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Haunting The Atom

@hauntingtheatom.bsky.social

360 followers 590 following 350 posts

The dark stuff: words, pictures, moving images and electronic sound + maker of music videos with '80s-style goth duo Deadlight Dance. I post about horror/sci-fi, real-life weirdness, synth music and film scores. 🔗 https://linktr.ee/hauntingtheatom

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Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · Jan 29

I've posted a couple of times on social media about my love for the Crystal Palace transmitting station, and I'd been thinking for a while that I'd like to do a little... thing.

So I did and here it is – all 78 seconds of it. If there's demand I'll consider extending it to 90 seconds for a 12-inch.

Transmission 280356: A short synth homage to the Crystal Palace transmitter by Haunting The Atom

YouTube video by Haunting The Atom

www.youtube.com

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Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 1d

Now playing is an album that always hits the spot: Repeated Viewing & Timothy Fife Explore Paranormal Sounds Of The Synthesizer, a split LP from 2019 that pays homage to library records, and channels the other side* in a pleasingly retro-electronic manner.

* Meaning both 'beyond the veil' and BBC2.

The sleeve of Repeated Viewing & Timothy Fife Explore Paranormal Sounds Of The Synthesizer. The artwork shows a large eye, in green, red and white, with clear wavy lines across the iris and pupil.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 3d

...and possesses your soul. 😄 For the record (pun unintended but enjoyed), I got it in three goes, though I was definitely looking for a Slayerish word on that third attempt. I quite liked that - it made it feel a bit different.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 4d

Re: the Slayer thing - now I'm intrigued. <Heads off to do today's puzzle...>

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 5d

A 'moment' is a great way to describe it. I felt like I was in a TV drama.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 5d

Great bit of artwork, that - I hadn't seen it before. I rewatched Dead Ringers earlier this year, and it's still brilliant. Possibly my favourite Cronenberg film.

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Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 5d

Yep!

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 5d

Remembering that time during the Covid lockdown when I showed up at East Croydon station at 8am to find it deserted and the announcer issuing virus warnings. In my earphones was the title track from Tangerine Dream's Phaedra, and it soundtracked the haunting, sci-fi surreality of it all so well.

Phaedra CD, from the In Search Of Hades box set, in the drawer of a CD player.

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Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 6d

Ah, fab - cheers! I've nabbed swjm-ulz9.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 7d

Yeah, overall I had a good time with it. It'd make a nice double bill with Ghostwatch.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 7d

Finally saw Late Night With The Devil (it's currently streaming on C4). My verdict? It cheats with its styling - eg, multicam backstage conversations, and modern editing when the drama ramps up. But when the '70s US talk-show aesthetic is on point it's impressive, and despite niggles I enjoyed it.

A '70s-stylised art poster for Late Night With The Devil (2023), showing a TV set with red horns and a tail. The screen displays a spiralling, black-and-white design, as text underneath issues the warning: "May be disturbing to some viewers."

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Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 8d

Ooh, yes, I remember the Prince Charming dance - an easy one to learn. The nose-stripe thing was huge too, back in the day, wasn't it? All easily copyable for kids - just perfect.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 8d

£9.99 for a quick sale. Definitely haunted. 😄

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 8d

Nice! My friends and I, aged 11, dressed up as the Ants and mimed to Stand And Deliver at a school variety show. I 'played' a homemade wooden 'guitar'. It was probably the first slightly rebellious thing I did: my parents didn't like Adam and the Ants, and until this point I was pretending not to.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 8d

I enjoyed this new Guardian piece. I adored Poltergeist as a kid. It was one of my family's earliest VHS rentals, and a copy somehow found its way on to a blank tape (must have been a ghost), so I grew very familiar with it. For many years the US National Anthem was 'that music from Poltergeist'.

‘If I’d known the skeletons were real I’d have been even more disgusted’: how we made Poltergeist

‘Steven Spielberg lit up when I told him I couldn’t do the face-tearing scene. Those are his hands you see in the film. I could never have ripped my face off with the same joie de vivre’

www.theguardian.com

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 9d

It was really interesting, yeah, though at that point I don't think I'd seen the films it was homaging. So it was an education on a couple of levels. I recall lots of laughter, too. It certainly played to an appreciative audience. In fact, I don't think we could quite believe our luck!

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 9d

First time I saw this was at school, in Film & TV Studies, when I was 14 or 15. We watched it over a few sessions. Ditto for Psycho. Not a bad way to spend a lesson or six!

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Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 9d

Exactly. It's a great gig, too. Fantastic light show, and even a backstage meet.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 9d

Erm, actually, I think you'll find...

Probably a Mail reader.

A screen grab from the BBC News site, advertising that Close Encounters Of The Third Kind is available to watch on iPlayer. The mothership hovers above Devils Tower in Wyoming. Beneath the image are the words: "Aliens are invading in this sci-fi Spielberg epic."

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Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 10d

Last night I rewatched Whistle And I'll Come To You. I've long been impressed by the way it captures the terror of seeing something darkly inexplicable. I'm still not sure what I'm looking at in *those* scenes, even in terms of how the effects were done, so they tickle my lizard brain beautifully.

A screen grab from Whistle And I'll Come To You (1968): Michael Hordern stands on a beach, glancing back at a mysterious figure in the background. The sun is setting, casting the entire scene in silhouette.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 10d

“Dead by Dawn” sounds about right. 😄

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Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 11d

Here's me carving a pumpkin tonight: 26 minutes compressed into 1m 18s. Warning: contains blasphemy, gloop and middle-aged sounds.

Happy Halloween to all my followers, including the man with the horns who's staring at me right now through my living-room window (my living room is two floors up).

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 11d

Danny Robins leads a séance - well, a theatrical one - last night at the Royal Albert Hall. Fright Night was an entertaining mix of ghostly RAH-centric anecdotes, tongue-in-cheek supernatural fun, and orchestral music: film themes, original pieces and even some Black Sabbath. A spirited evening.

The view of the Royal Albert Hall's stage from the front row of the rausing circle: Danny Robins and six volunteers from the audience kneel around a circular table, in front of an orchestra, as a cameraman captures the scene at close range for the venue's screens.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 11d

Here's me in 2009: a zombie extra in a report by Myleene Klass about London's FrightFest.

Two years before, I'd taken part in a zombie gathering: a FrightFest world-record attempt, for which 700 people showed up. This time there was about 20 of us, but it was fun. I still have the 'bloodied' shirt.

A small group of zombies lurk behind Myleene Klass, outside the Empire cinema in London's Leicester Square. Behind them, the cinema displays a sign saying: "Welcome to Film4 FrightFest." A cameraman films Myleene as she gives her report. (Not pictured: as she speaks, the zombies start advancing - shambling slowly towards her.)

A closer shot of the zombies, with a large arrow pointing at my head. (To be clear, the arrow wasn't there on the day.)

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 12d

Cheers - I’ll definitely have a look at some point.

Haunting The Atom @hauntingtheatom.bsky.social · 12d

Had my eye on this - chiefly because it’s Chris Stuckmann, and even the bad reviews have intrigued me, especially with regard to the ending. But, yeah, I’ll probably wait for streaming. It’s all late-night screenings near me.

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