The Monster Hunters released another Special on Christmas Eve! I'm not in it, but it's The Monster Hunters so that really shouldn't matter to you by now. If your nerves are not already too shredded by whatever seasonal horrors you've ingested thus far then - musty tomes, greasy mirrors, that weirdly toothy rocking horse - here's a clip!
You can hear "The Vampire Tree" in its entirety for free HERE, and if you hit that link you will also see that thanks to a splendid turn of events not yet heralded on this blog, you can now hear every single other episode of "The Monster Hunters" either beautifully remastered or engineered from scratch (screech, tapping and slurp) by the loft boffins at Definitely Human, and I'm in loads of those! The Definitelies bravely took the show under their wing ealier this year and have done incredible things with it since, creating beautiful artwork for each series (not this header, that's one of scrapnick's awesome tumblr contributions - oh yes, there's tumblr art now!) along with a host of "Steel Got It" extras on soundcloud, which is a thing (they even let me do one), as well as additional fireside chats at the end of each old episode from the creators themselves, Matthew "Woke" Woodcock and Peter "Dirty" Davis. (Not their real nicknames of course. Matthew's is Bishop, and Peter's is, if I remember correctly, Tiny Mook the Woodsman, although I'm not sure he still has the hood. Maybe he never had a hood. Maybe I dreamt Peter's hood.) So even if you already heard all these when they first went out, listen again! My sister's in them too! And Series 2's Beast of Albion now reads like a massive metaphor for Brexit! Boo! Here's another beauty from scrapnick, illustrating "The Box of Desires":
You can hear "The Vampire Tree" in its entirety for free HERE, and if you hit that link you will also see that thanks to a splendid turn of events not yet heralded on this blog, you can now hear every single other episode of "The Monster Hunters" either beautifully remastered or engineered from scratch (screech, tapping and slurp) by the loft boffins at Definitely Human, and I'm in loads of those! The Definitelies bravely took the show under their wing ealier this year and have done incredible things with it since, creating beautiful artwork for each series (not this header, that's one of scrapnick's awesome tumblr contributions - oh yes, there's tumblr art now!) along with a host of "Steel Got It" extras on soundcloud, which is a thing (they even let me do one), as well as additional fireside chats at the end of each old episode from the creators themselves, Matthew "Woke" Woodcock and Peter "Dirty" Davis. (Not their real nicknames of course. Matthew's is Bishop, and Peter's is, if I remember correctly, Tiny Mook the Woodsman, although I'm not sure he still has the hood. Maybe he never had a hood. Maybe I dreamt Peter's hood.) So even if you already heard all these when they first went out, listen again! My sister's in them too! And Series 2's Beast of Albion now reads like a massive metaphor for Brexit! Boo! Here's another beauty from scrapnick, illustrating "The Box of Desires":
I realise now I forgot to leave a comment here. (Which was probably a good thing, actually, but still.)
ReplyDeleteI genuinely think The Vampire Tree is not only one of their best episodes, but also the spookiest one so far. The Rapping on the Mirror and Box of Desires are up there, but there's something about this one that really gets to me - probably a combination of masterful writing and truly excellent sound design. I can never remember which episodes are written by whom (especially as Peter and Matthew were usually credited together in earlier episodes, regardless of whether or not they had both worked on that particular one), but Matthew well and truly knocked it out of the park with this one. What's scarier than bleak landscapes, bleeding trees, and the layers of time/reality itself shifting unpredictably all around you?
(Oh, I know, that ending. Which doesn't hurt as much as it should only because of all the dread that's been piling up right to that very moment. Series 4 is going to be - interesting, to say the least. )
Overdue shout-out to Susy for brilliantly reprising her role as Griselda in the Halloween special (the first time I listened to the episode, I literally screamed when she spoke her first line), and to the Best (Worst) & Most Ridiculous Villain Ever who sadly left us at the end of The Hell-Shaped Room. We can but hope they will be back at some point.
(And praise be to the Definitelies for making it all possible in the first place.)