Hobbs End
Encyclopedia
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
. Its name is possibly intended to convey a sense of unease, evil, or "wrongness", since "Hob" is an old nickname for the devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
.
Hobbs Lane / Hobbs End tube station
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
science fiction television
Science fiction on television
Science fiction first appeared on a television program during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality; this makes television an excellent medium...
serial Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial, originally transmitted live by BBC Television in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV production simply entitled Quatermass...
centered around the discovery of alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
artifacts uncovered during the construction of a new office block at the fictional street location Hobbs Lane (once called 'Hob's Lane', from an old sign seen) in Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a road which gives its name to an exclusive district lying to the west of central London. The road runs along the south side of Hyde Park, west from Hyde Park Corner, spanning the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
, SW1
SW postcode area
The SW postcode area, also known as the London SW postcode area, is a group of postcode districts covering part of southwest London, England. The area originates from the South Western and Battersea districts of the London post town.-Postal administration:The postcode area originated in 1857 as...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The serial also mentioned strange events taking place in 1927, when the fictional Hobbs Lane underground station
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
was built.
When the serial was adapted into a film (also titled Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit (film)
Quatermass and the Pit is a 1967 British science fiction horror film. Made by Hammer Film Productions it is a sequel to the earlier Hammer films The Quatermass Xperiment and Quatermass 2. Like its predecessors it is based on a BBC Television serial – Quatermass and the Pit – written by Nigel Kneale...
) in 1967, the London Underground system was being extended with the construction of the Victoria Line
Victoria Line
The Victoria line is a deep-level London Underground line running from the south to the north-east of London. It is coloured light blue on the Tube map...
. Accordingly, the producers of the movie decided to change the setting to the construction of the fictional Hobbs End underground station, a fictional extension of the Central Line
Central Line
The Central line is a London Underground line, coloured red on the tube map. It is a deep-level "tube" line, running east-west across London, and, at , has the greatest total length of track of any line on the Underground. Of the 49 stations served, 20 are below ground...
. This revision has been attributed to Anthony Hinds
Anthony Hinds
Anthony Hinds , aka Tony Hinds, aka John Elder, is a British screenwriter and producer. He is the son of the founder of Hammer Film Productions, William Hinds.-Early life:Tony Hinds was educated at St Paul's School...
, the son of Hammer Films
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
co-founder Will Hammer. A street nameplate shows Hobbs Lane to be in the W10 postal district.
Other locations named Hobbs End
In Henley-on-ThamesHenley-on-Thames
Henley-on-Thames is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in South Oxfordshire, England, about 10 miles downstream and north-east from Reading, 10 miles upstream and west from Maidenhead...
there is a real street named Hobbs End, and Hobbs Lanes exist numerous locations in the UK including Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, Beckley
Beckley, East Sussex
Beckley is a village and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England. It is located on the B2088 minor road above the Rother Levels five miles northwest of Rye and ten miles from Hastings. The northern border follows the river Rother.-History:Beckley was part of the Wealden iron...
, and Woodmancote near Cirencester
Cirencester
Cirencester is a market town in east Gloucestershire, England, 93 miles west northwest of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswold District. It is the home of the Royal Agricultural College, the oldest agricultural...
.
In the 1995 movie In the Mouth of Madness
In the Mouth of Madness
In the Mouth of Madness is a 1995 American horror film directed by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca, who was at the time of the film's release in charge of New Line Cinema...
, a pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
of H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
directed by John Carpenter
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
, Hobbs End is the name of a New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
town in the books of fictional horror author Sutter Cane, "this century's most widely-read author". As parts of Sutter Cane's stories start to influence reality, Hobbs End also becomes real, and is the setting for much of the action in the movie. Carpenter had previously worked with Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...
, creator of the Quatermass
Bernard Quatermass
Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading up the British Experimental Rocket Group...
character, on Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a 1982 science fiction horror film and the third installment in the Halloween film series. It is the only Halloween where the story does not revolve around Michael Myers. Directed and written by Tommy Lee Wallace, the film stars Tom Atkins as Dr. Dan Challis,...
; and has also used the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
'Martin Quatermass'.
Hobbs End is also used as the name of a village in the 1999 Peter Robinson
Peter Robinson (novelist)
Dr. Peter Robinson is an English crime writer, based in Canada. He is best known for his crime novels set in Yorkshire featuring Inspector Alan Banks...
book In a Dry Season
In a Dry Season
In A Dry Season is the 12th novel by crime-writer Peter Robinson, published in 1999 and is 10th in the multi award-winning Inspector Alan Banks series. The novel is widely acclaimed as Robinson's best, a large step forward in ambition from previous books, and this was reflected in its critical...
.
Hobbs End
Hobbs End (film)
Hobbs End is a 2002 film, directed by Philip Segal....
is both the title of, and Pacific northwest setting for, a 2002 slasher film
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
directed by Philip Segal
Philip Segal
Philip David Segal is a television producer. He emigrated to the United States in 1974 at the age of twelve, where he studied film at San Diego State University...
. It received uniformly below-average reviews.
Hobb's End was used as a location in Gordon Rennie
Gordon Rennie
Gordon Rennie is a comics writer, responsible for White Trash: Moronic Inferno, as well as several comic strips for 2000 AD and novels for Warhammer Fantasy....
's story Caballistics, Inc.
Caballistics, Inc.
Caballistics, Inc is a horror/fantasy comic strip, set in the present day, that has been running in the weekly British anthology comic 2000AD since December 2002...
in British comic 2000AD.
The town at the centre of the British 2007 horror film Flick
Flick (film)
Flick is a campy British horror film written and directed by David Howard, and starring Hugh O'Conor and Faye Dunaway. It had its theatrical release in 2008, and the DVD of the film was released in the United Kingdom on 19 October 2009...
is also called Hobbs End.
When Ben meets the character of The Curator in Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss is an English actor, screenwriter and novelist. He is best known as a member of the comedy team The League of Gentlemen, and has both written for and acted in the TV series Doctor Who and Sherlock....
's horror pastiche Crooked House
Crooked House (TV series)
Crooked House is a supernatural drama mini-series which aired on BBC Four in December 2008.The three-part series was broadcast on consecutive nights from 22 to 24 December 2008. It was written and co-produced by actor and writer Mark Gatiss, who found fame in the BBC series The League of Gentlemen...
, broadcast on BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
in December 2008, there is a partially obscured Hobb's End sign on a shelf above their heads.
A similar name crops up in the 1971 Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
serial The Dæmons
The Dæmons
The Dæmons is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in five weekly parts from May 22 to June 19, 1971.-Plot:...
, which is set in the fictional Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
village of Devil's End. The plot of The Dæmons bears several similarities to that of Quatermass and the Pit.
It becomes the name of a fictional Massachusetts town featured in the episode, "Here There Be Monsters", of the 2002 series Stephen King's Dead Zone. The plot focuses heavily on witchcraft and superstition.
Other references to Hobbs End
The Séance at Hobs LaneThe Séance at Hobs Lane
The Séance at Hobs Lane is the fifth release by Drew Mulholland , under the pseudonym of Mount Vernon Arts Lab. The album was re-released on the Ghost Box Music label some years after its initial appearance.-Track listing:...
is the fifth album by the Drew Mulholland project Mount Vernon Arts Lab
Mount Vernon Arts Lab
Mount Vernon Arts Lab is a musical project of Scottish musician Drew Mulholland, who has also recorded as Black Noise and N. Between 1996 and 2001, a string of EPs, singles, and albums were released...
.
A track on the band Force of Evil
Force of Evil (band)
Force of Evil was a Danish 5-piece heavy metal band formed by the twin guitarists of Mercyful Fate, Michael Denner and Hank Shermann. They joined forces with Hal Patino, Bjarne T. Holm and Martin Steene, all known for their performance with King Diamond, Mercyful Fate and Iron Fire.-Formation:Force...
's album Black Empire is titled "Hobb's End".
The Chance Morrison project 'Requiem for Delinquency' released an album titled Hobs End in June 2009.
"Hobbs End" is the title of a station in a model railway used for staff training by London Transport
London Transport
London Transport could refer to:*London Transport Transport authorities that operated services under the brand:*London Passenger Transport Board *London Transport Executive *London Transport Board...
in a training centre in West Kensington, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
"The Hobb's End Horror" is the title of a book by fictional author Sutter Cane in the film In the Mouth of Madness
In the Mouth of Madness
In the Mouth of Madness is a 1995 American horror film directed by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca, who was at the time of the film's release in charge of New Line Cinema...
.