Horror Hospital and weird coincidinks

So I was the pub the other night talking to one of my oldest friends, and the conversation turned somehow to the film Horror Hospital. It’s no surprise to the people who follow this website that Horror Hospital is my favourite British horror film.

Something about its shoddy charm really chimes with me. It must be more than 20 years since I was introduced to it, I’ve re-watched it many times, and every new viewing is a joy.

But I’d not mentioned it to my friend before. It appears the Venn diagram of life growing up and then growing old in rural Cheshire and a 1973 Robin Askwith movie had never overlapped.

We’d got onto that particular film because I was explaining that I’d started up the britishhorrorfilms.co.uk website again, and I explained that Horror Hospital was the catalyst that started it.

(Early days of internet, no reviews, new job, opportunity to learn web skills, etc)

The thing is, though, that we’d met up for what I’d thought was an entirely unconnected reason.

My friend Ian is a proper artist (you can see his amazing stuff here) and he recently took part in an art battle in Manchester, which I’d been unable to attend because I had a previous engagement – tickets to see the comedian Stewart Lee.

So I wanted to catch up about how he’d got on (very well, as it happens) and talk about going to an upcoming gig featuring The Nightingales. The Nightingales are a punk band which nearly made it back in the day. Stewart Lee has filmed a brilliant documentary about the band and their lead singer, Robert Lloyd. It was the Lee connection that got us talking about The Nightingales, and King Rocker.

Last night the film was on Sky Arts, and I caught a bit of it (but retired to bed before the end). Aaaaaaanyway, I woke this morning to a text from Ian, telling me that Horror Hospital gets a mention in King Rocker. I thought it was a joke, but turns out, there is a link between Robert Lloyd, Robin Askwith and Stewart Lee, which you can find out more about in this entertaining blog.

Just thought I’d share this amongst the new reviews. Funny how things link up, isn’t it?