Teenage Superstars – An Interview with Grant McPhee (An Updated Repost)

Tomorrow night (29/6/18) sees a screening of Teenage Superstars, the sequel to Big Gold Dream, in Glasgow’s Govanhill Baths.

The film, shown last week in Edinburgh as part of the Film Festival’s Documentaries Strand, follows on from where the Big Gold Dream left off. There’s plenty of fine music from The Vaselines, Jesus and Mary Chain, BMX Bandits and a host of other Scottish indie stalwarts with the likes of Jim Reid, Alan McGee, Edwyn Collins and Eugene Kelly all interviewed along the way.

For those lucky enough to be going along, the legendary Jowe Head (Swell Maps & Television Personalities) will be playing his first Glasgow gig in 20 years, with some Teenage Superstars, Duglas T Stewart and Rose McDowall, helping out on backing duties. Additionally there will be a Q&A with director Grant McPhee and you can BYOB.

The screening starts at 7 pm on the dot but there will also be a few Easter eggs being shown from 18:30, so get along early, folks. A percentage of the ticket price goes towards support for Dan Treacy of The Television Personalities. Booking information here.

The Original Interview (from Sept 2016)

What can we look forward to in Teenage Superstars?

Like Big Gold Dream there will be a lot of joining up of the dots. Most of the bands covered are better known to a wider audience but how interconnected they are is probably less well known, and probably very surprising; especially the Bellshill bands who are a very large focus of the film. There was a point where BMX Bandits, Soup Dragons and a pre-Teenage Fanclub Boy Hairdressers shared most of their line-ups simultaneously. This is really the story of those bands and the wider Glasgow scene which followed pretty much straight on from where Big Gold Dream ends. It starts with The Pastels and the vacuum in the Glasgow music scene left by Postcard imploding.

Did you always plan to make two films?

No, it was originally to be one film called The Sound of Young Scotland which was to be about Postcard and Fire Engines only. It actually does exist – to an extent in a 2010 film, but it doesn’t really make sense for it ever to be released now.

Why the decision to double up?

Two reasons. The main one being that a fuller story was beginning to emerge that went far beyond our initial Postcard only story. It became apparent that when we were speaking to some of the stars of the first film there was a direct continuation to a bigger story which warranted a film in itself. For BGD, when speaking to people such as Eugene (Kelly) and Norman (Blake) we realised it made sense to speak to them about both films at the same time rather than coming back at a later date.

Oh right, so to an extent both films were really shot at the same time?

Well, when the idea for TS came along and the scope became wider, rather than risk BGD being eaten up by itself again we just made the decision to make two films. Saying that, BGD was a two hour film that at a very, very late stage had 30 minutes taken out. Those 30 minutes now form a good part of TS. Like I said, it’s complicated haha. But we now start off with The Bluebells, Pastels and Strawberry Switchblade. It’s not fair to say it’s the Glasgow story but some parts of BGD are re-told from a West Coast perspective.

What stage are you at with Teenage Superstars and when would you envisage it first being premiered?

Teenage Superstars is very nearly complete. Things may change, but we have some really exciting offers for premieres. At the moment we can’t say too much, but we will be able to make some announcements towards the end of the year. The film is almost there but what takes up so much of our time is dealing with archive clearances – music and video and we need to finalise them first. We decided very early on that if we were to do the films properly we needed to use the best music and archive available – it just would not work any other way. I can’t imagine anything worse than using a series of ‘soundalikes’ or those cheap Beatles films without actual Beatles music.

That kinda thing really should be banned!

We also purposely decided to not allow the film-making to take precedence. Both films are very simple in terms of how they are made and told so we felt it would only take away from the story to try anything complicated. And to not have proper archive would just take away from the excitement. So collecting our archive is a long and expensive process which is going to take up a large part of the next few months. But we do have some exciting and unique footage found in people’s lofts and basements.

How would you pitch the film to a distributor or sales agent?

We’re in a lucky position where both films are at such a late stage where they are beyond a proof-of-concept so we don’t have to explain to anyone too much what it would be like, we can just show them the finished film. BGD did better than we ever could have imagined and with that as a track record it makes TS much easier to pitch. The downside is that because of a lack of initial track record they had to be made on our own which was very tricky. At a basic level it’s just a story about great music, regardless of where it came from or when. So really the pitch is if you love this music you will love the films.

Any theories on why Scotland has managed to consistently produce so many talented independent bands over the years?

I think there are a combination of reasons. One is Fast having a strong and driven personality who happened to be around at the right time to nurture some very talented people. Those people having an element of success inspired others to believe they could do something similar. And generations of others have been inspired to either try the exact opposite or something similar to those who came before.

Where do you end Teenage Superstars and – if it takes in the 1990s – do you include the reactivated Postcard?

TS really ends at the beginning of a new era and the end of the film is the end of Postcard 2 and the emergence of Britpop. But like BGD it ends on a positive note, or more positive than that sounds.

And will there be a third film bringing the story up to date?

There is a skeleton for a third film. The honest answer is that both current films have been so all-consuming and personally incredibly expensive that a third film would really have to be commissioned by somebody for it to get beyond where it currently is, so it’s likely to remain unfinished. It covers or would have covered Belle and Sebastian, V-Twin, 1990s, Franz Ferdinand etc. There’s so much left to do it likely won’t be released.

What was your technique when shooting the documentaries, carefully plan everything or go with the flow?

Pretty much go with the flow. There was little opportunity for technique due to time. The main objective at the start was making contact with everyone involved and forming relationships and essentially getting voices down onto tape, to document in the purest sense. Obviously the early years were asking questions to extract just information, then as a story emerged – and more contacts were made there would be a refinement of the questions. A big part of the entire process was building up trust with the cast. It’s a lot to ask someone who doesn’t know you to tell you their story and allow you to tell that story to someone else in your own way. Overall we didn’t have any ulterior motives other than attempting to make a great film, and without any previous experience it was difficult to convince everyone of that.

Well, judging by the interviewees, you didn’t do a bad job on that score.

After BGD was released it became a lot easier, mainly that we could show that the first film had serious prospects so this next one could be similar. We were very careful with how we handled the material and various personalities which we took great lengths to achieve and hopefully that would show. But absolutely over and above everything we had an amazing community built around the film. So many people were so open to helping us create the story and we’ve managed to get contacts, information, photos, posters and advice to get the films where they are. That’s really what a lot of time was spent on. Mike O’Connor in particular seems to have an amazing online community of Scottish Indie music by running FB pages for most of the bands involved and his help has been a fantastic resource.

Having that support must have given you some extra motivation to keep at it during the inevitable times when the going got tough?

Actually, it’s by no means an exaggeration to say that without all the music fans support, the films would never have been completed. Of course that also helped the film as expectations started to mount and we had to produce something that could live up to it.

You’ve been filming for a long time now; I would guess that process has speeded up as you’ve gone along?

In the early days things moved very slowly, equipment and time were expensive so we had to save up for a while to do each interview – and that was frustrating. Even a dozen interviews could take a couple of years. Towards the end we managed to cram many interviews into a single day to keep costs down, it wasn’t ideal but it was the only way we could finish the film. Erik (Sandberg) and Innes (Reekie) coming on board was essential with their knowledge and enthusiasm and again the films would not have been made without them. Angela Slaven, our editor was the backbone to the film. We just handed her the material and she managed to make it into a film. Without her it would be very different. Wendy Griffin, the producer elevated the film to places and contacts we just could not achieve on our own, and in terms of finding a place for TS, winning the EIFF audience award has been a significant help. So for the film, a major part was finding the correct behind-the-scenes people for the film and waiting until they were available as their contributions would make or break it. And we had a great team.

Since you’re obviously such a massive fan of the music you cover, it must have been enjoyable talking to your subjects.

That was pretty easy as I was genuinely enthusiastic about finding out about them. My day job is as a technician on larger, mostly American movies so I’m pretty comfortable being around famous actors so I was never starstruck; though to me someone like Norman Blake is a far bigger star than Brad Pitt – and far more interesting.

Definitely!

Angela just cut around my mumbling and tangential questioning and we just had fun speaking to people about records. Other than having to be your own producer and arrange the interviews it was by far the most enjoyable part, along with the editing. Everything after was something close to nightmarish and involved little sleep for two years, haha. But really any process was born out of a massive enthusiasm in the subjects so in that respect this was the simplest part. I just told our subjects that we wanted to make a good film and explained that I didn’t really know what I was doing so asking for their help to achieve this seemed like a good move.

Any plans for a Big Gold Dream TV screening yet or news of a DVD release or VOD?

Yes and yes and more. There is a network TV screening later in the year, and we will have a DVD, streaming and other things available. Our B-Side, The Glasgow School is one extra but we also have 70 odd hours of interviews that have not been seen.

How do you think current Scottish independent music stands up against the Sound of Young Scotland era acts?

It may seem contentious but I think Postcard was the best and worst thing that has happened to Scottish music. Because Postcard had more of a focus on Scottish based bands, unlike FAST it quickly became regarded as a Scottish label whereas Fast were a record label based in Scotland. This, combined with the great music associated with Postcard quickly set Glasgow as a focus for music and aspiring local musicians. The legacy that’s built around Postcard has been so great that it’s very difficult to escape it’s shadow, and the irony is that’s what Postcard was all about. But there are great acts around and some very talented people.

You also direct your own drama films, how is that going at the moment?

Very different to the documentaries. The documentaries are fairly conventional so the dramas allow me to be a little more experimental. There’s one coming out later in the year called Night Kaleidoscope, which has had some good previews and I’m hoping to do another one early next year. I’ve been working with Dave Balfe, who used to run Zoo Records, who’s now a fantastic screenwriter. We’re working on a couple of drama scripts at the moment, one a horror and one a little closer to Zoo history (but purely drama).

And finally, what’s your own favourite music documentary?

I think All You Need is Love is fantastic, some amazing ’70s performances by folk like Jerry Lee Lewis.

Thanks for taking the time to talk and good luck with the film!

For more on Teenage Superstars here’s the Facebook page and here’s the link for Twitter.

Long Shot (Scottish Connection #4)

Long Shot 1978
Director: Maurice Hatton
Cast: Charles Gormley, Neville Smith, Anne Zelda

Today marks the start of the 72nd Edinburgh International Film Festival.
This year’s programme promises some real cinematic delights including the American Dreams strand which will showcase some of the most fascinating new films from independent cinema across the pond including Unicorn Store, the directorial debut of Brie Larson. What I’m most looking forward to, though, is Hal, a documentary portrait of director Hal Ashby (of The Last Detail, Harold and Maude, and Being There fame).

Also being screened on the 40th anniversary of its premiere at the 1978 Festival at the Calton Studios is an obscure micro-budget film about filmmaking shot mainly in Edinburgh during the ’77 Festival.

Long Shot will be shown again this year on Sun 1 July at the Filmhouse 2 and here’s an updated version of a review (with a little added flavour of the Edinburgh independent music scene of the era) originally available here.

1977 proved to be a key year for independent music in Britain, The Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch EP proving to be the catalyst for what would become a boom period for the D-I-Y ethic. All of a sudden independent labels began springing up around the country with Edinburgh well to the fore, represented by such fondly remembered imprints as Fast, Zoom and Sensible; labels that gave the world The Human League, Rezillos, Mekons, Valves and many more.

The idea of setting up a record label and bringing out a few thousand copies of a single suddenly struck many as easily achievable. The Desperate Bicycles could even sing ‘It was easy, it was cheap, go and do it’, but in the pre-digital era, for budding independent filmmakers hoping to shoot a feature, it was often a gargantuan task scraping together enough money to buy film stock, pay actors and crew and all those other inevitable costs.

And while the head honcho of a label could bring a bag full of singles to be sold along to a local record shop like Bruce’s on Rose Street or Hot Licks on Cockburn Street, or go down the mail order route, small film production companies faced major problems setting up deals for distribution at any of the major British cinema chains.

Mithras Films, the London-based production company behind Long Shot, was certainly far removed from the studio system while the film’s director, Maurice Hatton, was once dubbed ‘the most incorruptibly independent’ of British filmmakers.

Shot on some super grainy film, mainly short-ends and stock that was on the brink of expiring from what was then East Germany, the film illustrates the struggles of Charlie Gormley (played by Charles Gormley). He’s a small-time producer touting around a script by his pal Neville Smith (played by – you guessed it – Neville Smith). A likeable Glaswegian, Charlie’s passionate but never too in-yer-face when delivering his spiel regarding Gulf and Western, a ‘movie about oil’ set in Aberdeen and he elicits interest from one distributor, who promises to front some money if Gormley can land a name director, preferably Sam Fuller, to helm the film.

Most of Gormley’s time is spent on wild goose chases, desperately trying to track down the veteran American director, who is due to make a guest appearance at the Edinburgh International Film Festival as well as persuading typists to update the screenplay, and hustling his script to any exec, agent or possible investor prepared to listen. Who will then – if they judge the project has any merit – insist that compromises will have to be made.

I’m not sure how much easier it is to get a feature film made today but at least in the age of smart phones, Microsoft Word and the internet, the majority of hopefuls will at least spend less time being rejected.

Fuller is a no show and in a meeting with Wim Wenders, Gormley brings up the idea of him becoming involved – something which Wenders doesn’t totally rebuff. Later it will be the turn of John Boorman to be courted, and he shows genuine interest in working on Gulf and Western, albeit with no guarantees.

As for stars, Susannah York (who Neville confuses with Julie Christie and then Lynn Redgrave) and Sylvia Kristel are both apparently in the frame for the role of the lead female – knowing how popular softcore porn and sex comedies (which featured not very much sex and even less comedy) were with British audiences of the time, the latter might have been the better choice purely in terms of the box office.

In real life, Charlie Gormley co-ran an independent production company, Tree Films, in Glasgow along with Bill Forsyth around this time, the pair earning their money mostly by shooting sponsored documentaries for local tourist boards and large businesses. Forsyth is seen briefly in a cameo here where he discusses what I’m guessing is an authentic project that the pair worked on together.

Yes, fact and fiction blur incessantly in Long Shot – most of the cinematic luminaries here play themselves (or versions of themselves) although a few others are morphed into completely invented characters: Alan Bennett provides a turn as a hapless and hopeless doctor while Stephen Frears is a nameless biscuit salesman whose car is hijacked by Neville and his new pal Annie – incidentally, Frear’s debut directorial effort, Gumshoe, had been penned by Smith.

Long Shot is episodic, fading in and out and utilising a plethora of title cards throughout. Shot mostly in black and white (with colour only making an appearance very late on as things finally start looking up for Charlie and Neville) the film, despite its obvious financial limitations, is a fascinating watch and might just be the most insightful fictionalised look at what would later become known as lo-fi or guerrilla filmmaking that I have seen.

The performances are solid and naturalistic with particularly enjoyable turns from both Gormley and Smith. I know I was rooting for their project to be green-lit. It’s also very amusing with some strong farcical comedy, and it undoubtedly deserves to be more widely known, having only ever been screened once on British TV, on Channel 4 over thirty years ago.

Luckily, last summer Long Shot finally gained the chance to been seen more widely via a British Film Institute dual format release as part of their Flipside series, dedicated to rediscovering cult British films. Previous entries having included Bronco Bullfrog, Deep End and Bill Forsyth’s That Sinking Feeling. Long Shot is a valuable addition to the list.

The extras included are generally very strong, the best of the bunch being Hooray for Holyrood from 1986, an enjoyable and informative look at the first forty years of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (with a couple of brief detours to Cannes) presented by a delightfully caustic Robbie Coltrane.

There’s also Scene Nun, Take One, a short and almost silent comedy directed by Hatton that comes over as a love letter to the French New Wave; Sean Connery’s Edinburgh, a 1982 TV documentary that does exactly what it says on the tin and an enlightening 22 page booklet with new writing by Dylan Cave, Bill Forsyth (whose award winning Local Hero could also be called a movie about oil) and Vic Pratt.

The real life Gormley went on to direct a couple of films, the best-known being Heavenly Pursuits, which starred Tom Conti and Helen Mirren. His TV work includes 1993’s Down Among the Big Boys with a cast that included Billy Connolly. Sadly he died in 2005.

For more information on Long Shot visit the film’s page on the BFI site.

A Map Reference, Two Virginia Plains & A Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style

Last week, on his Monday night show on Radio Scotland, Vic Galloway interviewed Wire’s Colin Newman and Graham Lewis. They spoke about supporting Roxy Music in 1979 and how it would have been a far more exciting prospect had it been the Eno era band. ‘That would have been something worth seeing,’ Newman commented.

A wee bit of an understatement I think.

Wire and Roxy’s former electronics maestro had a number of connections, from the days when the student Colin Newman cadged lifts to Watford College of Art from Eno, who was employed as a part time lecturer there at the time, through to Eno expressing an interest in producing Wire. A fascinating what if?

Issued by EMI’s Harvest subsidiary in October 1979 and named NME Single of the Week, here is a live version on German TV’s Rockpalast of Map Ref 41°N 93°W, these co-ordinates referring to the location of the supposed geographic centre of the U.S.A, Centerville in Iowa.

1972 was a year that saw my interest in music move up a gear or two. It was a good time to be ten even if, sadly, my young tastes hadn’t yet stretched to albums like Ege Bamyasi, Superfly, Pink Moon, Neu! or #1 Record.

Believe me, though, I was more than happy with the conveyor belt of amazing singles being released by the likes of T.Rex, Bowie, Slade and Mott.

When Virginia Plain entered the British charts early that August, it joined Starman, All the Young Dudes and Hawkwind’s Silver Machine. Number 1 was Alice Cooper with School’s Out.

Many people have called Virginia Plain one of the best debut singles of all time but you can ditch the word ‘debut’ and the claim is still valid. Three minutes of thrillingly inventive experimental pop with surreal lyrics that still make little sense to me, although I know now that Robert E. Lee was Roxy’s lawyer and that Baby Jane Holzer was a Warhol superstar.

In other words they make more sense to me than those Wire lyrics on the subject of cartography.

I also learned somewhere along the line that the song’s title comes directly from a painting that Bryan Ferry produced while studying art in Newcastle – where his tutor was Richard Hamilton, a man who could lay claim to being the inventor of Pop Art.

Many critics have mentioned Andy Warhol as an influence on this particular Ferry painting but although around this time he was pally with guys like Mark Lancaster, who’d been introduced to Warhol by Hamilton and seen The Velvet Underground perform as part of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia happenings in New York, I reckon David Hockney’s work from the early 1960s such as his Tea paintings are more likely to have been on Ferry’s mind when he got busy with his paint brushes. Loosely sketched human figure (check), product packaging (check) and hand drawn lettering (check).

Here’s Virginia Plain and A Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style:

To hear the Wire interview if you live in Britain (you have 22 days left to listen): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b582s3

Bryan Ferry plays the Kelvingrove Bandstand in Glasgow on Tuesday 31 July. I think I’ll save myself the 77 quid price tag on the tickets though.

For more on Bryan Ferry: http://bryanferry.com/

How To Talk To Girls At Parties (Soundtrack Sundays #5)

The Damned: New Rose (1977)
Xiu Xiu, Elle Fanning & Alex Sharp: Eat Me Alive (2017)

Back in 1977, I would buy or borrow a copy of NME or Sounds and read through them: the news items, interviews, reviews and letters pages. I would also diligently scan along the live listings, seeing who was playing across the country as if it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that I might just decide to dog off school for a couple of days and travel down to see some band like Wire or Slaughter and The Dogs play Canterbury or Bristol on a Tuesday night.

One name that would repeatedly crop up in these listings was The Greyhound in Croydon. This venue would regularly advertise shows, usually with cool acts like The Adverts, Buzzcocks and local favourites Johnny Moped. Seeing their ads convinced me that Croydon must be a bit of a hotspot for punk rock and that anybody living there was lucky.

Enn, Vic and John, the three schoolboy punks we’re introduced to here don’t feel the same way about their home turf. But, even during the brouhaha of Jubilee Day, they still manage to get at least some teenage kicks as they wind up their parents, local royalists and teddy boys, while somehow managing to make their way around town on a bicycle definitely not made for three.

All this soundtracked by The Damned – an act with a big Croydon connection – and the first, and some might argue, the best British punk single ever recorded:

Directed by John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig And The Angry Inch, Shortbus) and based on a short story by Neil Gaiman, How To Talk To Girls At Parties is a coming-of-age science-fiction romcom that also attempts to straddle a few other genres while it’s at it.

The film starts off like a punky version of The Inbetweeners with Enn, played by Alex Sharp, in the role of Will. Enn (short for ‘Enry) contributes cartoons to a fanzine called Virus, that he and his pals put together.

They also like to visit a nearby Greyhound like bar to see local punk wannabes The Dyschords.

Afterwards, by accident, they gatecrash into a party (of sorts) where everyone is humming, dancing or performing gymnastic routines while wearing Vivienne Westwood meets the Teletubbies latex outfits. They look like some weird performance art collective rehearsing for a stint at the Edinburgh Festival.

The boys speculate on who these strange people could be, guessing they might be kooky Californians involved in a cult. I doubt I’m giving anything away here but they are from much farther away and even more alien to teenage punks than yer average 1970s American hippy-dippy west coaster.

Enn meets and immediately likes Zan, played by Elle Fanning. She’s fascinated by his interest in ‘the punk’ and its anti-authoritarian attitudes. She displays a rebellious streak herself to her fellow extraterrestrials, an antiseptic bunch in the main, as conformist as Enn’s neighbours waving their Union Jacks earlier at their neighbourhood street party.

Unfortunately, Zan’s only allowed twenty-four hours in Croydon. In this time she makes a big impression, not only on Enn and his pals but on punk sculptor Queen Boadicea. Played by Nicole Kidman, who looks like a cross between Cruella Deville and Siouxsie Sioux out for a night in some New Romantic club of the early 1980s rather than a punk in the blistering summer of 1977.

This friendship results in Zan and Enn replacing The Dyschord’s singer for a show. Here’s a clip of what is supposed to be an entirely improvised performance:

After this, the film nosedives like a punk band that kick off live with all their best material but when they should be climaxing instead play a bunch of B-sides, bad cover versions and filler tracks from their album, never recovering the initial promise.

How To Talk To Girls At Parties becomes increasingly batshit crazy but not in a good batshit crazy way. Self-indulgence reigns. The Kidman character looks shoehorned in, and I suspect she’d maybe agreed to the part as an old pals act for the director. She’d previously worked with him on 2010’s Rabbit Hole.

By the time the punks, led by Boadicea, storm the townhouse where the aliens are staying, things have become even more excruciating than Kidman’s take on a Cockernee accent.

This is the film’s nadir and it never recovered. It’s probably significant that Gaiman’s short story ended long before any of this.

The debate between the aliens confused me. Or maybe by this point I was just too bored to make the effort to follow it. As for the soundtrack, after New Rose there are no punk classics, most of the music being electronic in nature and mediocre at best.

This is a shame. I liked the director defiantly choosing not to go down the dreary social realist path. This is definitely more Phantom of the Paradise than Rude Boy, believe me although not nearlyas good as that De Palma oddity. Actually a more ‘glam rock’ setting would have been more appropriate. Sci-fi and space travel being a much bigger part of that era. Just think of all those singles like Starman and Space Ace.

Much of the movie is shot beautifully too.

Easily the best thing about it, though, are the two leads even though Enn is obviously a fifteen year old with a particularly long paper round. I did look up his age online and wasn’t too surprised to discover he was well into his mid-20s when the film was shot. I also liked Abraham Lewis as Vic. He even reminded me at times of Tom Hardy.

On the whole the accuracy of the punk backdrop struck me as reasonably accurate if Boadicea is taken out of the equation. Okay, I’ll nitpick a little. Enn has a copy on the Never Mind the Bollocks cover on his wall months before it came out. I guess if you can accept visitors from another planet travelling to Croydon on a reconnaissance mission, then a little faux pas like that is the least of your worries.

File under: Probably sounded like a good idea at the time.

How To Talk To Girls At Parties is just out on DVD & Blu-ray.

To read the short story click here.

Suspiria 2018

The upcoming remake of Suspiria isn’t something that I’ve been getting too excited over.

If you read my previous post you’ll know I’m a Dario Argento fan and like most fans, I tend to balk at the idea of remakes of films that I’ve cherished for years – I first saw Suspiria during a short run in Glasgow at the tail end of 1977. Although my memory might be faulty here I think I can just about remember it being part of a X certificate double bill with Black Christmas. Oh and me still underage! Those were the days, my friends.

Despite my completely predictable reservations about the reboot, I was curious enough to have a gander at the trailer when it was released earlier tonight.
Surprisingly enough, it does look promising enough. If I hadn’t known it was for the remake of Argento’s supernatural horror classic, it might even have sold me on the film. And I can confidently predict that, if nothing else, the ballet this time round will be more authentic.

Notably, it looks as if Guadagnino has completely ditched the neon primary colours of Argento’s original – which is very possibly the reddest movie ever made – and doesn’t seem to be following the original script too closely either. Indeed, Guadagnino has voiced his opinion that while his movie is ‘inspired by the same story… it goes in different directions, it explores other reasons.’

Trailers, of course, aren’t the most reliable indication of whether a film will be any good or not. At this stage pedigree is more important.

Directed by recent Oscar nominee Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name), the remake stars Dakota Johnson (Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash) and Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass) together with frequent Guadagnino collaborator Tilda Swinton. Jessica Harper, the star of the original, also appears in a new and much smaller role. Thom Yorke is providing the score.

So, a very decent pedigree. Well, if we ignore the fact that Johnson also starred in that 50 Shades nonsense.

Okay, here I have to admit that despite the talent involved, there’s next to no chance that this film will match the magic of Argento’s masterpiece.

Hopefully, though, a decent percentage of younger cinema-goers who have never seen the original will be persuaded to seek it out.

Currently in post-production, Suspiria should make it to British cinemas around November of this year.

Simonetti-Morante-Pignatelli: Tenebrae (Soundtrack Sundays #4)

Tenebrae (1982): Directed by Dario Argento

Newly released on Waxwork Records is the complete soundtrack to Argento’s giallo masterpiece Tenebrae together with a number of related bonus tracks.

This is one of those very special vinyl releases that have obviously been put together with a whole lot of loving care. Befitting for a hyper-stylised movie where even the murders somehow look almost artistic.

The design here really is superb and includes a die-cut style gatefold sleeve, with disc 1 being coloured ‘Blood Red’ while the second disc is in ‘Straight Razor Silver’. Oh, to die for!

There’s also the inner gatefold sleeve above, illustrated by Nikita Kaun. The woman depicted is Jane McKerrow, played by Veronica Lario, the former wife of Silvio Berlusconi. You can say what you like about the man’s politics (and I’m certainly not a fan) but you really can’t argue with his taste in women.

It’s been said that when the couple married in 1990, the Italian mega-mogul wasn’t pleased with his missis being in such a controversial movie and attempted to use his power to suppress it.

He wasn’t alone in trying to make it impossible to see. In Britain it even made the infamous Video Nasties list, a daft idea supported by Mary Whitehouse and her moral majority cronies together with The Daily Mail and Rupert Murdoch papers. A Private Member’s Bill was introduced by Tory MP Graham Bright in 1983 and a year later the Video Recordings Act 1984 was passed by parliament.

Sadly, a victory for censorship and I remain in the camp that says if you want to ban anything why not make a start on the religious texts that encourage extreme violence? This attitude being pretty common at the time of the whole video nasties furore. Not that anyone believed this would ever happen.

Had a single MP watched Tenebrae? I doubt it. Did anybody murder anyone as a result of seeing it? I’ll hazard another guess here – NO.

The bill did at least give rise to some comic moments.

Bible thumping Manchester Chief Constable James Anderton’s officers immediately increased the number of raids on local video stores, at one point seizing a copy of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a musical comedy starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds, thinking – possibly hoping or even praying – it was a potentially prosecutable porno.

Of course, many a filmmaker actively sought a ban, using the subsequent publicity to gain media publicity in other countries. The distributors of one infamous Italian cannibal flick even complained anonymously to Mary Whitehouse about their own film.

Cannibal Holocaust really didn’t need any additional attempts to hype up it’s notoriety. In Italy, its director Ruggero Deodato found himself arrested on obscenity charges and accused of making a snuff film due to an idiotic idea that some actors might have been killed onscreen. Which, of course, proved groundless. The whole incident could even be seen as more disturbing than his movie, which to be fair, was pretty out there. And which remained banned in Italy.

The clip of Tenebrae below – like much of the film – is also admittedly gruesome. If you don’t want to see any gore then cheerio, cheerio, cheerio but you’ll be missing out on one of the most inspired ever uses of the vocoder, grandiose drums, magnificently supple 1980s bass, as well as some scintillating baroque disco touches – the band had certainly departed radically from their prog origins by this point.

You’ll also miss out on some virtuoso directing from Argento in the form of a very long and continually fluid tracking shot that begins from below a woman gazing out through a window before creeping up and across the building where she lives, giving an eerie indication of an unseen presence that we can only assume has murder on his (or her) mind. Well, it is a Dario Argento film after all.

This scene also amuses me because what everyone initially assumes to be part of the score turns out to be a character playing Tenebrae on her record player. On black vinyl in case you’re wondering.

Goblin, incidentally, had split soon after working on Dawn of the Dead, with Claudio Simonetti going on to create some of the best Italo disco records of the era in a number of guises such as Easy Going and Capricorn.

Argento was desperate for them to reform in order to supply the music for Tenebrae. Three of the four agreed to the idea, so although often attributed to Goblin, for contractual reasons, at the point when they recorded the music they were instructed not to refer to themselves as Goblin, so chose to string together their three surnames, hence the rather pedestrian sounding Simonetti-Morante-Pignatelli album credit although on Tenebrae – or Tenebre as it is sometimes known, or even Unsane as it was titled on its initial American release – the music is listed as Simonetti-Pignatelli-Morante. Got that?

Anyway, here they are playing Tenebrae in Oran Mor in Glasgow, a slightly different line-up to the Goblin I’d seen in 2011 at The Arches, their first ever show in Scotland and a highlight of that year’s Glasgow Film Festival. If you want to see a couple of tracks from that evening, you’ll have to buy a copy of Arrow’s dual format edition of the film released in 2013. I’d recommend you do so and make sure you hear the audio commentary from Kim Newman and The Sex Pistols’ old pal Alan Jones.

The band will be in Edinburgh in August for the Fringe Festival. They’ll be performing their their classic Suspiria score live to a screening of Argento’s legendary supernatural horror and, to celebrate its 40th anniversary, they’ll also be performing to George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

Suspiria: 5 Aug, Summerhall, 5.30pm
Dawn of the Dead: 5 Aug, Summerhall, 8.20pm
Dawn of the Dead, 6 Aug, Summerhall, 5.30pm
Suspiria: 6 Aug, Edinburgh, Summerhall, 8.50pm

For more information: www.summerhall.co.uk

For more on the release: https://waxworkrecords.com/products/tenebrae