The Secret Garden at London’s Aldwych Theatre in March was the Royal Shakespeare Company’s musical version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s fantasy. From October, the RSC mounted a new dramatization of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass in London and Stratford-Upon-Avon.
The Northern Ballet Theatre’s production of Jekyll and Hyde at Sadler’s Wells the same month had received poor reviews when it originally opened in Leeds. Daniel de Andrade played Henry Jekyll while the leather-clad Edward Hyde was portrayed by Jonathan Olliver.
The Russian Ice Stars mounted a chilling version of The Phantom of the Opera on Ice at London’s Wimbledon Theatre in April.
Writer Jeremy Dyson and actors Mark Gattis, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith took The League of Gentlemen, based on the cult radio and TV show, to the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane in March.
The Perrier Award-winning stage spoof Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead featured the eponymous ‘Sculptor of Nightmares’ and ‘Duke of Darkness’ talking about his bestselling literary career and giving advice to would-be horror writers. Unfortunately, the show was neither as funny nor as clever as it thought it was.
Supposedly inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft, Alone in the Dark — The New Nightmare was the fourth interactive computer game in the supernatural series featuring occult detective Edward Carnby, armed with just a flashlight to keep the evil creatures at bay on Shadow Island.
Clive Barker’s Undying from EA Games was promoted with the tag-line, ‘What does not kill you will make you wish it had’. Set in Ireland in the 1920s, it involved an undead family attempting to destroy its last surviving member.
Silent Hill 2 was set in a fogbound town where strange creatures inhabited a blood-splattered mental asylum and an abandoned apartment block, while Soul Reaver 2 was based in a world filled with vampires.
The From Dusk Till Dawn game picked up from the end of the 1995 movie, with Seth Gecko imprisoned on a prison ship infested with vampires, and Blade featured the eponymous Marvel Comics character hunting down his undead brethren.
Alien Versus Predator 2 pitched the two movie monsters against a gun-toting marine, while The Mummy recreated the 1999 Universal movie, including video sequences, as Rick O’Connell confronted Imhotep and other marauding mummies.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein was set during World War II, when the Nazis of Wolfenstein had cellars full of genetically-created, fire-breathing zombies.
A sword- and pistol-wielding demon hunter/investigator battled more supernatural foes in Devil May Care. Created by the team who came up with Resident Evil, it was one of the most eagerly anticipated games of the year. Meanwhile, Resident Evil Code: Veronica X picked up the plot from Resident Evil III: Nemesis as heroine Claire Redfield searched for her lost brother in a world filled with zombies, worms, freaks and mutants.
In 2001 it seemed that almost any film character could be turned into an action figure or a collectable. Sideshow Toys’ series of eight-inch Universal figures finally included Bela Lugosi as a fully articulated Count from Dracula, Lugosi again as the broken-necked Ygor from Son of Frankenstein and Lon Chaney, Sr. as the Red Death from The Phantom of the Opera with a variant unmasked head. There was also a translucent green plastic Creature from the Black Lagoon special-edition figure with fourteen points of articulation.
The same company also released twelve-inch figures of Lugosi’s Dracula, Chaney Jr.’s Wolf Man and Chaney Sr.’s Phantom, plus vampire figures from London After Midnight, Nosferatu and Son of Dracula, The Invisible Man (with a clear plastic head!), and a trio of figures from Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein.
A set of three six-inch articulated figures from Full Moon’s Demonic Toys series was also released, along with a twelve-inch figure of Pimp from Blood Dolls.
Another twelve-inch figure released during the year was The Fly from the sequel Return of the Fly.
Mezco’s ‘Reel Masters’, the second series of Silent Screamers six-inch figures, included Graf Orlock from Nosferatu, Edison’s Frankenstein, the 1920 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the Metropolis robot Maria, all with their own diorama bases.
The Shadow of the Vampire deluxe figure set featured F. W. Murnau with movie camera filming Max Schreck in a detailed display case.
Produced by McFarlane Toys, Clive Barker’s Tortured Souls featured six Cenobite-like action figures — I: Agonistes, II: The Scythe-Meister, III: Lucidique, IV: Talisac, V: Venal Anatomica and VI: Mongroid — each accompanied by a connected short story written by Barker. The concept was subsequently sold by Barker and Todd McFarlane for a mid-six-figure option to Universal Pictures.
McFarlane continued its Movie Maniacs series with figures of Tony Todd as Candyman and Todd McFarlane’s version of The Blair Witch.
The Mummy Returns spawned a series of articulated figures from Jakks Pacific, including The Rock’s Scorpion King, Rick O’Connell with a pygmy mummy, Anubis and Alex O’Connell, and Imhotep.
Special-effects expert Stan Winston teamed up with X-Toys to produce Stan Winston’s Creature Features, a new line of toys that was launched in October. The initial releases included five new characters developed for a series of films based on old AIP movies of the 1950s, accompanied by a CD-ROM detailing the design, sculpting and development of each figure. At least five additional lines were also being developed — Monster Mythology, Nightmare Demons, Extreme Gargoyles, Stan Winston’s Alien Universe and Animal Kingdom, the latter featuring half-man, half-beast creations.
Ray Harryhausen fans could choose between the X-Plus USA series of limited-edition four-inch chess pieces (which included harpies, hydra, Selenites and sword-fighting skeletons), and the twelve-inch cold-cast statues of Kali, the Ymir and various mythological creatures.
From Japan there were twelve-inch poseable vinyl figures of Harryhausen’s Cyclops and Dragon from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Talos from Jason and the Argonauts.
The Japanese also seemed to go crazy for Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas with a fourteen-inch Jack Skellington coffin doll, a gold ‘Millennium’ edition and a twelve-inch version dressed in pyjamas; a ten-inch Sandy Claws doll; a reversible pillow featuring Jack; a hand-painted set with Lock, Shock and Barrel, or a similar set of four vampires; a set of pull-back racers featuring Jack’s faithful dog Zero and Jack’s snowmobile; a Zero choker necklace, and various die-cast Jack key-chains, amongst numerous other items.