Couple Indemnity

Hal has selected Steven Spielberg's feature film debut this week Duel (1971), a road-action thriller centred on a travelling salesman David Mann (played by Dennis Weaver) driving his car through rural California to meet a client. However, he finds himself chased and terrorized by the mostly unseen driver of a pursuing truck.

For a special cinema interactive viewing, we took a trip to the Prince Charles Cinema to watch the highly influential silent horror German film Nosferatu, that tell the story of the mysterious Count Orlok (Max Schreck) who summons Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen. After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger. Meanwhile Orlok's servant, Knock (Alexander Granach), prepares for his master to arrive at his new home. Director: F.W. Murnau

Izzy has selected a film full of childhood nostalgia for her with Casper (1995) which follows the title character who peacefully haunts a mansion called Whipstaff Manor, meeting and befriending a teenage girl named Kat Harvey (Christina Ricci), the daughter of Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman), a paranormal therapist who is hired to move into Whipstaff in order to rid the mansion of its spectral inhabitants. Director: Brad Silberling

Hal's gone a bit left-field again for his next Spooktober choice, and he's picked out a classic BBC adaptation of an equally classic ghost story about a skeptical professor on vacation in Norfolk who finds a cursed whistle, starring Michael Hordern.  Director: Jonathan Miller "Do you believe in Ghosts Professor?"

Izzy's first official selection for Spook-tober is the Oscar-sweeping The Silence of the Lambs (1991) featuring Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee who is hunting a serial killer named "Buffalo" Bill, who skins his female victims. To catch him, she seeks the advice of the imprisoned Hannibal Lector (memorably played by Anthony Hopkins), a former psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer.  Director: Jonathan Demme

We are back for the first episode of Spooktober (Spooky Season oooohh) and Hal has gone straight in and selected one of his all-time favourite Horror movies with the anthology Ealing classic Dead of Night (1945) starring Mervyn Johns, Michael Redgrave and Googie Withers as guests invited to a weekend in the country share their supernatural stories, beginning with Walter Craig (Johns), who sense impending doom as his half-remembered recurring dream turns into reality.  Directors: Charles Crichton, Alberto Cavalcanti, Robert Hamer & Basil Dearden

Izzy is back with a real treat this week as she has chosen the 2005 Stop-Motion animation comedy film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as Wallace and his loyal dog, Gromit, set out to discover the mystery behind the garden sabotage that plagues their village and threatens the annual giant vegetable growing contest. Featuring Peter Sallis, Ralph Fiennes & Helena Bonham Carter in voice roles.  Directors: Nick Park & Steve Box

Hal has picked one of his favourite TV murder mystery episodes for his selection this week as he has picked out Midsomer Murders: Judgement Day (2000) from the archives as another case for Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby (John Nettles) and his sidekick Sergeant Troy (Daniel Casey). The residents of Midsomer Mallow are eagerly making preparations for the Perfect Village Competition and many are quietly confident that they might win. However, a spanner is thrown into the works when the rogue Peter Drinkwater turns up with a pitchfork in his chest. Many had reasons to dispose of Drinkwater, but who was it that actually did the job? Director: Jeremy Silberston

Izzy has selected one of her all-time childhood favourites today as she has picked out the Doris Day Musical Western classic Calamity Jane (1953) that tells a tale of Calamity Jane, her saloon, and her romance with Wild Bill Hickok (Howard Keel). Director: David Butler.

Hal has chosen Alfred Hitchcock's ‘Spellbound’ for his next film, the mesmerising romance and psychological thriller. Bergman plays a psychiatrist who is determined to protect the identity of an amnesia patient (Peck) accused of murder, while also attempting to recover his memory. Come and listen to our thoughts on one of the most iconic dream sequences committed to film, designed by the famous surrealist artist, Salvador Dali.  Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Izzy is back for this episode with a very popular Hollywood epic The Green Mile (1999) starring Tom Hanks as a death row prison guard during the Great Depression who witnesses supernatural events following the arrival of an enigmatic convict (Michael Clarke Duncan) at the facility.  Director: Frank Darabont

Hal is switching up his podcast choice this week in taking a break from the Hitchcock marathon to select the Agnes Jaoui-directed French romantic comedy Le Goût des autres (English title: The Taste of Others) about six characters over the age of 35 in the French town of Rouen and their unique relationships. Will Izzy like this one with her being a romantic comedy "Purist"? Listen to find out.

Izzy returns with an Oscar-sweeping choice as Jack Nicholson plays a criminal who is accused of faking insanity to serve his sentence in a mental institute rather than prison. Soon he finds himself as a leader to the other patients and up against the nurse in charge of the ward. Director: Milos Forman

It's Hal's choice which of course means he is back on the Hitchcock bandwagon and this week he has chosen Lifeboat (1944) starring Tallulah Bankhead, John Hodiak and Walter Slezak as eight survivors of a WWII Nazi torpedo ship attack, who find themselves in the same boat with a man who sunk the ship.  Director: Alfred Hitchcock

It's Izzy's choice this week and she has made a surprise choice by picking out a disaster film of the 1970's in The Poseidon Adventure as a group of passengers must embark on a harrowing struggle for survival after a rogue wave capsizes their cruise ship at sea.  Director: Ronald Neame

For Hal's choice, we are continuing the Hitchcock marathon and we have reached his arrival into Hollywood. His first American project under his seven-year contract to David O. Selznick was adapted from the Daphne du Maurier novel released the year previously.

A profoundly gothic tale, “Rebecca” was a critical and commercial success and a production that helped accelerate the early career of Joan Fontaine, who plays a naive young woman who marries a widower (Lawrence Olivier), whose former wife she becomes haunted by the spectral presence of.

It's Izzy's choice and she has chosen the 2006 tragicomedy road movie starring Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin, all of whom play dysfunctional family members taking the youngest (Breslin) across the United States to a beauty pageant. Directed by: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris

It's Hal's choice this time and he's changing it up by selecting one of his all-time TV Drama episodes; Prime Suspect: Keeper of Souls (1993). Director: David Drury In Soho, Inspector Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) investigates the death of a teen male prostitute that leads to a paedophile ring, possibly involving the police themselves ...

We are back with our first dive into Hong Kong cinema for Izzy's choice.. In the Mood for Love (2000)  Director: Wong Kar-wai Chow (Tony Leung) and Su (Maggie Cheung) are neighbours who discover that their spouses have been having an affair with each other. As they cope with the betrayal the two begin to fall in love.

It's Hal's choice today and that, of course, means we are back on the Hitchcock train... Director: Alfred Hitchcock Margaret Lockwood plays young English tourist Iris, travelling by train across mid-1930’s continental Europe, who discovers that her elderly travelling companion (played by Dame May Whitty) seems to have disappeared from not only her carriage, but the entire train. A compelling thriller that turned out to be Hitchcock’s final British production before his big move to Hollywood and is regarded as one of the greatest train movies from the genre’s golden era.