"Strangers don't go to Crouch End"

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I caught an episode of that Stephen King Nightmares and Dreamscapes last night, about an American couple on honeymoon in London, who go up to visit someone in Crouch End and find it to be an INTERDIMENSIONAL PORTAL to CTHULHUESQUE FUNTIMES. It was entirely witless drivel, but what was most bizarre was the total lack of effort they went to in making it look like they were actually filming on location. Yellow cabs clearly visible in the traffic in the city; Crouch End apparently a New England style town with colonial architecture and wide boulevards; their entire budget for adding local colour apparently ran to two policeman's uniforms, one bowler hat, one black cab, one pillar box, and a handful of extras straight from the Dick Van Dyke school of cockernee charm.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 09:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Not only that but surely everyone knows the Interdimensional Portal to Cthulhuesque Funtimes is in Muswell Hill not Crouch End!

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 10:06 (seventeen years ago) link

WTF? Stephen King plagiarising Will Self now?

Sounds like an unfunny version of the North London Book of the Dead.

― masonic boom (kate), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 10:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh it was hilarious in its own way.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 10:18 (seventeen years ago) link

e.g. the standard cherrypicker shot, panning up as the couple walk into creepy and entirely American village, under a giant wrought-iron gateway saying "Welcome to Crouch End". Or the WTF ending, when the wife goes to the police to report her husband Loni missing after he's been eaten by the giant tentacles, and finds that the cops have taken in a stray cat that very morning - and called him Loni! And it's the same cat with the gory eye socket she saw in Crouch End OMGWTF?!??!1/1/1/1/!!?!1

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 10:21 (seventeen years ago) link

What you have to understand is that this is STEPHEN KING'S CROUCH END, as in Graham Greene's Greeneland.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 10:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Peter Crouch's Crouch End

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 10:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Hidden Dragon, Crouching End

― masonic boom (kate), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 10:48 (seventeen years ago) link

The story is quite old, apparently based on a visit to London King made (and the comedy nature of "Crouch End" as a place name). The story is pretty good.

― The Real Dirty Vicar (The Real Dirty Vicar), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 12:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Well plotwise it was just a weary and unimaginative retread of already cliched ideas - and the other episodes don't look any better, judging from the synopses.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 12:35 (seventeen years ago) link

It's all a bit clumsy - here's me doing Lovecraft - now here's a go at Chandler - let's try Bradbury - ok I'm pish at this, here's some standard SK shorts.

― Onimo has his finger in the stink (nu_onimo), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 12:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha, I just found out it was filmed in/around Sydney, which was actually what I thought it looked like, despite my New England comment above.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 12:53 (seventeen years ago) link

This reminds me of reading an old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and finding out that a villain called Captain Plunder's place of birth was Castle Plunder, Kentish Town. You know, Castle Plunder, just next to Cash Converters.

― Chap (chap), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 13:52 (seventeen years ago) link

You've just reminded me what a pathetic, banal title "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" is. Seriously, "Whoooooooooo, it's Stephen King" would've better.

― Fat Lady Wrestler (Modal Fugue), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 13:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Crouch End is, of course, a gravity well from which it is very difficult to escape, particularly on Saturdays.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 13:55 (seventeen years ago) link

This reminds me of reading an old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and finding out that a villain called Captain Plunder's place of birth was Castle Plunder, Kentish Town. You know, Castle Plunder, just next to Cash Converters

Surely this is the PIRATES CASTLE on the canal!

― masonic boom (kate), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 13:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Considering 99% of all London residential scenes in the history of British cinematography have been filmed in Crouch End, this is laziness of the highest order on behalf of the Stephen King dudes.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 13:57 (seventeen years ago) link

You've just reminded me what a pathetic, banal title "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" is.

You're entering the vicinity of an area adjacent to a location. The kind of place where there might be a monster or some sort of weird mirror. These are just examples. It could also be something much better. Prepare to enter... The Scary Door.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 14:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha, I just found out it was filmed in/around Sydney

yes, well, I think they at least knew that traffic drives on the left in the UK.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 14:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I was thinking they might have just flipped the film left-to-right to sort that out!

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 14:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Although numberplates etc = clearly I wasn't thinking very hard.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 14:16 (seventeen years ago) link

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