Bob Franklin has long been interested in the comic ground shared by comedy and horror.
Last year his obsidian-black Yours Sincerely was a bleakly funny (and much talked about) portrayal of obsession; this year’s potted horror history is, by contrast, a barrel of laughs.
Franklin plays his occasional alter ego Sir Robert, a pipe-smoking, cravat-wearing horror buff ostensibly on hand to give a lecture.
However this conceit is entwined in a narrative back story that unspools like one of Franklin’s unnerving short stories.
James Hazelden’s cello provides suitably spooky atmospherics, while Franklin’s punchlines are not so different to jump scares, underlining the sibling closeness of the funny and the frightening.
Michael Ward – The Herald-Sun
Original article HERE