Stars: Steve Coogan, Julia Davis, John Thomson, Honor Blackman

Director: Matt Lipsey

Summary: Steve Coogan takes on a different guise in each tale. Also includes an interview with Doctor Terrible.

Comedian Steve Coogan, best known for his Alan Partridge character, spoofs another television genre with this BBC series. Taking his cue from the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and the Hammer movies, Coogan takes a hysterical look at the world of horror with these six half-hour episodes, each with an introduction and epilogue provided by the enigmatic Dr Terrible.

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Originally broadcast in 2001, Dr Terrible's House of Horribleis a six-part pastiche of 1970s Hammer Horror from Steve Coogan's Baby Cow production company. Each episode is topped and tailed by Coogan beneath a mass of prosthetics in a high-back leather chair as the avuncular, flatulent, faintly morally debauched Dr Terrible. "That was truly diabolical", he concludes of each show, a verdict with which one or two critics unkindly and unfairly concurred.

Coogan also stars in each as six different characters. In "And Now the Fearing...", for example. he plays rat-faced, unpleasant millionaire Denham Denham; in "Frenzy of Tongs"--a mickey-take of the Fu Manchufilms--he's the insufferably suave Nathan Blaze, a Jason King-a-like; in "Scream, Satan Scream", meanwhile, he superimposes a parody of Peter Sellers over a lampoon of the Vincent Price film Witchfinder General.

Although most of these episodes are elaborate period pieces and genuine care has been made to render them as scary as possible, the real period detail has been in recreating the luridly quaint, over-acted, hammy feel of the 70s productions to which these episodes pay affectionate homage. Although hardly a perfect series, the camped-up daftness of the entire enterprise, a star-studded cast that includes Honor Blackman, John Thompson and Ronnie Ancona, some nice scripting and Coogan's versatility all make for a programme that's hard to dislike.

On the DVDDr Terrible's House of Horribleis quite generous in its extras. These include "An Appointment with Terrible", a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show, much of which was shot in the studio hangars where the original Hammer horrors were made, dry audio commentary by cowriters Graham Duff and Henry Normal and director Matt Lipsey, and "Behind the Screams" a mock-70s film journal ("only 10p!") reflecting on the making of one of the episodes. --David Stubbs

Aspect Ratio:	16:9
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	An Appointment with Dr Terrible, Photo Gallery And Scene Selection, Pulp Poster Gallery, Production Notes, Commentary With Graham Duff Matt Lipsey And Henry Normal Plus Mark Gatiss On Frenzy Of Tongs, We Go Behind The Screams Picture Play Magazine Article, Dr T
Year:	2001
Release Date:	August 4, 2003
Runtime:	180 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	B B C D V D 1210
Keywords:	House, Comedy, General, Doctor, Series, Horrible, Tv, Terrible's
Genre:	Comedy