TOP FIVE: HORROR MOVIES

1. THE SHINING (1980)

A classic, and for a good reason. This wins in terms of style, suspense and horror. Every shot looks like a beautifully macabre photograph.

2. TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972)

I love a horror anthology, the British do it best, in my opinion. This one has some classic stories. The thing I love most about these stories are the fact that the bad guys always get their comeuppance. Other great horror anthologies include (because I couldn’t include them all… The Vault of Horror (1973), Asylum (1972), From Beyond the Grave(1974), and of course the more modern Creepshow (1982) and Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)

3. THE BAD SEED (1956)

There’s nothing scarier than a ‘cute’ psychopathic little girl.

4. THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES (2007)

A whole set of video tapes are found in an abandoned house showing what appears to be the life’s work of a truly horrific serial killer. The mockumentary style just makes the whole thing scarier because you can image what you’re seeing is real.

5. SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983)

This almost falls into the so bad it’s good category, The twist makes it even better.

FILM 1569: LEGEND

TRIVIA: In the UK, Legend (2015) became the highest grossing 18-rated British film of all time, surpassing Trainspotting (1996).

Despite being very open about his sexuality in this film, in real life Ronnie Kray kept it very private as he saw it as a weakness which could be exploited.

Critic Benjamin Lee of The Guardian wrote a negative review of the film, giving it only two stars: a poster for British distributor Studio Canal displayed these, but placed them between the twins' heads, so that at first glance The Guardian appeared to be one of many outlets that had run four- and five-star reviews (until Lee himself pointed this out on Twitter).

Despite Reggie Krays actions, he became a born - again christian in prison.

The Blind Beggar pub featured in the movie is actually The Royal Oak on Columbia Road in London. The pub has featured in many British TV programs. It was the same pub used in '90s sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart (1993) and was also the scene for Victor Meldrew's failed reunion with friends in One Foot in the Grave (1990).

The Kray brothers story inspired the 1992, Morrissey classic "The Last of the Famous International Playboys".

A Parisian premiere to be attended by actress Duffy was scheduled for November 17, 2015 at the Olympia concert hall, however this event was canceled following the November 13 terror attacks in the French capital.

Aneurin Barnard reprises his role as the photographer David Bailey from We'll Take Manhattan (2012).

When Ronnie Kray enters The Blind Beggar to shoot George Cornell, he passes 3 people at the bar, the barmaid, a man with his back to camera and Martin Kemp. Kemp played Reggie in the 1990 film, The Krays.

FILM 1563: HIGH-RISE

TRIVIA: High-Rise (2015) has been a stalled passion project for producer Jeremy Thomas for decades. It was once deemed "unfilmable."

The film includes two interpretations of the ABBA song "SOS" - one by the film's composer Clint Mansell and the other by Portishead. "SOS" was released in 1975. The same year as the novel "High-Rise" JG Ballard.

Elizabeth Moss said that the most difficult thing for her when preparing for High-Rise (2015) was to speak in a convincing British accent since she was American.

In the opening shot of the movie, Laing is using a record player. It is a very special, very rare player known as a Transcriptors Reference Turntable, and the same owned by Alex in A Clockwork Orange (arguably made famous by this feature). This is likely another homage to that film.

While it never directly says so, the film's time period is obviously set in the 1970's. There are no cell phones, iPads, Internet and the like. But there is a lot of cigarette smoking in areas that are forbidden in 2016 such as in doctor's office and around children, and the clothes,vehicles and everyday items were very common in that time period.

FILM 1541: THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS

TRIVIA: The triffids inspired the E.T. plants of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

In an interview, producer Bernard Glasser said that in order to satisfy a British government requirement that productions shot in British have a certain percentage of British executives, George Pitcher, a retired film executive, was hired as basically a "frontman"; although credited as producer, he had no actual authority over the production.

Kieron Moore and Janette Scott were only added to the cast when it was discovered on completion of filming that there was only 57 minutes of good usable footage available . The whole lighthouse sequence, directed by the veteran Director of Photography Freddie Francis, was only added on to help extend the movie's running time.

BOOK 149: BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM: KATE ATKINSON

Behind the Scenes at the Museum is the first novel of British novelist Kate Atkinson. The book covers the experiences of Ruby Lennox, a girl from a middle-class English family living in York. The museum of the title is York Castle Museum, which includes among its exhibits the facades of old houses from the city, similar to the one in which Ruby's family lives.

By interspersing flashbacks with the narrative of Ruby's own life, the book chronicles the lives of four generations of women from Ruby's great-grandmother Alice to Ruby's mother's failed dreams.

Ruby's own life is told in thirteen chapters, written in the first person, documenting key periods in Ruby's life from 1951 ("Conception" beginning with the words "I exist!") to 1992. Between each chapter are (non-consecutive) flashbacks that tell the story from the point of view of one of the other members of Ruby's family—including her great-grandmother Alice, her grandmother Nell and her mother Bunty.