Black Aquarius

[Linden]

A survey of 1970's pop-occultism from the Radio 4 archive website:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05qvr63

Presenter Matthew Sweet hams it up quite a lot, particularly in the introduction, but I found the programme interesting. Given Dark Conspiracy's retro vibe I think you could find some inspiration there e.g. occult threats in the countryside. Post Greater Depression rural areas are likely to be even more isoloated and their inhabitants prey to strange beliefs. The Highgate Vampire also gets a mention. Had heard of it before and thought it was utter bunk but the story has got the makings of a good scenario. I did a quick and dirty effort based on it in my first DC campaign 10+ years ago.

Usual suspects in attendance include Mark Gatiss and Kim Newman.

[ReHerakhte]

Quite an interesting presentation. While some of the topics were pretty basic stuff for DC, it was the little details that I found fascinating such as certain groups having a penchant for very specific topics e.g. French wines.

[Linden]

It was nice to hear Robin Redbreast getting some coverage, instead of the similar but far better known Wicker Man. It's set in me and Lee's part of the world and all the more disquieting for being local. I recently watched it again, with my parents. My Mum really liked it!

[ReHerakhte]

You know, I kept expecting them to mention The Wicker Man but that's because it was one of the few movies that I was aware of. I don't think I had ever heard about Robin Redbreast and I'm all the more interested in seeing it now because of that connection to your neck of the woods!

Some other things I found interesting about Black Aquarius, the impact that Crowley and Wheatley had on the occult scene of the 1960s.
For some reason I had thought that Crowley would probably be too old school to be any sort of influence on the 60s, how wrong I was
And as for Wheatley, I didn't realise he had been writing since the 1930s. I encountered his works in the 1970s & 80s and, still being young at that time, I thought that his books were from the 1960s or maybe the 1950s.
I think I am starting to see the connections now, between the mystery and horror movies/novels/TV shows of the 70s & 80s and all those goings on of the 60s.

So yes, for all the campy presentation, all those little details made Black Aquarius well worth the listen.

[Linden]

You know, I kept expecting them to mention The Wicker Man but that's because it was one of the few movies that I was aware of. I don't think I had ever heard about Robin Redbreast and I'm all the more interested in seeing it now because of that connection to your neck of the woods!

It's on DVD but is readily available on a certain well known video sharing site. There's also a kind of sequel called A Photograph, which isn't quite as good and has the time code hard burned into the image, but is still worth a look.

Read a fair bit of Wheatley's stuff when I was younger. I remember the "black magic" novels had really evocative covers, there was something almost transgressive about just the look of them. Mum said she read a lot them when she was expecting me, that might explain a lot.

[ReHerakhte]

I loved the comment that a lot of the novels at the time had covers so lurid that, I think it was the presenter, said he was afraid to look at one of them in particular!

[Linden]

I think it was a bit of a golden age for pulp horror.

[ReHerakhte]

It's interesting to see the how things cycle through a society over time.
The 1960s in Britain being a time of interest in the occult with novels and movies covering the topic and then by the 1980s, Britain is hit with the "video nasties". I think there's something in that situation about parents and offspring as it appears to me, at least on the surface, that the people reacting to the video nasties were highly likely to be the children of people from the 1960s. The same group who had such an interest in the occult and horror had children who in effect, rebelled against the interests of their parents.

Now I do understand that the video nasties were not simply "horror" and also that my thoughts on the topic are a very broad and generalised coverage but I find the parent/child aspect of the situation to be very interesting so I think it's worth exploring.

[Linden]

As you say there's a certain cyclical quality to it all - liberal children of the 60s becoming more conservative as they get older. I suppose we all do to an extent? There's films I liked as a youngster I wouldn't bother with now because I find the blood, snot and teeth quotient a bit too much.

[ReHerakhte]

I think too, that for some of those movies I enjoyed in my adolescence, they satisfied whatever interests I had at the time but at that time I was very much exploring what was out there and discovering what I liked and didn't like, it was all very novel and even exciting to a certain extent.
On reflection as a much older (and supposedly wiser or more worldly wise) adult, those movies really weren't very good.
For example, after seeing Star Wars in 1977, I loved sci-fi and would happily watch whatever direct-to-video offering was on the shelves. These days I see some of those movies and wonder how anyone could spend money on them because now I recognise just how poorly made, scripted, acted etc. etc. they were!