Episode Eight: Isle of the Dead (1945) & Martin (1977) : There's no such thing as a vampire.

Welcome to episode 8 of The Horror Double Bill – the podcast where we put two films together to create something greater than the sum its parts.

This week we are unpacking 2 rather unusual takes on vampire mythology. First up is Isle of the Dead from 1945, produced by Val Lewton, who we discussed back ion episode two, and starring the legendary Boris Karloff. Then we jump forward 32 years to 1977 and Martin from director George A Romero’s, which marks the first time that Romero would work with special effects wizard Tom Savini. This is a character study of a young man who believes himself to be a vampire, or then again maybe he doesn’t, and was one of the director’s favourites of all his films.

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email: thehorrordoublebill@gmail.com

References used for this episode:

Boris Karloff & Isle of the Dead:

Karloff.com

Val Lewton The Reality of Terror by Joel E Siegel

Universal Horror by Tom Weaver, Micheal Brunas and John Brunas

Dreams of Darkness by Jp Telotte

Icons of Grief, Val Lewton’s Home Front Pictures by Alexander Nemerov

American Gothic: Six Decades of Classic Horror Cinema by Jonathan Rigby

George A Romero & Martin

George A Romero Interviews, edited by Tony Williams

George A Romero on Screen by Chris Wade

The American Nightmare (documentary):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5v03a_zCSM&t=3928s

Various special features and commentaries on the Blu Ray release of the film from Second Sight films and the Immortal Edition DVD release from Arrow Video