Mad scientist Julia Hoffman has traveled back in time to 1840 and fallen under the power of the severed head of warlock Judah Zachery. Now she has put together a laboratory in a pit where Judah’s body has long been kept, and is planning to reattach it to the head and reanimate them both with a jolt of electricity harvested from lightning. Julia’s assistant in this lunatic scheme is Cockney music hall performer/ psychic Leticia Faye.
In October 1970, every British performer in show business labored in the shadow of the recently dissolved Beatles. Leticia is no exception. She comes back to the laboratory after Julia has sent her on some errands and exclaims “I got BLISTERS on mah FEET!,” evoking John Lennon’s shout at the end of “Helter Skelter.”
The Charles Manson trial was in full swing at this time, so the news was full of reports about how Manson’s group committed murders in expectation that they would somehow trigger a race war between Black and White, which would somehow end with the Blacks turning to Manson for leadership. This notion was known within the group as “Helter Skelter,” so the song was likely to come to the forefront of people’s minds when they heard about a nonsensical plot involving bloodshed. The story of Judah Zachery is mainly derived from C. S. Lewis’ 1945 novel That Hideous Strength. It will be interesting to see if they decide to mash up Lewis’ Satanic cult of overly ambitious academic administrators with the Manson Family.
