TALES FROM KIM'S CRYPT
THIS MONTH
MATTHEW BRAZIER
TOD SLAUGHTER
Getty Images, Mary Evans
“IN MY CAREER, I’ve murdered hundreds and hundreds of people and come to a sticky end more times than I care to remember.”
“And have you any favourite method of murder, Mr Slaughter?”
“I keep a perfectly open mind on the matter. Murder by strangulation, poisoning, shooting, stabbing or with a razor…”
When Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (1936) was distributed in America, posters boasted that star Tod Slaughter was “Europe’s Horror Man!” Specifically, from his stage performances at the Elephant & Castle in the 1930s through to television villainy in the 1950s, Slaughter was Britain’s greatest domestic horror name. Dulwich-born Boris Karloff had to go to Hollywood to become a monster icon, but Newcastle’s Norman Carter Slaughter stayed in the UK, revelling in blood and thunder.