Between 1975 and 1981, BBC2’s seasons of late night horror double bills made celluloid monsters as much a part of the British summer as hosepipe bans, plagues of ladybirds, Bjorn Borg winning Wimbledon, and moustachioed Australian fast bowlers bullying pale-faced English batsmen. The best and most influential of these film seasons came in 1977 under the banner title of Dracula, Frankenstein – and Friends! To a whole generation of spotty schoolchildren, the films they first encountered in those double bills were a formative experience with life-enhancing, and life-affirming consequences. I was one of those spotty kids, and it is no exaggeration to say those films changed my life. This is the story of how: