The Headless Ghost (1959)

A light hearted ghost story. Three foreign exchange college students visit a dusty old castle owned by the Earl of Ambrose (Jack Allan). He tells them that the castle is haunted but Americans Bill (Richard Lyon) and Ronnie (David Rose) scoff at this. They decide to stay in the castle overnight with Ingrid (Lilane Sottane) to find out the truth.

Stuck in the castle, they find indeed there are ghosts. In fact there seem to be ghosts everywhere! Most of the ghosts are manifested as voices but there is also the Fourth Earl (Clive Revill) whose portrait comes to life... and a knight in armour wielding an axe! The three students eventually meet a headless ghost and are told they cannot leave until they find his missing head!

The scares are fairly low-thrill and offer a rather stereotypical view of castle life. The comedy is about as weak as the horror element but the film is reasonably entertaining. At times it  resembles a medieval reenactment with overly keen amateurs and that does add an element of (probably) unintentional fun.

Ruby (1977)

This is a very strange film. In 1935 Ruby (Piper Laurie) is so shocked by the brutal gunning down of her boyfriend by gangsters that she gives birth. Sixteen years later she is a drunk who owns a sleazy nightclub (that never seems to have any customers) and a drive-in movie theatre (which has plenty of 1950s stereotypes). Her daughter Leslie (Janit Baldwin) is a mute with staring eyes who bites random people. For some reason she now employs the guys who killed her man at the theatre.

And then they start getting bumped off one by one in horrifying (in theory) / ridiculous (in practice) including the movie projectionist who is menaced by a film reel and strangled by film stock. As Ruby continues to prance about drunk in a fur coat strange voices are heard. Is the spirit of her dead boyfriend somehow out for revenge and using Leslie to carry out the murders? Meanwhile Ruby's new beau Vince (Stuart Whitman) wanders around looking as confused as most the audience...

Although it makes little sense, the gore and special effects are often laughably poor, the film has an irresistible camp quality about it. The cast generally do a good job with the weirdness and supernatural nonsense.

Fire Over England (1937)

A quality historical romp. With England under threat of invasion from the Spanish Armada, Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson) treads a thin line between appeasing the anger of Spain and rejoicing in the heroics of the likes of Sir Francis Drake. Meanwhile in Spain young Michael (Sir Laurence Olivier) escapes the clutches of the Inquisition and eventually makes his way back to the English Court...

He is reunited with his love Cynthia (Vivian Leigh) one of the ladies in waiting. However soon he must return to Spain in place of the traitor Vane (James Mason) and discover the secret plans of the King of Spain (Raymond Massey) before it is too late...

A superb adventure with plenty of swashbuckling. There is also much intrigue in Court (though some of the historical details may be a bit off). Although the love of Michael and Cynthia is central to the film it is Elizabeth who steals the show of course, if history can be considered a film then she always had some of the best lines.

The Magic Christian (1969)

A number of British satirical films in the late 1960s / early 1970s felt like they were produced with the assistance of weapons grade acid and this film is no exception. The richest man in the world Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) adopts a penniless hobo Youngman (Ringo Starr) and proceeds to demonstrate to his son that every man has his price in a rather formless and frequently bizarre series of scenes packed full of guest stars.

We have Spike Milligan, for example as a traffic warden who eats a ticket for cash and Richard Attenborough who persuades his Oxford boat crew to cheat in return for the contents of Sir Grand's briefcase of cash. All things come to a head on a luxury cruise ship (the Magic Christian) which for some reason has a vampire aboard (Christopher Lee of course), the engine room also consists of topless women rowing while being whipped by Raquel Welch...

Other people appearing in cameos include John Lennon, Michael Aspel, Yul Brynner, John Cleese and many more. It is quite an extraordinary film and has a tremendous soundtrack with songs written by Paul McCartney and performed by Bad Finger. However does any of it make any sense? Probably not. But is it supposed to? The film is very Monty Python at times and also very bonkers and frequently vulgar. A film of it's time but what a great time.

Prisoners of the Lost Universe (1983)

A low-budget fantasy where our heroes are transported to a parallel universe where people fight with swords, wear loin cloths but still speak English. Dr Hartmann (Kenneth Hendel) has developed a way to transport objects between parallel worlds but falls onto his portal and is sent there himself. TV reporter Carrie (Kay Lenz) and electrician/kendo master Dan (Richard Hatch) also end up being transported after various displays of imbalance.

But where are they transported to? A strange world inhabited by giants in furs, midgets with flashing eyes and Kleel (John Saxon), an evil warlord who has imprisoned Hartmann as a sorcerer to do his bidding (though Kleel mostly seems to be interested in sleeping with his slave women and killing people). Carrie ends up a prisoner of Kleel while Dan enlists the help of The Greenman (Ray Charleston), Vosk (Larry Taylor) and Malachi (Peter O'Farrell) to save Carrie and defeat Kleel...

Although pretty low-rent, cheesy and unoriginal, the film is quite entertaining although is padded out with a little too much wandering aimless through the bush (which helped the budget no doubt). The leads put on good performances though especially Saxon. The concept and plot makes little sense of course but the sheer strangeness and camp will keep you watching.