Hypnogoria

In this episode we follow the course of mummy stories in early 20th century weird and genre fiction, with tales of strange curses and evil immortals! And then we discover how he shambled onto the silver screen in the silent era in a surprising number of early outings!

In this episode, we take a side-step into the world of old time radio to sample a variety of Egyptological thrills. Firstly we have an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's tale The Ring of Thoth presented by Escape! and then hear the tale of the Living Mummy from The World Adventurers Club. And finally we round off with a spine-chilling tale of opening an ancient tom Whence You Came from the brilliant Quiet Please.

In the second part of our Mummy saga, Mr Jim Moon explores the development and evolution of Egyptian horrors in fiction and literature. We encounter ancient princesses, reincarnated lovers, dire curses from the tomb and, of course, the reanimated dead!

Mr Moon begins an epic journey through the history of a horror icon - the Mummy! In this episode, we journey to ancient Egypt to unwrap the mysteries of mummification, unlock the secrets of the dead, discover the truth about tomb curses, and encounter legends of bandaged ghouls!

The future is cancelled! Find out why as Mr Jim Moon dons a black car coat and loads up his needlegun to go on the trail of one of Michael Moorcock's more offbeat SF heroes, the legendary Jerry Cornelius, in the cult classic The Final Programme, directed by Robert Fuest.

Due to popular demand, here's a commentary for the earlier collaboration between Jim Henson and Brian Froud - one of the stand-out fantasy films of the '80s and a landmark in puppetry and SFX, The Dark Crystal from 1982!

This month Odile and Jim take a trip back in time to 17th century New England for a tale of historical hauntings and horrors! In Revenants by Daniel Mills we'll encounter madness, murder, missing girls, and something nasty lurking in the woods...

Following on from our Labyrinth episode, Mr Jim Moon delves into the legend and lore of the changelings, monstrous impostors left by the faeries!

Mr Jim Moon draws close to the fire to discuss the various and strange natures of the entities haunting the stories of the great MR James. And we also take a look at a wonderful new Jamesian card game - we believe the first of its kind - created by Mr James Drewett and Mr Richard Svensson which features 30 creatures and villains from the fiction of MR James.

To mark the passing of the late great David Bowie, Mr Jim Moon sets off to a magical realm where Alice in Wonderland meets Monty Python, where the Wizard of Oz meets George Lucas, and where David Bowie meets a load of ruddy goblins! Yes, we are having a viewing of that classic second team-up of Henson and faerie illustrator Brian Froud: 1986's Labyrinth with Mr Jim providing an audio commentary track!

In the first show in a new year, Jim and Odile take a trip into the near future, to a future Bangkok packed full of exotic new species, clockwork technology, and hazardous genetics gone wild!

In the final chapter of this epic festive investigation, Mr Jim Moon explores the history of the British Father Christmas, goes on the trail of the German Weihnachtsmann, and perhaps finally gets to the bottom of where Santa Claus really comes from!

Of course, Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without gathering by the fireside for a reading of a tale by the great MR James. And so here's a story considered by many to be one of his finest...

In the next leg of our epic investigation of the history and mystery of Santa Claus, we examine the development of his image through 19th century America, of his appearances in Victorian England, and how he came to inhabit grottoes in our stores come December time!

In our second night of ghostly tales for Christmas, we pay a return trip to HP Lovecraft's Kingsport to witness a very curious Yuletide tradition. We also discover another side to the Old Gentleman of Providence as we enjoy some recitations of the verses he wrote for Christmas!

In the second part of our very special Christmas series, we further investigate the origins of Santa Claus, exploring the life and legend of St. Nicholas, his role in the tradition of Christmas presents, the assorted magical gift bringers he transmuted into in Europe, bring light to the dark rumours of Krampus and satanic Santas, and examine the forgotten alternative American Santa Belsnickel

'Tis the Yuletide, and hence once again it's time to gather round the fireside of the Great Library of Dreams for a selection of ghost stories to haunt your nights before Christmas. We open this festive season's round of eerie readings with a witty tale that pays homage to the great MR James and raises a Christmas spirit or two!

In this first in a series of Christmas specials, Mr Jim Moon sets off in search of Santa. Travelling down the centuries in a borrowed magic sleigh, we bust some myths about the Bearded Gentleman himself, before uncovering the roles played by the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas, the writings of Mr Washington Irving, and the drawings of Mr Thomas Nast in the development of legend of Santa Claus.

As it is that time of the year again, and the wolves are running once more, Odile and Jim take a look at a classic children's book with a festive theme - John Masefield's The Box of Delights. Hurry along now - time and tide and buttered eggs wait for no man!

In this special festive episode, Mr Jim Moon explores the legends and lore surrounding that favourite Christmas bird, the robin redbreast. We learn of superstitions and old tales of the robin, and discover some interesting links with the tale of Babes in the Wood, pantomimes, ghost stories, MR James and other many other fascinating and festive things!

From the cosy fireside in the Great Library of Dreams, Mr Jim Moon takes us on a trip into Lovecraft country, to the ancient town of Kingsport. Here we will meet The Terrible Old Man and pay a visit to The Strange High House in the Mist.

This week Mr Jim Moon turns back time, and takes a look back at the classic SF horror series Sapphire and Steel. Created by PJ Hammond and starring genre icons David McCallum and Joanna Lumley, this strange series thrilled, puzzled and frightening many a viewer back the early '80s and still haunts the dreams of many today...

In this show, Odile and Jim take a return trip to the fiction of Mr Mike Carey, and delve into the dark mysteries revealed in the first book in his Felix Castor series, The Devil You Know

In this episode Mr Jim Moon turns his attention to the final tome in the Usborne Supernatural Guides series from the late 1970s – Mysterious Powers & Strange Forces, and explores the likes of ESP, astral travel and pyramid power!

Just in time for Halloween, Mr Jim Moon reads an eerie tale by E Nesbit set upon that very night of nights! Be warned however, while E Nesbit is best remembered for her enchanting children's books, this is no fairy tale…

It's Halloween once more, and Mr Jim Moon brings you another epic show delving into the long history of this autumnal festival. In this episode, we ransack the shelves of the Great Library of Dreams to trace the history of Halloween in popular culture, from the poems of Robert Burns, through the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Walter Scott, and into the heyday of the Victorian ghost story.

With Halloween just around the corner, Mr Jim Moon explores the secret history of the jack-o-lantern, investigating their folkloric forebears, the will-o-the-wisps, those mysterious lights that lead travelers astray. What are they? Faeries? Ghosts? Or something else?

This month, Odile and Jim are taking a trip to paperback racks of the 1970s, to sample the pulp horrors of Guy N Smith's Night of the Crabs!

At last, the long-delayed Clemens at the Movies episode is here! In this show, Mr Jim Moon delves into the late great Brian Clemens' work on the silver screen, from an early feature adapting Edgar Allan Poe for the big screen in The Tell-Tale Heart (1960), through his psychochillers And Soon the Darkness (1970) and See No Evil (1971), to his work with Hammer - Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) and Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter (1972)

Mr Jim Moon invites you once again to the cosy fireside of the Great Library of Dreams to explore a shadowy world of childhood rites and ancient traditions, in the shape of a sinister school story by the great WF Harvey, a tale of a mysterious group known as The Dabblers…

Mr Jim Moon returns to the late '70s and the fondly remembered Supernatural Guides series of children's books from Usborne, serving up a haunting helping of eerie delights from Haunted Houses, Ghosts & Spectres (1979).

Odile and Jim are back together by the fireside and talking books! This time we are back in the realms of urban fantasy with an intriguing tale of earth energies and shortcuts in reality in the shape of The Narrows by James Brogden.

In another sadly unscheduled episode, Mr Jim Moon pays tribute to the late great Wes Craven. We look back over his life and works, from his beginnings as a college professor doing films with his students to becoming one of the grand masters of the horror movie.

Mr Jim Moon returns to his explorations of the Living Dead family tree, and looks at the various movies inflicted upon the world as Zombie 6 and Zombie 7, most of whom ended up on the Video Nasties list too. Featuring Joe D'Amato's cannibal nasty Anthropophagus (1980) and its non-sequel but also nasty Absurd (1981), Umberto Lenzi's atomic nonsense Nightmare City (1980), and Bruno Mattei's shameless tat Hell of the Living Dead (1980)!

This week Mr Jim Moon is once more apprehended loitering in Memory Lane as he embarks on a new three part odyssey into horror nostalgia with a look back at the first tome in the Usborne Supernatural Guides series – Vampires, Werewolves & Demons (1979)

A short info-cast in which Mr Jim Moon details his newly launched Patreon campaign

This week we return to the cosy fireside of the Great Library of Dreams, where Mr Jim Moon has a fascinating tale to tell, and a fascinating tale to tell about it. As requested by a listener, we hear EF Benson's eerie classic The Hanging of Alfred Wadham and learn of the troubles the great Roald Dahl had trying to bring it to the screen...

Ghosts, gods and good old fashioned detective work await Odile and Jim in Mr Ben Aaronvitch's celebrated urban fantasy Rivers of London

In this final part of this epic series, Mr Jim Moon charts Sir Christopher Lee's career from the 1980s onwards. We look at movies as diverse as Arabian Adventure, The Return of Captain Invincible, The Howling II, and The House of Long Shadows, and see how his star rose again once more with Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, how he embraced heavy metal in his '90s, and in general became a living legend.

In a stop-gap episode, Mr Jim Moon raids the archives of the Great Library of Dreams to uncover the tale of Leviathan '99 - a 1960s experimental radio play. This space age sonic drama was a riff on Moby Dick penned by the late great Ray Bradbury and starred Sir Christopher Lee as an obsessed comet-hunting captain on a space vessel...

Continuing our epic journey through the life and works of Sir Christopher Lee, Mr Jim Moon charts his continuing work with Hammer and Amicus, looking at I, Monster (1971) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976), and examines the only movie Lee made himself, Charlemagne Productions' Nothing But The Night (1972). We pay a visit to The Wicker Man (1973), indulge in some Bondage with The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), and hear how Lee broke the horror typecasting in movies such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970).

This episode we take a little sidestep in our journey through the life and works of the late great Sir Christopher Lee. Mr Jim Moon takes a back at the tradition of having hosts with our horror stories, and explores the various volumes of weird fiction that Sir Christopher Lee hosted and co-edited with Peter Haining and Michael Parry.

Mr Jim Moon continues his journey through the long career of Sir Christopher Lee, exploring is most productive period the 1970s, where he made numerous films for Hammer, Amicus, and AIP, and worked with film-makers such as Terence Fisher, Freddie Francis, Jess Franco and Harry Alan Towers. We sample the psycho-chiller Scream of Fear (1961), investigate the case of Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), go marauding with the Devil Ship Pirates (1964), dodge The Gorgon (1964), gaze into the Face of Fu Manchu (1965), visit Dr Terror's House of Horrors (1965), meet Rasputin the Mad Monk (1966), and find out what's inside the The Oblong Box (1969). And of course we run into Count Dracula many many times...

Mr Jim Moon pays tribute to the great Sir Christopher Lee with the first part of what will be a lengthy retrospective of his life and works. In the first part of this epic journey through a career that spanned seven decades, we learn of Lee's early life, military career and his early forays into acting. We discuss his involvement with the birth of Hammer horror and friendship with Peter Cushing, looking at his roles in Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll. We look at his non horror works such as Hound of the Baskervilles and Terror of the Tongs, learn of his close relationship with Boris Karloff and the movie they starred in together Corridors of Blood, and round off with another black and white chiller City of the Dead AKA Horror Hotel which was effectively the birth of Amicus.

To mark the passing of Sir Christopher Lee, we begin a series of shows celebrating the life and works of a true legend of cinema and horror. In our first episode, Mr Jim Moon goes on the trail of a lost Dracula, and uncovers the tale of a long forgotten audio version of Bram Stoker's classic narrated by Sir Christopher Lee and its links to one of the first graphic novels The Illustrated Dracula from 1966

Mr Jim Moon returns once again to the weird and wonderful writings of Clark Ashton Smith, and presents a fantastic tale from the far future, a legend from the exotic land of Zothique, the last continent on a dying Earth basking under a dwindling red sun.

In this episode Mr Jim Moon investigates the strange case of Berberian Sound Studio in which a sound engineer played by Toby Jones descends into a world of madness while working on the soundtrack for an Italian giallo movie.

In this episode Mr Jim Moon takes a journey into the strange stories of Robert Aickman, exploring the life and works of this modern master of weird fiction, and taking a look inside his first collection of tales Dark Entries

Odile and Jim delve into the mysteries of The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen, tracing the influence of this weird fiction classic and unraveling its hidden horrors…

By the fireside in the Great Library of Dreams, Mr Jim Moon presents the second and final part of his complete and unabridged reading of Arthur Machen's classic novel of the weird The Great God Pan