Symbolic Forest

Coincidentally, following on from yesterday’s local cemetery post, I came across an interesting article elsewhere: a piece by author David Castleton on the 1970s Highgate vampire panic. I was vaguely aware that this story involved a classic supernatural panic of the Spring-Heel Jack variety combined with feuding paranormal investigators and self-styled vampire hunters; the article tells the full story in intriguing detail. Whether there really was a vampire striking terror into 1970s Hampstead, you’ll have to judge for yourself.

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Keyword noise: London, Highgate Cemetery, cemetery, vampire, The Children.

This blog still gets quite a lot of hits from people searching for the locations used in the BBC supernatural drama series Being Human, particularly the house used in the first couple of series. Now, I wrote quite a bit about those two series on here, partly because at the time we lived in South Bristol, the series was filmed largely in South Bristol, and it was quite an enjoyable thing to watch. The last time I wrote about it, though, was to (successfully) predict one of the plot-lines of Series Three; however, when that series made it onto the screen ,I hardly wrote about it at all. I hardly wrote about it because, to be honest, I didn’t think it was very good.

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Keyword noise: BBC, Being Human, drama, filming, ghost stories, Cymru, Wales, Casnewydd, Newport, television, vampire, werewolf.

Regular readers over the past couple of years might have noticed that I quite enjoy spotting the filming locations of the paranormal TV drama^* Being Human, filmed in a variety of easily-recognisable Bristol locations: Totterdown, Bedminster, Clifton, St George, College Green, and so on. Not for much longer, though, we thought: although the first two series were Bristol-based, the third series is apparently being moved over to Cardiff. Whether it will be the recognisable Cardiff Cardiff of Torchwood, or the generic anycity of Doctor Who, remains to be seen; but this was all clearly set up when, at the end of Series Two, the protagonists were forced to flee the house on the corner of Henry St and Windsor Terrace for an anonymous rural hideout. No more Bristol locations for us to spot, we thought.

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Keyword noise: BBC, Being Human, Bristol, drama, filming, First Great Western, ghost stories, railway, St Philips Marsh, television, Totterdown, trains, vampire, werewolf.

On my way home, last night and the night before, I noticed something going on along Ashton Road. Big floodlights, lighting up the whole street: some sort of night filming was going on.

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Keyword noise: Ashton, BBC, Bedminster, Being Human, Bristol, drama, filming, ghosts, television, Totterdown, vampire, werewolf, Windsor Terrace.

August is, as you can see, another quiet month.

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Keyword noise: A4, dreaming, inspiration, LNER, Mallard, world record, speed, steam, steam car, steam train, vampire.

A trip to the cinema with Mystery Filmgoer the other week, to see *Let The Right One In* (or, rather, Låt den rätte komma in) the Swedish vampire movie which has been going down very well lately. As I haven’t seen any Swedish films since I was a student, as usual I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Raw meatballs? Home-assembly furniture dripping with blood? Bat-haunted forests with man-eating elk?

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Keyword noise: cinema, film, horror, Let The Right One In, review, vampire.

Given the amount of space I’ve used to talk about Totterdown-set^* BBC3 series Being Human on here, it’s about time I mentioned the series finale – it was a fortnight ago now, after all. Before the finale had been shown, we already knew that Series Two had been commissioned, which, I have to say, took away some of the suspense. It was possible that the writer would follow through the compulsary penultimate-episode cliffhanger by “killing off” the main characters (who were, of course, technically already dead); but it wasn’t likely. It was also very likely that we’d lose some of the other characters; and, indeed, it happened.

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Keyword noise: BBC, Being Human, Bristol, drama, ghost stories, Redcliffe, television, Totterdown, vampire, werewolf.

Some more notes on Being Human, which continues on the telly for the next few weeks.

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Keyword noise: BBC, Bedminster, Being Human, Bristol, drama, ghost stories, Redcliffe, television, Totterdown, vampire, Warden Rd, werewolf.

After the post last week, I felt we really should watch Being Human, the new BBC3 series set largely in Totterdown. We were, I have to say, pleasantly surprised.

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Keyword noise: BBC, Being Human, Bristol, drama, fantasy, ghost stories, review, sitcom, television, Totterdown, vampire, werewolf, Windsor Terrace.