This week we are babbling about The Stone Tape (1972).

The Stone Tape is what happens when the BBC in the early ’70s says “Let’s make a horror film, but also let’s make it aggressively beige and full of men wearing turtle-necks and shouting about science.” And honestly, it’s delightful. That is, if you ignore the casual misogyny and the not-so-casual racism.

We reluctantly follow a team of cutting‑edge researchers, well, cutting‑edge for 1972, meaning they have clipboards, enormous computers that go beep and absolutely no concept of workplace safety or women's rights. They move into a spooky old mansion and naturally, the room they choose for their experiments is the one that screams at people.

The haunting itself is wonderfully British. No blood, no gore, just a ghost who seems so deeply annoyed that a bunch of engineers have turned her tragic death into a tech startup, that she responds by replaying her demise on loop. Like the world’s saddest Betamax tape.

The film’s real charm is how seriously everyone takes the idea that rocks are recording emotional energy. The characters treat this theory with the same reverence one might reserve for Newton’s laws or the correct brewing time for tea. By the end, you’re half convinced your garden patio is storing centuries of disappointment from previous homeowners. Which, to be fair, it is,

And then there’s the final act, where the film goes from “haunted house mystery” to “existential cosmic meltdown!” in about twelve seconds. And we haven’t even mentioned Chuffy the horse. Chuffy the horse. If you enjoy retro horror, scientific overconfidence, washing machines and the aesthetic of a 1970s office supply catalogue, The Stone Tape is a treasure. Happy haunting, or recording, depending on your stone type. Tape. Type.

Time Babble Series Six, Episode One is waiting for you now on your favourite podcast service. If you can’t find it, please write in to the usual address.

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Howdy Babblers. Prepare to have your brains melted! For our film this week is Autopsia de un Fantasma (Autopsy of a Ghost) from 1968 (date confusion intended).

Watching Autopsy of a Ghost is a bit like stumbling into a Halloween party where the host forgot the theme halfway through and instead decided to smoke a huge bifter and throw in any oddity that sprung to mind, whether it made sense, or, preferably, not.

Directed by Ismael Rodríguez, the film stars Basil Rathbone as Canuto Pérez, a ghost who can separate himself from his horny life-size puppet skeleton, John Carradine as Satan, who seems less like the Prince of Darkness than he does a cranky uncle with a flair for dramatic entrances and retractable tails, and Tony Blackburn.

After speaking to God, Satan offers Rathbone a proposition: he must find true love to escape eternal haunting. What follows is a chaotic mash-up of horror, sci-fi, surrealism and slapstick comedy, where Canuto’s redemption looks suspiciously like a series of nonsensical pratfalls and very awkward, deeply problematic romantic encounters.

Along the way, we meet a mad scientist named Prof. Moléculo Pulido (yes, his actual name), bumbling agents (including, umm, James Blondo), a manbot, a fembot, a chipmunk-voiced spider and a parade of comedic side characters who seem to have wandered in from other movies. Or from somewhere else entirely. If we listed everything in this anarchic film you wouldn’t believe us. But that’s okay, we took a bullet for the entire planet, so no one else has to watch it.

Autopsy of a Ghost is a glorious Mexican farce, a fever dream where Rathbone and Carradine cash their paychecks whilst wearing capes. It’s messy, campy and (un)intentionally bonkers. Look away cinephiles, this one ain’t for you. But Babblers, let’s lean into a film so rare even the Dark Web refuses to acknowledge it exists.

Touché away…!

Time Babble Series Five, Episode Six is waiting for you now on your favourite podcast service. If you can’t find it, please write in to the usual address.

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This episode we are babbling about a film that may, or may not be called Edge of Tomorrow (2014).

When Earth is invaded by aliens that look like angry spaghetti with Wi-Fi issues, humanity turns to its last hope: little Timmy Cruise in a Waldo.

Tim Tom plays Major William Cage, a PR guy who’s never seen combat and is afraid of the dentist, but suddenly finds himself on the front lines because... reasons. He dies almost immediately. The end.

Wishful thinking dear Babbler. He then wakes up. And dies again. And again. And again. Turns out he’s stuck in a time loop: every time he dies, he respawns like a Call of Duty video game noob, learning a little more each time, mostly how not to get pancaked by alien tentacle-things. Each death is a tutorial level, and each reset is a chance to get slightly less terrible at not dying.

Enter Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski, aka the Full Metal Bitch (her words, not ours). She’s got the moves, the sword, and the patience of someone who’s watched little Tim Tom die more times than you can shake a packet of Paxo (the rooster booster) at.

Together, they try to (unsuccessfully) find a decent second half to a film which features bare asses, time blood, alien art appreciation, pipe mimicry and a visit to Dick Street.

It’s a sci-fi action flick that teaches us all a valuable lesson: if at first you don’t succeed, give up and record a podcast.

Time Babble Series Five, Episode Five is waiting for you now on your favourite podcast service. If you can’t find it, please write in to the usual address.

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(All copyrighted material contained within this podcast is the property of their respective rights owners and their use here is protected under ‘fair use’ for the purposes of comment or critique.)