Hollywood by Bike

A detailed look at the history of horror anthology films.

Actor and writer Mark Gatiss embarks on a chilling journey through European horror cinema, from the silent nightmares of German Expressionism in the 1920s to the Belgian lesbian vampires in the 1970s, from the black-gloved killers of Italian bloody giallo cinema to the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War, and finally reveals how Europe's turbulent 20th century forged its ground-breaking horror tradition.

After the elevators at a New York City skyscraper begin inexplicably malfunctioning, putting its passengers at risk, mechanic Mark Newman and reporter Jennifer Evans begin separate investigations. Newman gets resistance from superiors at his company, which manufactured the elevator, while additional elevator incidents cause several gruesome deaths. The police get involved and suspect that terrorists are responsible, but a far stranger explanation looms.

In the winter of 1891 a stranger arrives in a small coastal town on the Isle of Man. His presence soon disturbs the lives of the local inhabitants, especially the beautiful daughter of the parson.

England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.

A mysterious diver hiding in Amsterdam's canal system embarks on a rampage of gruesome murders, terrifying city officials and leaving few clues for the city's best detective, who doesn't suspect that both his new girlfriend and twelve-year-old daughter may be closer than he is to finding the killer.

A black comedy set in the 1960s in a small Netherlands community, populated by a cast of eccentrics, all of whom hold a range of sexual obsessions and frustrated desires.

Valentin, an 8-year-old boy living with his grandmother in late-1960s Buenos Aires, is surrounded by problems in his family he finds only himself capable of solving.

Ostend, Belgium. In a decadent seaside hotel, Stefan and Valerie, a newlywed couple, meet the mysterious Countess Báthory and Ilona, her secretary.

A lift technician finds himself drawn into a web of mystery and peril as he investigates the perplexing deadly accidents occurring in the elevators of a new office building.

The epic tale of an American reconnaissance pilot downed in occupied Belgium at the height of World War II. Hidden by resistance fighters, the pilot falls in love with the wife of the man who will save him. When their affair is exposed, an act of betrayal threatens their lives and the entire resistance movement, forcing the pilot to make a powerful choice that could change the course of the war.

In a small, unnamed European town the entire population depends upon the local, ailing factory. When American investors arrive, prosperity fever infects the residents.

The story of a small and conservative West-Flemish village opposing the construction of a bridge over the Scheldt.

Princess is the title of a photo novel which will be written by Walter and photographed by Mark. A story of sex and violence which has great success. But Mark falls so much in love with his model that he can't tell her apart from Princess...

A gang of six wealthy, well-dressed and well-spoken hoodlums break into a married couple's house and rape the wife while forcing the husband to watch. Thus begins a dogged investigation by a determined detective who quickly finds that their cult-like solidarity can be a serious obstacle to breaking them.

The mayor of Sunny Dale see a chance to get rid of the Flodder family: They send the asocial bunch for an international exchange to New York. There they get confused with a Russian delegation of medical doctors while the street worker Werner who accompanies them becomes imprisoned.

Abel has never left home (literally). After failing with doctors and psychiatrists, Abel's father Victor brings home Christine, a friend, in an attempt to teach Abel basic social skills. But Victor's wife Duif accuses him of having an affair, and in the ensuing row Abel is thrown out into the street. But help is at hand when he runs into kind-hearted stripper Zus - whose show Victor is obsessed with…

After a large airliner crashes on a deserted island killing most of the passengers, two women, five men and a dog survive: an Eastern European, a Canadian lawyer, a French biologist, a prosperous Scottish financier, a young American, an extrovert Australian and a major in the British army. Hopes of rescue fade as the survivors come to realise that the world may have suffered a major disaster.

A low-class antisocial family ends up in a rich upper-class neighborhood and causes all sorts of trouble.

In the late 19th-century, the Tippel family moves to rural Stavoren in search of greener pastures. However, their dreams are quickly shattered, as teenage Katie is terrorized by a male-dominated society who only see her as an object. Her situation worsens when, following her father's sacking and her elder sister's descent into alcoholism, her mother decides that, rather than starving, Katie becomes a prostitute.

Paul Flanagan is released from jail after serving for 8 years. He only has two things on his mind. First: to retrieve the money from the robbery he was convicted for. Secondly: to get revenge on his partners in crime (his half-brother Paul and his ex-lover Cathy), who got away Scot free and never once visited him in jail.

In the occupied Netherlands near the end of WWII, a young teenager, Jeroen Boman (Maarten Smit) is sent to the Dutch countryside to avoid the war in Amsterdam. While living with his adopted family, Jeroen meets and becomes friends with a Canadian soldier named Walt Cook, who is stationed at the same town he is staying at. Joroen and Walt spend a lot of time playing around and eventually a romantic relationship develops between them. The boy’s sexual curiosity leads him to have a sexual experience with Walt, an encounter that is shown with some vague detail but without actually showing any nudity, even though sexual intimacy between the two of them is implied. Overall, the movie handles this difficult subject with an elegant style and feeling, without having the adult-child relationship overwhelm the viewer and thus allowing the movie to be seen as just a wartime relationship between two people that marks an important time in a young boy’s life.

In the freezing winter of 1944, the devastating Battle of the Bulge rages across Belgium. Amid the chaos, an American soldier separated from his unit crosses paths with Richard, a cynical young Belgian boy, and Willy, a wounded German soldier they take as a prisoner.Stranded in a desolate, snowy landscape where survival overrides military allegiance, the three mismatched individuals form a fragile, surreal bond. As they trudge through the war-torn countryside, their basic survival instincts push political ideologies aside.

Diane and Dora are two prostitutes who begin to rebel against their lot in life. Meanwhile, in another part of town, a murderer is at large.

A frustrated artist from the city is seeking solace with a recently widowed farmer. To get closer to the farmer, she does her utmost to approximate his departed wife. But her fertile imagination leads her to go too far.

In this erotic drama, Marcel fantasizes about being with his daughter-in-law Simone after the death of his wife. The woman pretends to be surprised over his attention but does nothing to discourage his advances. He promises to build her a swimming pool in order to further his fantasies. The story is taken from the novel by Junichiro Tamizaki.

Melodrama about a man cursed with immortality, who tries to declare his undying love for a depressed actress.

Erik is trying to avoid the Nazi occupants and stay out of the hands of the Germans. Instead he is trying to be in Elly's arms.

Johanna wants to change her life and quit the criminal gangs of the town of Oss in the 1930s. The harder she tries, the more she is involved.

This melodramatic film follows Eline Vere, as she attempts to break free from the confines of her narrow existence in The Hague through three tumultuous and ultimately disastrous courtships. Adaptation of Louis Couperus' novel Eline Vere.

An Antwerp journalist finds his daily life increasingly disrupted by unexplained phenomena, such as an authentic letter from 1919 that refers to an event taking place at a much later date. Because these disturbances are consistently linked to the name “Joachim Stiller,” the journalist becomes obsessed with it. The resolution, which is closely tied to his traumatic experiences from the Second World War, takes place with a psychiatrist—and later at an abandoned railway station in an Antwerp suburb. Interwoven with this is a subplot about an Antwerp art dealer who believes he can become rich through a new form of painting. To achieve this, he takes a mentally disabled artist hostage. The narrative also follows various romantic entanglements involving the journalist, which ultimately lead to his happy experience of fatherhood.

Lovable Amsterdam street urchin, 11 year old Ciske is nevertheless much in need of love as the Dutch 1984 title suggests. He is a scamp with a heart of gold. He causes havoc in the classroom pouring ink over his teacher yet when a polio-crippled boy joins the class Ciske is one of the only children to befriend him and is bullied as a result. His mother works in a bar and Ciske helps out often late into the night - his father is at sea and his mother supplements her income with prostitution. Ciske is also a very angry young man and he smoulders with rage at life's injustices.

Susan has chosen a hermit's life on a dilapidated farm over the shallowness of her previous jet set modeling life. When Anton, a hunky courier, comes along to pick her up for an assignment on the French Riviera, he's so fascinated by Susan's odd assortment of house guests that he decides to stay with them for a couple of days.

A young sailor finds himself trapped in the labyrinthine mansion of his occultist uncle, along with a number of eccentric and mysterious relatives who all seem to be harboring a dark secret.

Young Barend is worried about the safety of the sailing vessel he is on. The owner is an unscrupulous and stingy man who skimps on repairs and Barend becomes aware of this. Inevitably there is drama and tragedy. The film is set in an early 20th century Dutch fishing village with local period costume and colour.

A series of four stories written by the Dutch writer Heere Heeresma, interpreted by four different directors. A confirmed bachelor bumps into his secretary after work. An old man just wants to be left alone at Christmas time. A former sailor yearns to get back to the sea, away from his clarinet playing wife. A shopkeeper in a rowboat gets into an argument with a postman on a bicycle.

In Raging of the whole world are the turbulent early years of Alexander Goudveyl central. The story of Alexander's childhood is also the history of an era, the fifties and sixties, and a never solved murder case. Murder goes back to an authentic incident: in 1956, right before Christmas, a policeman was shot in broad daylight in Maassluis during a large-scale evangelistic campaign. The film also plays a failed escape attempt with a herring trawler involved in the turbulent days of May 1940.

A veterinarian lives together with his sister and her son in a small village in the Dutch province of North Brabant. He has to cope with gossip and distrust from the villagers.

At the end of the turbulent fifties, the first black South African top-level footballer, Steve Mokone, came to Almelo to play for Heracles. He was a great success and became friends with the impetuous Felix Verbeek, who was only fifteen years old. Mokone told Felix that he should follow his heart and that he absolutely should not accept the bleak future his father had in mind for him. IN AN EVENTFUL YEAR, FELIX HAS A TERRIBLE QUARREL WITH HIS FATHER'S BOSS, GETS HIS FIRST GIRLFRIEND AND BECOMES THE SUPPORT AND CONFIDENCE OF THE FIRST AFRICAN STAR IN THE NETHERLANDS: STEVE-"THE BLACK METEOR"-MOKONE