You Are Old Enough Son: Further Irreverent Recollections of the Horror/Science-Fiction/Fantasy Scene in the British Cinema 1971-2005

By Barry Atkinson

My previous book on the subject of horror, science fiction, and fantasy films, “You’re Not Old Enough Son,” chronicled my journeys through the British fantasy cinema scene during the 1950s and 1960s. These were golden years as I viewed them. Years when fantasy fare spanning the decades 1930 to 1960 (but mostly the 1950s) was served up continuously week after week, month after month, and year after year I realized that an audience in the new decade of the 1970s couldn’t (and wouldn’t) possibly expect to put up good money to sit through a double bill of “Attack of the Crab Monsters” and “The Beast with a Million Eyes,” which only a few years earlier would have drawn a full house on a rainy Sunday afternoon at Leatherhead’s Crescent cinema. Maybe, just maybe, I should join them and stop burying my head in the past, however glorious that past may have been. So I endeavored to put a brave face on things and think more positively—for all one knew, what was around the corner might not be quite as bad as I imagined it to be. These, then, are my continued travels through the fantasy cinema in England from 1971 to 2005. The views on all films mentioned, as in my last book, are entirely my own!