Rocky Horror Picture Show. Frankenstein and The Monster From Hell. Young Frankenstein. In the mid-1970s, Mary Shelley’s most famous creation saw a new lease of life – and a radical makeover. Join CinePunked’s Robert JE Simpson and Dr Rachael Kelly for an interactive discussion about cinematic homage, parody and reworking. And monsters in stilettos. Recorded at Octocon 2018.
Sleeve notes are below.
With Robert JE Simpson and Dr Rachael Kelly
Produced by Robert JE Simpson
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SLEEVE NOTES
With 2018 marking the bicentennial of the first publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein we found outselves returning to the subject at various times through the years, running several events for outside bodies including for the Belfast Book Festival, and A-level students at Belfast Met. When we were invited to Octocon we decided to pitch another Frankenstein talk, this time looking at a specific moment in time, rather than the character itself.
It struck me that in the period of 1972-1974 there were several films that sought to reinvent our understanding of the Frankenstein character, and the very act of creation, and that might be fertile ground to explore. So an excuse to talk about Mel Brooks, Hammer Horror and Rocky Horror – some of which we might return to in film specific chats.
The episode was recorded in front of a small live audience at the Crowne Plaza in Blanchardstown, Dublin as part of the programming for Octocon 2018. Once again technical complications are evident in the recording (every time we do one of these without Ben there seems to be problems). The staff at the venue took a feed off the three mics into their desk and then recorded using Audacity. There is extraneous noise evident throughout, which hopefully isn’t too distracting. During the first bit of audience Q&A there was a lot of microphone interference and the sound levels drop for about ten minutes. I thought we were going to have to loose the recording. However, I always record a back-up on my phone just in case, and I was able to use this recording to patch the faulty area. Its not ideal, and I’m sure Ben could have tightened this up better, but with any luck, most listeners wont even pick up on it. We’re constantly modifying our workflows and finding workarounds for these sorts of problems.
Unfortunately other commitments mean that we wont be at Octocon for 2019, but our thanks again to the event staff for all their help and for facilitating the recording. We really enjoyed the show (Rachael is a veteran of Octocon, this was my first) and hope to be back again.
– Robert.
CinePunked 