubt his slippers. As we walk along the seafront promenade past the Neptune Pub where Peter O’Toole filmed scenes for Venus (2006), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, and past the stylish holiday cottages and terraced townhouses, we find ourselves on a pathway called Cushing’s Walk, a highly sought-after stretch of real estate offering perfect sea views with the beach literally on the doorstep.

What’s this we see? One of the houses has an English Heritage blue plaque and a tingle of excitement ripples through me – who could have lived here? As I move closer and my eyes refocus, I see that it reads:

PETER CUSHING O.B.E.
1913-1994
ACTOR
lived here
1959-1994

‘Cushing’s Walk’ is named after THE Peter Cushing, star of Hammer Horror, Sherlock Holmes, Dr Who and, of course, Star Wars.

My tenuous Star Wars analogy now seems quite fitting. He only appeared in the original 1977 classic but was somewhat controversially resurrected For the 2016 prequel, Rogue One.

Cushing first visited Whitstable a long time ago…in the 1940s, and in 1958, bought this very house, initially for weekend use, and then as a retirement home, until his death in 1994. Cushing and his wife, Helen, loved Whitstable and the townspeople clearly took to them.

Cushing is probably best known his prolific work during the 50s, 60s and 70s in the Hammer horror films, alongside good friend (or should that be fiend?) Christopher Lee, particularly his portrayals of Baron Victor Frankenstein and Professor Van Helsing.

He also played Sherlock Holmes many times, originally in Hammer’s The Hound of the Baskerville’s (1959). This was followed by 16 episodes of the BBC series of which only six episodes have survived.

Cushing even played Dr Who in two films (Dr. Who and the Daleks – alongside Roy Castle – and Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. – this time with Bernard Cribbins) based on the BBC science-fiction TV series Doctor Who, although the films are not considered part of the show’s official canon. And he’d end his film career dabbling with time travel in his final screen performance in Biggles (1986).

The plan for the rest of the day was decided – to find out as much about Cushing and his time here in Whitstable before we head back home to the opposite side of the Estuary.

Museum

The Whitstable Museum (quite rightly) has a section dedicated to the actor and although it’s a little tired and features a skew-whiff portrait of Cushing as Sherlock, there’s no doubting the high regard Whitstable has for this man. The remains of a half-smoked cigarette sits in a glass cabinet, supposedly Cushing’s final smoke – apparently he would wear a white smoking glove so he didn’t stain his fingers.

A volunteer at the museum was genuinely delighted that we were so interested in Cushing, having gotten so used to the younger generation’s complete lack of knowledge as to who he was! She tells us she used to go swimming at the local pool and would often see Cushing doing his laps. She also said that Cushing was a very quiet and gentle man who fitted right in with the locals, no ego or pretence. She then mentions the pub across the road, a must-see for fans of the great man.

The pub

A black plaque out front says the building is the former Oxford cinema which first opened its doors on 27 July 1936. It was built around the Oxford Picture Hall, which itself, opened in 1912 in what had been the Oxford ‘concert and music hall’.

J.D. Wetherspoon took over the building in 2011 and transformed it into an art deco palace whilst retaining the essence of the original incarnation. The foyer is wonderfully preserved and its centrepiece is an original cinema projector. The walls are adorned with film posters and film cans of many of Cushing’s films such as Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles as well as other British favourites such as Carry on Sergeant, Hitchcock’s Stage Fright and Carry on Cruising.

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The main drinking hall is majestically presided over at the bar end by a huge black and white print of Cushing and Robert Urquhart in Hammer’s 1957 production of The Curse of Frankenstein. Some of Cushing’s original paintings also grace the walls, celebrating another of his talents.

Antique shop

We were hoping to meet some local elders who may have met the great man and it was then that we spotted, on Harbour Street, the quirky yet enticing Geoff Laurens Antiques. Inside there’s barely room to swing a cat (perhaps one from The Uncanny) and Mr Laurens himself sits in his favourite chair deep inside his store and greets us with a warm welcome.

Geoff has been trading in Whitstable since 1970, the same year as Scream and Scream Again, and whereas others antique stores have come and gone, Geoff continues do business.  If anyone crossed paths with Cushing, then surely it was Geoff? So I asked him and was pleased when Geoff said: “Oh yes, of course. He used to come in here all the time.  On some days when it rained, I would drive him back home. You know, just up the street is his favourite tea rooms.”

Tea room

Indeed, we pop into the Tudor Tea Rooms and Cushing’s favourite table now features a touching tribute alongside a photo of him in his later years.  The message reads: ‘In loving memory of our dear Peter Cushing. A sadly missed family friend’. The shop was closing up for the day so we didn’t have time for a cuppa.

We decided to finish our tour by going back to Cushing’s Walk on the seafront promenade.  With the sun sizzling, the Neptune Pub beer garden heaving and the oyster bars packed – it was clear to see why Cushing decided to retire in this town as opposed to his previous address in London. It has a real timeless feel about it, just like the man and his movies. So it is fitting that he is remembered so vividly and prominently, almost 20 years since he died.

They don’t make actors like Peter Cushing anymore, so it is great to see Whitstable continue to honour its adopted son, an acting legend. But then actors like Peter Cushing never really die…

Final Destination #30DaysOfFright

Flight 180, a packed passenger plane, explodes minutes after take-off from JFK killing everyone on board. Everyone accept a small group of passengers who find themselves ejected from the plane after one claims to have had a premonition of the impending disaster.

Now, those lucky few are dying in mysterious circumstances, is it just an accident or is death trying to catch up with them?

Final Destination is an amazing title (it was originally Flight 180) and concept for a horror film. If it sounds like a pitch for an episode of The X-Files, that’s because that is exactly what it started out as.

This unproduced episode was picked up by New Line Cinema, the house that Freddy built, and soon a new horror franchise was born. Talking of The X-Files, the film was written by Mulder and Scully alumnus, James Wong and Glen Morgan, and is also the big screen directorial debut of Wong. He’s no stranger to the odd though having helmed numerous episodes of both The X-Files and its darker sibling, Millennium.

Final Destination flies in the slipstream of the smart and knowing writing of Scream, its deaths however lend more of a debt of gratitude to The Omen films, was it just a nasty accident or something more?

Death is the ultimate villain; it can strike anywhere and can use anything and everything at its disposal. It is also unstoppable so no matter how far you run it will eventually catch up with you. There’s no challenging it to a game of Twister or Battleships to get out of this one.

In horror film terms you also don’t get much more perfect than Death, none of that bogeyman returning due to some oversight. It’s relentless, something which the likes of It Follows cleverly taps into.

The deaths, all inventive, range from the horrendous slip and strangle in the shower (who hasn’t nearly slipped to their death when in the shower in the house on their own) to the frankly Itchy and Scratchy-like death of the teacher in her house featuring a block of knives, kettle, cracked vodka glass and dodgy computer.

That initial plane premonition really grips you from the off and has to be in the running for the most jaw-dropping plane disaster sequences ever realised on film that makes Alive look like a flight in the park. I don’t think I blinked during that scene.

And the cleverness doesn’t stop with the fiery end to the vision, once the group are arguing in the airport we see the plane explode in the distance with the sound wave and smashing glass hitting them seconds later.

And the devil really is in the detail in this film, from the sprinkling of portents of doom that range from John Denver playing in the airport toilet, he died in a plane crash, to a baggage cart that reads 666 to name but two.

The biggest shout out death wise must go to the bus hit though, brilliant, because although you expect it, it hits you with such speed and force that your jump is coiled tighter than ever. A death so audience rousing that the filmmakers had to add in a few extra moments of tablets dissolving in the next scene so that they could compose themselves.

And the names of all those striving to divert death are all nods to famous horror movie directors and actors, Browning (as in Todd, Director of Dracula), Hitchcock (as in Alfred, Director of Psycho), Chaney (as in Lon, star of The Phantom of The Opera) and Murnau (as in F.W., Director of Nosferatu).

Tony Todd (Candyman himself) has a nice but brief turn as a mortician, the suitably named Bludworth, he essentially embodies the character of death and tells the teens the rules of death. I’ll see you soon, he proclaims at the end of the scene and indeed he does appear in the parts 2, 3 and 5. In part 3 he is the ironically the voice of the devil, on a theme park ride.

The deaths may all seem implausible, but you only have to flick through the strange deaths pages of the Fortean Times to see that sometimes real life deaths are often stranger than fiction.

In echoes of The Omen’s original marketing campaign – if something bad happened to you today, perhaps it was The Omen. I now get that Final Destination effect whenever I’m behind a tractor with bales of hay, a van with lots of scaffolding poles (as happened directly after watching Final Destination 2). 

My wife was even less amused when we were about to catch our flight back home from JFK and I noticed a class of high school students travelling on the same flight. It’s just like Final Destination I proclaimed. Death didn’t follow me but a death stare certainly did.

We haven’t seen a new Final Destination for a few years, franchise wise it was a dream as it theory could go on as long as there were inventive deaths and opening scenes of disaster. But don’t be fooled into thinking Death has gone, it’s merely dormant, biding its time. 

Top Ten vampires from film and TV

10. Katrina (Vamp)
Grace Jones vamps it up to 11 with a typically flamboyant over the top performance as a seductive stripper vampire in the horror comedy, Vamp, where she manages to be both sexy and darned scary in this film that might give fans of From Dusk Till Dawn – this came first – the odd sense of Déjà Vu.

9. Jerry Dandrige
Remade with none other than David Tennant in the old Roddy McDowell role (fabulous casting), Fright Night, had Chris Sarandon (he always looked like he had too many teeth so was perfect) as a seductive vampire who moves next door to William Ragsdale. Essentially an updating of Dracula in suburbia this set the scene for a mini-revival in vampire movies, with everything from The Lost Boys, Near Dark and Vamp.

8. Dracula (Bela Lugosi)
He only nabbed the role after Lon Chaney met his maker. Lugosi had also performed the role to great acclaim on Broadway, his performance, with that look and that broken English is the image of Dracula we all know and is still the most oft-imitated in popular culture. Lugosi never could escape the character, even in death, as he was buried with his cloak! And he’s probably spinning in that as well as former American Idol host, Ryan Seacrest, now resides in his house. Now, that is the stuff of nightmares!

7. Mr Barlow – Salem’s Lot
No, not Ken, although he has been in Corrie since time began, so you never know! Most people remember Tobe Hooper for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre but first and foremost I will always think of his two-part, three hour adaption of the Stephen King classic, Salem’s Lot, with David Soul and James Mason. This has great visuals and music with set pieces that haunted a generation, from the wind in the woods to the scratching at the windows  (those poor little Glik boys)and shot backwards footage that just has eerie written all over it.

The first time we see the lead vampire though is an image that a whole generation probably never forgot, no even if they closed their eyes, it was still there

Whatever you do, forget Return to Salem’s Lot and also the Rob Lowe remake.

6. Dracula (Frank Langella)
Used to playing villains he’s played everyone from Nixon to Skeletor but Superman Return’s Perry White made for a formidable Dracula against Larry Olivier’s Van Helsing in the 1978 rendition, complete with big hair, of Dracula. Like Lugosi, Langalla came to the role having already stuck his teeth into it on Broadway.

Take away some of the 70s trappings and we actual have probably one of the most underrated performances of Dracula ever committed to film.

5. Dracula (Christopher Lee)
Christopher Lee played the role of the caped one an amazing nine times and it’s no wonder that it is still classed as his signature role. It also had a massive impact on a whole generation of filmmakers who grew up watching them on late night TV, so it is of no surprise that we see him being utilised in film by Spielberg, Dante, Lucas and Jackson…although it will never ever explain Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow.
 

4. Martin
George A Romero isn’t just about zombie’s taking over the earth he’s also about neat little character studies like this as well. The most interesting thing about Martin, also the title of the film, is that he thinks that he is a vampire but he actually isn’t one.  Like Romero’s other work, and all great horror, it makes a stark commentary on society and is as haunting today as it was then. It shares some of the same themes as Taxi Driver, which is very much a horror movie in many ways. Thought provoking stuff and Romero’s own favourite film.
 

3. Selene (Underworld)
Girls, you can keep your R Patz we’ve got Kate Beckinsdale in Underworld. Sure it might be all Matrix-esque in its style but that still doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the carnage in-between…and all those lingering shots of Kate in her tighter than tight rubber outfit of course.

The sequels were awful but the original has bite and action aplenty, showing those Twilight folk how to really do a battle between Werewolves and Vampires.

2. Angel
For me, leaner, wittier, darker, edgier than Buffy, this LA set spin-off had a more grown up feel about it, with Angel’s past owing more than a nod and a wink to Interview with a Vampire in the style stakes. Cinematic in scope, the show hit the floor running with an amazing scene where Angel throws a vampire in a board meeting out of the window of a high rise building, chair and all, with the vampire bursting into flames in the LA sun. It also ended as it began with Angel and co with their very own Butch and Sundance moment against a whole series of beasties, in between that we also had the rather excellent episode where Angel was cursed and turned into a muppet-like character for most of the episode, still voiced by Boreanaz of course. Inspired and did that rare spin off thing of stepping out of the shadows from the show from whence it came.

1. Nosferatu
Salem’s Lot’s vampire had more than a sinister nod in the looks department to the granddaddy of all screen vampires. It may be silent but being a piece of German Expressionism, the pictures speak a thousand words.  The titular role is played by Max Schreck, which, uncoincidently, was also the name of Christopher Walken’s character in Batman Returns. The ‘making’ of Nosferatu was also the subject of Shadow of the Vampire, which supposed that Schreck, magnificently portrayed by Willem Dafoe, was an actual vampire!