BRIAN JAMES

THE DAMNED’S GUITARIST MAY NOT CARE MUCH FOR SCI-FI – BUT HE LIKES HIS HORROR

Favourite SF/fantasy films

I’m not a big fan of science fiction, I must admit. I’m a horror fan. Of all the movies that I’ve seen, Psycho is probably the one that had the most impression when was I a kid, seeing it. Hitchcock’s direction, the music of Bernard Herrmann… it’s such a wonderful film.

Other horror movie favourites...

I like fantasy horror. The out-andout slasher stuff leaves me cold – it hasn’t got any beauty to it. Dario Argento – a lot of his stuff’s great. The style of Argento film that I like is the more surreal kind, like Suspiria. You can detect all kinds of influences: there’s a certain Fellini aspect, a certain Visconti aspect to the way it’s filmed. Roger Corman made some great Edgar Poe films – done on a shoestring but with a lot of respect, and that nice little bit of hamming up! And when I was a teenager I followed all the Hammer films. My favourite would probably be one of the Karnstein ones: The Vampire Lovers, Lust For A Vampire, Twins Of Evil. They were fruity!

Did SF/horror influence The Damned?

Well, the name came from the Visconti film and also Village Of The Damned, from The Midwich Cuckoos. Also when I first met [singer] Dave he had teased-out black hair. I took him to see a double bill of Blood For Dracula and Flesh For Frankenstein, and Blood For Dracula obviously had a big effect – the next time I saw him he had his hair back in the skull look that people associate with the early Damned. But he was a gravedigger anyway, y’know – that’s what he did for a living!

The Damned: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead is out on Blu-ray/DVD now.