Jamie
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vanjpes.bsky.social
Jamie
@vanjpes.bsky.social
860 followers 280 following 1.9K posts
Tired enthusiast. I write weird things. Mostly here to post about old television shows, films, comedy, books, and horror.

Rambles and tangents on culture here: https://arowofopengraves.co.uk/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Jamie
archivetvmusings.bsky.social
Quatermass and the Pit - Imps and Demons (5th January 1959). "It's all right, they're dead. They've been dead for a long time".
January 5, 2026 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Jamie
weirdinthewade.bsky.social
Show notes and links for further reading for today's episode; The Prestonville Horror!
Show Notes and Links for The Presonville Horror
Brighton bandstand Listen to this episode on BBC Sounds here: On Apple here: On Spotify here: The SPR archive and Tom Ruffles blog You can read in detail about the Smith's 1888 investigation here: Illustration of a unicorn and dragon: Pearson Scott Foresman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Brighton Pavilion and Dragons Here's an interesting blog about the dragons at Brighton Pavilion: And here's information about a forthcoming exhibition from the Pavilion themselves on dragons: Here's some information about the dragon chandelier: Brighton's Railway tunnels…
weirdinthewade.blog
January 5, 2026 at 6:22 AM
vanjpes.bsky.social
One of the bleakest pieces of comedy there is. A wail of grief and longing and the deepest misery. But you know, with laughs.
archivetvmusings.bsky.social archivetvmusings @archivetvmusings.bsky.social · 9h
On this day in 1962, the fourth episode of Comedy Playhouse (The Offer) was broadcast. Galton & Simpson didn't think it could be developed into a series but the Head of Light Entertainment, Tom Sloan, thought otherwise.
January 5, 2026 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Jamie
moviessilently.bsky.social
In case you missed yesterday's review, I take a look at a low budget crime dramedy with a spunky heroine saving the day.
January 5, 2026 at 2:29 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
Cover for a book called A Row of Open Graves (And Nine Other Stories Of A Macabre Persuasion) by Jamie Evans. The cover image is an illustration of bodies in open graves with a beam of torchlight illuminating them. The image is set against a solid purple background.
January 5, 2026 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Jamie
filmsonwax.bsky.social
I knew Joe Dante had to have parodied this scene from somewhere, but I never knew where until know. GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990) / DAMES (1934)
Greta Gremlin only has eyes for you. #gremlins #dames
YouTube video by Gremlins Museum
youtube.com
January 4, 2026 at 4:00 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
Wrote 431 words today, first time in, oh, months. Clap for me.
January 4, 2026 at 3:30 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
I've now read a 'how to write' piece that I recognise and doesn't make me want to gag, wild times
swansonian.bsky.social Graeme Swanson @swansonian.bsky.social · 1d
My creative writing degree hasn’t been the most useful of qualifications but I feel it gives me some authority when I say this is one of the best how to start writing articles I’ve read in ages. www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
Dreaming of writing your novel this year? Rip up all the rules!
After 35 years of teaching fiction writing, the prize-winning author shares her wisdom. First tip? Don’t write what you know…
www.theguardian.com
January 4, 2026 at 10:53 AM
Reposted by Jamie
theharvestmaid.bsky.social
It's here: the annual round-up of my favorite folk horror media! As always, these are not strictly 2025 releases but rather the movies I watched for the first time (mostly) throughout the year. What were your favorites?
2025 Year in Review: The Best Folk Horror Movies (and One TV Show) I Watched
Last year was rough, to put it lightly. Like many of you, I struggled to claw my attention back from a barrage of anxieties on the personal, national, and global levels. My resolution to document w…
theharvestmaidsrevenge.com
January 3, 2026 at 11:26 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
The Penalty (1920, dir. Wallace Worsley) is a wiiiiild Lon Chaney classic. In this operatically pitched, gothic-edged melodrama, he rules over the mob underworld, plotting revenge against the doctor who operated on him as a boy. Gorgeously shot, one beautiful frame after another, Chaney outstanding.
Title card for The Penalty Lon Chaney as Blizzard: he is in a street on a sidewalk next to a door, holding a key. He is looking down the street, an intense expression on his face. Blizzard is a man in smart clothing, wearing a flat cap hat. He has had both legs amputated above the knee and has crutches to support himself. A newspaper ad for several male help wanted ads, the middle of which says 'WANTED - Model to pose for "Satan After the Fall." If you think you look like Satan, apply at studio of Barbara Ferris, 32 Institute Place.' A shot of a fireplace in a dark room. The fire grate has beeb lifted up, revealing two chains with loops for handles interspersed on them. Behind them, a passage way is suggested, but all that can be seen is darkness.
January 3, 2026 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by Jamie
archivetvmusings.bsky.social
Terry-Thomas and Arthur Lowe in Armchair Theatre - Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (3rd January 1960)
January 3, 2026 at 5:56 PM
Reposted by Jamie
willmckinley.bsky.social
ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930) just entered the public domain and it's already on Tubi (and elsewhere).

I remember its 1979 TV premiere on CBS, after decades of unavailability due to rights issues.

I hope a new generation discovers the Marx Bros. now, just like I did then. #FilmSky #PublicDomain
Chico, Groucho, Harpo, and Zeppo Marx in a promotional shot for ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930).
January 3, 2026 at 3:22 AM
vanjpes.bsky.social
Ray Newman described it thus, which I think is entirely accurate about one of last year's best, bravest books:

"It’s beautifully written... and there’s something thrilling about reading what feels like a forbidden text."
miseryvulture.bsky.social Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin @miseryvulture.bsky.social · 2d
Snowy January in Fleischerei and snowy January in real life. Thank you to everyone who read this book last year and saw fit to put it on your best of 2025 lists 🫀
A hand holds a book against a window, through which a snowy street can be seen in soft focus. The page reads "East, its length staking my head from chin to crown in the dark glass. I'm good at quitting things, I tell myself. When I get home I'll tell Arnaud it's over and I'll take my things and leave. I don't need to think further ahead than that. One thing at a time. The after that first night with Arnaud, we woke to snow, the brightness of it reflecting a glare into the studio. The pain in my leg pulsed, and when I rose I found that the gauze had adhered to the site, pulling uncomfortably when I moved. "That's normal," Arnaud said, and cut away the bandaging, cleaned the wound anew and wrapped it again. I cringed under his touch. Grateful though I was for his careful tending to my incision, I still wished I was at home. I wanted to be alone. Things had cooled since the previous night. The taste in my mouth was metallic and stale, the back of my throat gummy with dehydration and oxidised blood. I could flick my tongue against a sliver of flesh still lodged in my teeth, waterlogged and tepid, and felt the muted nausea and disorientation of a hangover. "I should go," I said.
January 3, 2026 at 11:14 AM
vanjpes.bsky.social
Well, that was hardly a surprise for #letterboxd stats, as ever my finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist
Letterboxd screenshot shows 138 films logged, 124 reviewed and 119 hours watched with most watched actor Charlie Chaplin and most watched director Mack Sennett
January 2, 2026 at 6:30 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
Not that I *needed* more books but these accumulated over the festive stretch and I can't complain
Four books photographed against a background of a wooden floor: Ancient Sorceries by Algernon Blackwood, As If By Magic: Locked Room Mysteries and Other Miraculous Crimes (Edited by Martin Edwards), East Lynne by Ellen Wood, and The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark
January 2, 2026 at 6:21 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
Keaton is great, but as with Chaplin, Lloyd and others with often brilliant filmographies, you don't need to excuse them, or scrub them clean of their flaws, which include racist 'jokes', misogyny and an unwillingness to confront their complicity in institutions that trade in such things.
moviessilently.bsky.social Movies Silently @moviessilently.bsky.social · 3d
The utter unwillingness of his fandom to engage with anything like this makes me all the more determined to keep pressing the matter. I also saw one claim Keaton never included a racist joke in his films, which is demonstrably false. At a certain point, it's not a fandom, it's a cult.
January 2, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Jamie
busterkeaton.bsky.social
This Day in Buster… January 2, 1936
"The Invader,” also known as “An Old Spanish Custom,” is released. Buster Keaton visits Mexico & falls in love with Lupita Tovar.

#oldhollywood #damfino #busterkeaton
January 2, 2026 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Jamie
pamhutch.bsky.social
For the BFI, 10 great films from 1926 www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-gre...
10 great films of 1926
As we hurtle into 2026, take a 10-film trip back in time to celebrate these 100th anniversaries.
www.bfi.org.uk
January 2, 2026 at 12:33 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
In town, wandering around a large corporate clothes place, and it seems from what's on sale that the Farmer/College Lecturer Under Suspicion style did not sell well pre-festivities
January 2, 2026 at 10:47 AM
vanjpes.bsky.social
Speaking of podcasts, make yours better for 2026, invite me on it
January 2, 2026 at 10:31 AM
vanjpes.bsky.social
From a letter to Films in Review from Jan 1964, about melodrama in film's benefits, but speaks to me about the impact of a good film, song, book, etc:

"...beautiful little lamps are temporarily lit in the lousiest of us."
January 1, 2026 at 4:58 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
But wait, not One Step Beyond hitting me on the first day of 2026 with musings on the ephemeral nature of our very existence and the relentless march of our own invention time in John Newland's opening narration.
Quote from One Step Beyond episode The Visitor reads: "Sooner or later, each of us feels the need to escape...people, each of whom, like us, has fashioned a small cage of reality out of the chaos of unreality. Each of whom, like us, lives his life by the steady, reassuring ticking of the clock. Forgetting the clock is merely man's invention and that tomorrow is the creation of the human mind. Forgetting that there is only the constant now..."
January 1, 2026 at 2:58 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
'The Visitor', S2 ep33 of One Step Beyond is a brutally sad tale of grief, ghosts real and imagined and what is left unsaid between people speaking the loudest. Joan Fontaine is great as troubled Ellen, Warren Beatty her cold husband. Tragedy is pulling them apart but could bring them back together.
John Newland, a man in a dark suit, shirt and tie, talks to camera in a room in a house. We can see a lit, roaring fire and snow on the ground outside beyond the window. The same room: a woman wearing a dress and with hair pinned up has her back to camera. To her left, a man in suit and overcoat, his hair grey, stands talking to her. It looks like an intense conversation. The same woman, again from behind, looks out of the glass of her front door at a man in shadow outside in the snow, speaking to her through the glass. The woman, Ellen, this time in close-up. She is crying, her face a frame of grief and empathy at what she is listening to.
January 1, 2026 at 2:53 PM
vanjpes.bsky.social
It's the *real* most wonderful time of any year: Happy New Year emails from corporations
January 1, 2026 at 9:41 AM
vanjpes.bsky.social
Might mess around and try and be less guarded/more open to trusting in 2026, maybe talk to some people (friends might be ambitious), we'll see.
December 31, 2025 at 12:35 PM