The Karnstein Trilogy Resurrected

Just a quick word for my good friend Kat Ellinger whose excellent Hammer article The Karnstein Trilogy Resurrected appears in the latest issue (#32) of UK horror magazine Scream. I've had this issue on ice for the past week, I wanted to freshen my memory of the three films, which I duly did, before reading Kat's retrospective. I should add that Kat has very thoughtfully left her piece spoiler-free so a knowledge of the films is by no means required. Kat covers the background of the films, their development at Hammer, the personnel involved on both sides of the camera, and for anyone like myself who's been scrimping on their 19th century Gothic lit, there's a useful catch-up on Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, the source material for the trilogy. Elsewhere, Kat sweetens the article which lots of interesting vivid factoids, like a paternal Roy Ward Baker removing some insensitive executives from the set of Vampire Lovers, and reveals that Peter Cushing was dealing with some very tragic personal circumstances during the filming of Twins of Evil, which in retrospect adds an additional dimension to his performance. And there's a daring case made for Lust for a Vampire, widely considered the weakest film in the trilogy, but here given a reprieve in the face of some challenging conditions the production had to contend with. The Karnstein Trilogy Resurrected is substantial, meaty stuff so be sure to sink your teeth into the latest issue of Scream, available now at select newstands and instant access on the usual platforms. For more info and a short preview of the current issue, step this way...

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Carmilla

The exceptionally gorgeous Yutte Stensgaard from Lust For A Vampire - that's one way of focusing your attention. I revisited this film yesterday and found myself much less kind to it than I have been in the past - a terrible ill-judged song propping up Yutte Stensgaard's big love scene, and Christopher Lee stand-in Mike Raven, twice appearing out of nowhere to utter "a heart attack" effectively robs the film of its last vestiges of dignity. However, I did make one happy discovery relating to my hometown of Cork here in Ireland. In the scene where Michael Johnson's character Richard Lestrange, introduces himself to Ralph Bates, Bates remarks "Are these the Lestranges from Cork ?" What's more, this is the second time I've heard Cork referenced in, rather astonishingly, a vampire film, and in similar circumstances too, with Andy Milligan's The Body Beneath made the previous year !

The Gorgon

I made good on my promise to watch The Gorgon last night after it earned a few mentions on Facebook earlier this week, and what a bewitching film it turned out to be. This was my first time seeing Terence Fisher's film, and while I had certain expectations given the personnel involved I was quite surprised by how different this particular Hammer Horror played in comparison with fellow stable mates from this era. I think it was Tim Lucas who detected a certain Lewtonesque flavor to the film and more than a few times I thought of Cat People (both films feature heroines suffering identity crises). The film looks terrific as well, with vivid, crisp photography by Michael Reed - his lighting in particular of the Gorgon, in all her emerald finery is worthy of Jack Cardiff, and a handsome looking production as well - the sound stages at Bray can occasionally induce deja vu but I found the sets imaginatively realized and detailed - there's one particularly striking moment where a window reveals a setting sun, a subtle yet atmospheric piece of scenic art.

As for the Gorgon herself, she makes for a wonderful apparition, and Fisher handles her with customary skill and restraint - her first appearance in the film, standing half silhouetted on a staircase pleasantly recalls Christopher Lee's introductory shot in Dracula. If there's one point of exception I took with the film, was a moment where Barbara Shelley recounts the details of Professor Heitz's letter and which describes the hapless victims of the monster as being "gorgonized" - which made me cringe - a rare slip in John Gilling's otherwise excellent screenplay...

Post-script: Gorgonized is in fact a legitimate word !

Definition of GORGONIZE
transitive verb
: to have a paralyzing or mesmerizing effect on

The Devil Rides Out

Hammer's 1968 film The Devil Rides Out based on Dennis Wheatley's hugely popular 1934 novel was the first of the studio's three Wheatley's adaptations, soon followed by The Lost Continent and some years later by To the Devil A Daughter. In 1963, three of Wheatley's novels, The Devil Rides Out, To The Devil A Daughter and The Satanist were publicly optioned and acting on the advice of Christopher Lee (who knew Wheatley personally, both sharing an interest in black magic and the occult), Hammer bought the rights to all three properties. In 1964 the studio set to work on The Devil Rides Out. Producer Tony Hinds commissioned John Hunter to write a screenplay (having previously written Hammer's 1960 child molestation drama Never Take Sweets From A Stranger) but Hunter's adaptation proved unsatisfactory, and Hammer next approached Richard Matheson, who delivered a faithful rendering of Wheatley's novel whilst sidestepping some of the more kinkier, censor-baiting aspects of the book. Terence Fisher was appointed directing duties and in the summer of 1967 The Devil Rides Out finally began shooting.

In the film Duc de Richleau and his friend Rex discover their friend Simon has become involved in a satanic cult, and he and a young woman are about to be baptized into the world of black magic. After rescuing both from the initiation ceremony, de Richleau and his friends come under attack from cult leader Mocata, a powerful and dangerous sorcerer determined to get back his young recruits... Worth admitting upfront that I find The Devil Rides Out one of Hammer's most disappointing films, and there was much trepidation on my part approaching this review, such is the high esteem Horror fans hold the film in. Even the usual Hammer naysayers are conspicuously absent when the film comes up for discussion. First, the good stuff - Fisher's stylish relaxed direction, those beautiful elliptical dolly shots around the protective circle, complimented by Arthur Grant’s atmospheric lighting; the striking set pieces (the spectral genie in the observatory, the appearance of the horned Satan); some memorable dialogue (at one point Mocata warns “I shall not be back... but something will. Tonight, something will come for Simon and the girl”), and of course a majestic and towering Christopher Lee in one of his best roles for Hammer.

The reputation of The Devil Rides Out may well be secure as one of the great Hammer classics, but the film is deeply flawed in many respects. Technically, the film has not aged well, there's some atrocious back projection during a car chase sequence, and the big special effects set piece where de Richleau and his band of defenders are menaced by a monstrous tarantula and the Angel of Death appearing on horseback, is poorly realized and badly edited. Matheson's screenplay has its problems too. It tips the balance of power too much in de Richleau’s favor and badly undercuts the dramatic tension, the question of good conquering evil never quite seems in doubt considering de Richleau can counteract black magic with a simple spell, and the devil can be banished with little more than a crucifix. Also, the support cast are too thinly sketched - Charles Gray’s Mocata feels underwritten and de Richleau’s right-hand man, Rex is a thankless role for actor Leon Greene, playing a character who seemingly botches any task assigned to him.

More frustrating though is the film's lack of daring in its presentation of Satanism and witchcraft. These were of course delicate subjects for Hammer to be toying with, but the film does feel unnecessarily chaste - even the studio's 1966 film The Witches hinted at something more perverse during the climactic orgy, and tellingly the BBFC signed off on the film without so much as a cut, head censor John Trevelyan even citing the film as one of the studio's best pictures. Worse still The Devil Rides Out feels decidedly quaint when compared to the powerful and disturbing Rosemary's Baby released in close succession, and one might argue that the writing was on the wall for Hammer Horror at this point with the arrival of Polanski's film and 1968's other major Horror, Night of the Living Dead.

Optimum's DVD of The Devil Rides Out features a very impressive 1.66 anamorphic transfer, taken from a excellent quality print, exhibiting only a little grain during some special effects shots. The mono audio sounds robust and dialogue is sharp. For extras only the theatrical trailer is included, a shame Christopher Lee's commentary track from the US Anchor Bay edition could not be included. The Anchor Bay disc also featured a World of Hammer episode (simply entitled "Hammer") but sadly this and the later edition which included Rasputin the Mad Monk are now well out print.

The Vengeance of She

If Hammer's 1965 film She was a enjoyable distraction on a rainy Saturday afternoon, the studio's 1968 sequel The Vengeance of She is a bit of a bore, essentially a retread of the earlier film but employing a gender reversal - in She it was Ursula Andress who summoned her male lover across the desert, while in The Vengeance of She, Czech model Olinka Bérová does all the running. In the film, Bérová plays Carol a young woman who is lured to the secret city of Kuma in Africa under the spell of sorcerer Men-Hari who has tricked Kuma's ruler Kallikrates into thinking Carol is the reincarnation of his lover Ayesha. In return Men-Hari has been promised the gift of immortal life which he intends to devote to spreading evil throughout the world.


With its combination of exotic adventure and the shapely curves of Ursula Andress, She Hammer's first foray into pure Fantasy Cinema was one of the studio's most profitable pictures of the sixties. Originally the sequel was to be called Ayesha, Daughter of She, but rather than seek inspiration from the pages of H. Rider Haggard's own series of She novels, Hammer stuck closely to the formula of the first film. In a very early draft of the screenplay Peter Cushing's character from the first film was to make an appearance lending a sense of continuity, but the idea was scrapped and the finished film emerges as little more than a remake, just three years after the original She. Worse still, Andress declined to appear in the film and despite a change of title to the thunderous Vengeance of She, the film limped all the way to the box office and soon retreated behind the shadow of the original.


Principle photography began in June 1967 during a particularly busy period for Hammer, with a number of films in production. Much of the studio's most experienced crew members were working on three major productions - Bette Davis' second Hammer outingThe Anniversary; the special effects extravaganza, The Lost Continent and the Terence Fisher, Richard Matheson film The Devil Rides Out. As a consequence, The Vengeance of She features many one-time Hammer personnel with little affinity for Fantasy Cinema - director Cliff Owen had one previous film to his name (starring comedy duo Morcambe & Wise), while screenwriter Peter O'Donnell had penned Joseph Losey's 1966 comic caper Modesty Blaise. This perhaps explains much of the film's sense of anonymity, despite the the presence of André Morell and John Richardson, both returning from the first film, albeit as different characters. Sadly, the film would be Morell's final Hammer film and for an actor who had enriched so many Hammer productions, the film was hardly a befitting swansong.


The film's biggest stumbling block however is O'Donnell's screenplay which manages to be banal and convoluted at the same time, the film burdened with far too many longueurs and overwrought plotting, so much so that the the film may leave you perplexed on first viewing. Cliff Owen's direction remains pedestrian at best and renders the would-be explosive climax when the cast is brained by Les Bowie's crashing matt effects, dull and uninspired. Even the work of camerman Wolfgang Suschitzky, is utterly undistinguished, a shame considering he was responsible for the luminous b/w cinematography of Ulysses the previous year. Critics of the film tend to heap scorn on Olinka Bérová's wooden performance, unfairly so considering she's one of the best things in the film, at least to look at, and by the time she strips down to some skimpy white lingerie, you'll be ready to forgive the dreadfully corny theme song.


Optimum's DVD of The Vengeance of She is another decent looking addition to the Hammer boxset. The 1.66 anamorphic transfer generally looks fine, with good detail and strong colors. Audio is adequate and dialogue sounds fine. The sole extra is the theatrical trailer. The Anchor Bay disc from 2000 featured a similarly strong picture but added another episode of the World of Hammer, Lands Before Time which focused on Hammer's Fantasy films with clips from She, One Million Years B.C., Creatures The World Forgot, Viking Queen, Slave Girls, The Lost Continent and Slave Girls.

The Camp on Blood Island

You'd be forgiven for imagining Dr. Moreau-type grotesqueries upon discovering the title of this film, but The Camp on Blood Island, Hammer's 1958 film is a story of real-life horror - the plight of British soldiers held captive by the Japanese as prisoners of war in the jungles of Southeast Asia during the Second World War. Made a year after Bridge on the River Kwai, Camp on Blood Island was an altogether grittier affair than David Lean's film and seen today after years of obscurity, it emerges as one of the Hammer's finest films of the '50's.


Set during the final days of the Pacific War, Blood Island POW camp is on the verge of disintegration. When Col. Lambert, leader of the prisoners learns of Japan's defeat by way of a smuggled radio, he puts together a plan to alert allies of the camp's existence before Commandant Yamamitsu's liquidation of the camp and its remaining prisoners. When an American navy pilot successfully escapes from the camp, matters come to a head and Lambert and his men are forced to overthrow their Japanese oppressors by any means necessary... Directed with customary skill by Val Guest, Camp on Blood Island was considerably strong meat for audiences back in 1958 with scenes of British prisoners being routinely humiliated, punished and executed, like the arresting opening sequence showing a British officer machine-gunned into a freshly dug grave. Not surprisingly the film was mired in controversy on its release, but the tough stance taken by Hammer was endorsed by the BBFC who gave Jon Manchip White's screenplay a relatively easy passage from page to screen, eliminating just a few instances of coarse language and grisly violence.


Despite Hammer's considerable success with The Curse of Frankenstein the studio was still some months away from signing a lucrative distribution deal with Columbia and financing for Camp on Blood Island was often perilous. Nevertheless Hammer's art department managed to turn a corner of the Bray back lot into a convincing stand-in for Malaysia with some cleverly placed palm trees, not to mention a well-oiled cast to conjure up a suitably sweaty atmosphere. Val Guest's lively, muscular direction and cameraman Jack Asher's expertly shot black & white 'scope photography lends the film an immediacy and a genuine sense of scale that belies it's humble budget. The film is well acted too, with a perfectly cast André Morell taking the lead as Lambert and joined by a roster of fine English character actors and familiar Hammer faces, including Michael Gwynn (from The Revenge of Frankenstein), Marne Maitland (The Reptile), Richard Wordsworth (The Quatermass Xperiment) and a fresh-faced Barbara Shelley in her first significant appearance for the studio.


Given the era it was made, it would be ungracious to criticize the film for being a simple, routine actioner but seeing it today, the caricaturing of the Japanese as monstrous brutes is regrettable. The Japanese were particularly cruel in their treatment of prisoners of war (considered beneath contempt for allowing themselves to be captured), but the Japanese could be equally brutal disciplining their own soldiers, and of course not all guards were sadistic monsters - as JG Ballard recalled in his semi-fictional memoir Empire of the Sun, Japanese soldiers could also be kind and humane. Worse still, all the principle Japanese characters were played by British actors, including an embarrassing turn by the otherwise marvellous Michael Ripper, japanified with some silly eye makeup and a cringe worthy accent - thankfully his appearance is confined to just two short dialogue scenes. Also, and this is a minor complaint, the cast is far too healthy looking to pass for genuine prisoners except for the perpetually emaciated Richard Wordsworth whose scarecrow frame looks the part.


Sony's 2009 UK DVD of The Camp on Blood Island is a mostly bare bones affair but nonetheless is very welcome, this being the first ever home video release of the film. The 2.35 anamorphic transfer is generally excellent, aside from some haziness in long shots, the b/w image looks very smooth and impressively detailed. The audio track sounds robust too, even if some of the dialogue can be hard to catch (most likely due to the technical limitations of the day), but thankfully Sony have provided English subtitles to fill in the blanks (worth noting, the subtitles do not translate the few instances of Japanese dialogue). The only extra offered is a throwaway stills gallery, but the DVD comes with an excellent scene-setting booklet by Hammer historian Marcus Hearn. The inferior prequel The Secret of Blood Island followed in 1965 and has yet to surface on DVD.

Quatermass and the Pit

You'll rarely find it rubbing shoulders with the likes of Metropolis, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Blade Runner, but Hammer's 1967 film Quatermass and the Pit is quite simply one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. Of the three Quatermass adaptations The Pit had the longest gestation period, first mooted as a Hammer film in 1961, then falling in and out of the production schedule until February 1967 when Nigel Kneale's screenplay finally went before the cameras, some 8 years after the original serial had aired.


During an archaeological dig at Hobbs Lane tube station, a strange unidentified vessel is unearthed. Declared to be an unexploded German missile by Col. Breen, his reluctant colleague Professor Quatermass is not so sure. When insect-like bodies are found inside the vessel, Quatermass is convinced it is in fact an ancient spaceship from another world, and despite it's 5 million year vintage, still contains a destructive power... As Hammer's Quatermass series evolved, the films inched ever nearer to perfection, culminating in Quatermass and the Pit, one of the studio's finest hours. Nigel Kneale's third Quatermass teleplay had packed an extraordinary amount of ideas and imagination into three and a half hours of television, but somehow Kneale's screenplay with just a few minor revisions to the original story, streamlined the story into just 97 minutes of Cinema. "It was one of the few scripts where you didn't have to alter a single word", remembered director Roy Ward Barker. "I just took the script and shot it"

Andrew Kier - the fifth Quatermass

Andrew Kier who had previously battled evil in Dracula Prince of Darkness, stepped into the role of the Professor, and comes a close second to André Morrell as the definitive Quatermass. Kneale was famously displeased with the title role going to Brian Donlevy in the previous films, and was very happy with Kier, who restored the humanity of the character while retaining the toughness required to hold his own against the aggressive Col. Breen. Excellent as well is archaeologist Barbara Shelley (in her final Hammer film) bringing sophistication, not to mention astonishing beauty and grace to what is largely a secondary role. Aside from Kier, she's easily the most interesting and compelling character in the film, outdoing an otherwise excellent James Donald, one of the finest character actors of his generation (appearing in Bridge on the River Kwai, The Vikings and The Great Escape). Incidentally, actor Duncan Lamont who played the roughneck charged with penetrating the interior wall of the spaceship with a drill, appeared as Victor Caroon, the stricken astronaut in the original BBC Quatermass Experiment.

Lucifer over London

Roy Ward Baker who directed A Night to Remember, the definitive film of the Titanic disaster, had spent much of the sixties in television was ideally suited to Hammer's tight scheduling and low budgets, and together with cameraman Arthur Grant who expertly lit Bernard Robinson's magnificent sets, gave the film a class and slickness that went far beyond the final costs of the production. Baker went on to make The Anniversary (1967), The Vampire Lovers and Scars of Dracula (both 1970) for Hammer but Quatermass and the Pit is by far his best work for the studio. The final act of the film is one of Hammer's most dazzling moments, with Baker and his handheld camera urgently capturing the dangerous frenzied streets of London engulfed in chaos (a sequence much imitated by Tobe Hopper in 1985's Lifeforce, a film that owes a huge dept to the Quatermass saga). Brilliant as it is, the film has at least one flaw which most commentators will readily confess to, the scene of Barbara Shelley's recorded vision of the Martian massacre, a rare clumsy moment in the film, botched by some truly pathetic effects. The same scene was included in the television serial but actually looked better. Also, some of the film's effects shots look crude by today's standards, while the alien creatures can look less than convincing (although look out for a deliciously gooey moment, where one of the decomposing bodies drips green juice onto a suitably disgusted soldier!)

Hammer's art department included some shameless self-promotion in the film - behind James Donald you can see a poster for The Witches, while if you look fast during the opening scene where commuters emerge from the elevator, you can just spot a poster for The Reptile

Optimum's DVD of Quatermass and the Pit is one of the best looking DVDs in the box set, featuring a fine, sharp vibrant colorful 1.66 transfer image. Audio is very good too, no problems with dialogue or sound effects. The sole extra on the Optimum disc is a two & a half minute trailer. Far superior is Optimum's 2011 Blu-Ray edition and while I have yet to pick up this disc, by all accounts it's a stunner, and topped many DVD of the Year lists, with a glorious, high-def, demo quality transfer as well as a definitive sound mix. The BR comes with some fine extras as well, a commentary track by Kneale and Baker (from the old Anchor Bay DVD) and a host of interviews with various admirers of the film (the best of which is Kim Newman's 30min segment) as well as the Sci-fi episode of World of Hammer.

Quatermass 2

Hammer's decision to film The Quatermass Experiment had paid off handsomely for the studio, and producer Tony Hinds wasted little time securing the rights to the second teleplay. Now that he was free to work on projects beyond his contract with the BBC, Nigel Kneale came on board for the second film and oversaw a remarkably faithful adaptation of the serial for the big screen. A British answer to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the second Quatermass film, made in the summer of 1956 expands on the original film with the alien menace no longer confined to an astronaut returning from space, but an entire invasion force falling to earth as innocuous meteorites, setting up shop in a huge, highly sophisticated industrial installation, and all of it overseen by the government itself. The apocalypse had arrived and nobody was watching...


Kneale's mistrust of institutions was evident from his 1954 television adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four and his view was even more caustic in Quatermass 2. The cold war years had brought fear, paranoia and a climate of secrecy to the shores of Britain. This was the age of the Space Race, East/West espionage and the ballistic missile. Photographed by Gerald Gibbs in cold hard monochrome, Quatermass 2 continued with the veritae style of the first film, and shooting in the immense Shell Haven oil refinery in Essex gave the film a sense of space and grandeur. Val Guest, a director with a fine sense of composition makes terrific use of the location and the visuals remain striking today, with the plant's ominous looming towers and the nebulous web of pipes and conduits, a brilliant visual metaphor for the bureaucratic coverup.


The screenplay Nigel Kneale delivered to Hammer was further worked on by director Val Guest who pared it down for feature length, but packing most of the 3-hour serial into a tight, coherent 80-odd minutes. The original ending of the serial was revised for the film version, and instead of Quatermass piloting a rocket to destroy the alien asteroid, the film version climaxes with the aliens revealed in all their sticky shapeless glory. Also, a sequence in the television version where a picniking family are brutally gunned down by the plant's security force, is absent from the film version. The BBFC had objected to this sequence outright when they read the screenplay in May, but interestingly this sequence might well have been shot but removed in post production - if you look fast during the sequence where Quatermass drives out the gate of the plant, you can just glimpse a truck arriving at the gate towing a car, perhaps a leftover from the cut sequence.


Despite the BBFC's protestations, the film was strong stuff for it's day and has a number of grisly details - like the open wound left by the alien infection, and a memorable sequence where a snooping government minister is covered in a thick corrosive tar after straying too close the alien dome. In another astonishingly gruesome moment, a supply pipe is seen dripping blood after one of the rebel plant workers is wedged inside to thwart Quatermass' plan to flood the alien chamber with poisonous oxygen. Despite Nigel Kneale's misgivings about Brian Donlevy in the title role of the first film, the American actor returned for the sequel, and this time plays the Professor with a little more restraint, less of a barking dog, but still his presence in the film is problematic. One wonders if Hammer had chosen to film 1967's Quatermass and the Pit in close succession would Donlevy have returned for the third outing ? Also noteworthy in the cast is Sidney James, the veteran English comedy actor who can be difficult to separate from his 19 Carry On films (and that trademark dirty laugh) but he's in fine form here as a boozy journalist.


Icon's transfer of Quatermass 2 is very much like The Quatermass Xperiment, a good but underwhelming fullscreen picture. The previous UK edition from DDVideo is superior but that disc commands a tidy sum these days. In the US, the Anchor Bay disc which included a commentary by Kneale and Guest and an episode of World of Hammer ("Sci-fi") is officially out of print, but Amazon are offering a DVD-R of the film which looks like the Anchor Bay edition and while it's missing the extras, features a fine crisp transfer of the film.

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Notes
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Quatermass fans should head over to Stephen Reed's extremely impressive and thoroughly exhaustive Quatermass website.

The Quatermass Xperiment

Over July and August of 1953, BBC's 6-part television serial The Quatermass Experiment had gripped the nation, with an average 3 million people tuning in each week to discover the fate of Victor Carroon, the doomed astronaut who crash landed back on Earth carrying a deadly organism. Among them was Hammer producer Tony Hinds who immediately saw the serial's potential as a feature length film, and two days after the final episode had aired, Hammer purchased the rights from the BBC, a move which would forever change the fortunes of James Carreras' company.


Renamed The Quatermass Xperiment as a mischievous endorsement of the BBFC's X-rating, the film was enormously popular with the public on its release in the summer of 1955, but when shooting began in October '54, the film's success could not be guaranteed. Hammer's previous dabbling in science fiction, The Four Sided Triangle and Spaceways (both from 1952) were met with indifference and quickly forgotten, so the Quatermass film was cautiously granted a modest budget. Perhaps in an attempt to deflect the serial's more fantastic elements, Val Guest a talented journeyman with four previous Hammer assignments under his belt was chosen to direct. Guest had little affinity with science fiction and Horror but proved to be an inspired choice giving the film a solid touch of realism. Guest went on to direct the magnificent Hammer noir Hell Is A City in 1960 and it many ways the Quatermass film shares the same gritty urban ambiance in the latter half of the film as the police dragnet closes in on Victor Carroon.


Nigel Kneale however was less satisfied with the film. The writer had profitted little from Hammer's acquisition of the serial, and worse still, the changes made to the story to bring it within an 80-min feature length, had greatly angered Kneale. In fact screenwriter Richard Landau and Val Guest had done a fine job condensing the plot and opening up the teleplay for Cinema, devising an alternative ending which was decidedly more pyrotechnic and exciting than the soulful, melancholic climax of the serial, where Professor Quatermass appeals to the last vestiges of humanity left in the creature. Kneale however had his revenge on Hammer when he refused the studio the use of the Quatermass character for Dean Jagger's scientist in 1957's X The Unknown, a Quatermass film in all but name. The writer's criticisms aside, the film version retained two set pieces from the serial which brilliantly translated to the big screen - a scene where a hideously mutated Victor Carroon stumbles into a chemist, and a wonderful eerie sequence where the monster stalks animals in a zoo.

Brian Donlevy - the fourth Quatermass

If the film has a weakness it's Quatermass himself. In the serial Reginald Tate portrayed the Professor as a sensitive, troubled man of science, but in the film Irish American actor Brian Donlevy made Quatermass ill-tempered and surly, exactly the type of man, Kneale's Quatermass would have loathed. Apparently Donlevy had great difficulty on set with his lines which perhaps had more to do with actor's dedication to the bottle than Landau's writing. (Ironically, Donlevy returned for the sequel the following year making him the only actor to have played Professor Quatermass twice). Much more impressive in the film is Richard Wordsworth playing Victor Caroon, his tall frame and gaunt emaciated face give him a genuine alienness. Look out for a fabulous creepy moment in the film when Wordsworth fixes his wife, oblivious to the monster growing inside him, with a sinister stare. Yet, Wordsworth's often childlike portrayal of an alien emerging into a strange new world manages to elicit sympathy from the audience which in retrospect seems prophetic - the success of The Quatermass Xperiment gave Hammer the confidence to tackle another sympathetic monster when plans were made to film a version of Frankenstein.


The Quatermass Xperiment is available in the UK on the Icon label (collected as single disc double bill with Quatermass II). The Icon disc has come in for some criticism for it's lo-fi image quality and while the film most definitely looks unrestored, both picture and audio are perfectly decent for a budget disc. The Icon disc has no extras, a shame considering the previous UK edition, the superior but now hard-to-find DDVideo disc came with a comprehensive booklet, and an audio commentary with Val Guest. In the US, the film is available as a burn-on-demand MGM DVD and although light on extras, it features a much better transfer than the UK edition.

Frankenstein Created Woman

In 1967 Terence Fisher made a welcome return to the Frankenstein saga with Frankenstein Created Woman a film that restored the series to good health after the the curious misfire that was The Evil of Frankenstein. But in many respects, this fourth episode is one of the most polarizing films of the series, scaling back the traditional horror elements to something more akin to metaphysical science fiction resulting in an ambitious, if not entirely successful film...


Continuing with his obsessive quest to unravel the mysteries of life, the Baron's work is now focused on the soul, and its transference to another body after death. By a strange turn of events, the Baron has transferred the soul of his recently executed assistant Hans into the body of Hans' lover Christina, a tormented disfigured and deformed young woman who in her grief at Hans' death, has drowned herself. The Baron brings Christina back from the edge of life, reborn with a new identity, and miraculously her beauty restored, but driven by Hans' soul to seek revenge against his (or is it her?) enemies...


If the plot synopsis sounds rather tortuous, Tony Hinds' screenplay is even more so. On one hand, it's an ambitious piece of writing - rather than retreading another monster movie, Frankenstein Created Woman mines for something far more fascinating, exploring big ideas like consciousness, identity, even sexuality. Ultimately though Hinds' screenplay is perhaps too ambitious and the story is often muddled, incoherent, even illogical, like the Baron eradicating Christina's physical ailments with a spot of brain surgery, transforming the twisted and scarred young woman into an beautiful blonde 19th century Playmate. Seeing the film for the first time might leave you a little confused so a second or third screening might be required to tease out the whys and wherefores of the plot. Incidentally writer Brian Clemens imported a few similar ideas into his superior screenplay for 1971's Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.


A lesser director might have rendered Frankenstein Created Woman a mess, but in the hands of Terence Fisher the film takes its place among Hammer classics. Eight years into the series, Peter Cushing appears a little weathered looking, but is all the better for the character, his chiseled, angular face a perfect expression for the the Baron's cruelty, treating Christina with all the cold detachment of a laboratory animal. Susan Denberg as Christina is impressive too, and despite her thick Austrian accent dubbed into extinction, her performance remains the emotional core of the film - look out for a wonderful moment where she seduces one of her tormentors and her face shows a momentary flash of pain when he mocks the presumed dead Christina's deformity. One suspects Hammer were grooming Denberg to be the next Bardot, but this film proved to be her last appearance on screen, which would later fuel the rumour that Denberg's wild hedonistic lifestyle had led to her premature death - in fact she's very much alive today.


Optimum's DVD of Frankenstein Created Woman is mostly very good, with a solid 1.66 anamorphic transfer. For the most part colors are strong and detail is decent, although the outdoor shots in the film are little more washed out looking. Worth noting that a few seconds of footage (around the 75min mark), is sourced from a noticeably inferior print. Audio is fine with clear dialogue and little hiss. Like the previous Warners UK DVD, the Optimum edition is devoid of extras, not even the theatrical trailer, unlike the Anchor Bay edition from 2000, which contained trailers, TV spots and another episode of the World of Hammer series focusing on the studio's Frankenstein series.

The Evil of Frankenstein

"They always destroy everything" declares the Baron in the opening sequence of 1964's Evil of Frankenstein, enraged when another one of his experiments is ruined by the ignorance of his fellow man. In fact his words could easily apply to Hammer's ill-conceived re-imagining of the Frankenstein series, the break in continuity especially baffling considering Jimmy Sangster had devised a clever escape plan for the Baron in the finale of The Revenge of Frankenstein...


After 10 years of exile from his home town of Karlstad, Frankenstein returns to seek funds for his experiments, but once again is driven away by fearful locals. Seeking refuge in a cave, the Baron chances upon his original creation, a monstrous being made from body parts, which became trapped and preserved in a glacier. When the creature fails to respond to the Baron's commands, drastic measures are called upon... For Hammer's third film of the Frankenstein series, Terence Fisher and Jimmy Sangster, the creative force responsible for the success of the first two films were replaced by director Freddie Francis, with writing duties handled by producer Tony Hinds. The tonal shift from the previous films was dramatic. Francis had little of the Gothic touch that Fisher had brought to the series, while Hinds' screenplay steered the film away from Hammer's idiosyncratic direction and re-connected with the Universal style, with the studio's full blessing and generous co-financing.


Perhaps it was the stitching together of two distinct house styles which resulted in The Evil of Frankenstein ending up as something of an oddity. The central section of the film where the Baron re-awakens the monster from his slumber plays the best with a frenzied Baron commandeering a mass of electrical switches (which discharge themselves in a swarm of sparks and plumes of smoke), but then the plot takes an idiotic turn when a charlatan hypnotist is engaged with stimulating the monster's brain. With a certain whiff of desperation coupled with Francis' variable direction, (and some lousy back projection), the film feels closer to the ragged efforts of later period Hammer. The monster itself is more prominent here than in previous films but to lesser effect. Universal had lifted the embargo on Jack Pierce's classic make-up job, but Roy Ashton's design for the creature falls well short, and most likely would have been better if he hadn't been encouraged to riff on the familiar flat top and the clunky lead boots.


With Fisher and Sangster gone this episode of the series struggles, but remains entirely watchable - at least it's well paced and more importantly, Peter Cushing faithfully returned to play Frankenstein - at this point the series was simply unimaginable without him. Hinds' screenplay saw a modulation of the character somewhat with the Baron gaining a little of the common touch, but Cushing remains magnificent, and delivers one of his most physical performances of the series, as he tackles the monster in the rousing climax. The screenplay offers Cushing's co-stars little to do - the village girl who befriends the monster is a mute for heaven's sake, but Peter Woodthorpe as Zoltan the hypnotist is fabulously sleazy, while the actor playing the monster is notable if nothing else for his name, Kiwi Kingston, not a Jamaican reggae singer but in fact a professional wrestler from New Zealand.


The Evil of Frankenstein is available as a R2 disc in the UK courtesy of Slam Dunk Media. This 2007 disc is a disappointment as it presents the film fullframe, cropping the original 1.66 aspect ratio (a similar fate befell The Brides of Dracula on the same label). I don't quite see this as a deal breaker, considering the disc can be picked up very cheap these days, but certainly the film loses some of it's elegance when presented fullframe. Other than that, the picture is relatively nice (and superior to the screenshots above), and the audio is good if unremarkable. The sole extra is the film's trailer. The film is also available in the US as part of Universal's Hammer Horror Series boxset, which collect 8 films on 2 flipper discs - not the most ideal programming, but the film looks very good and is in its OAR. Finally, a German disc from 2007 (FrankensteinsUngeheuer) may well be the best option, with excellent picture quality, and the original English audio track (and no fixed subtitles).

The Revenge of Frankenstein

1957 had been a huge year for Hammer. The studio's gamble on Curse of Frankenstein had paid off handsomely when Warners picked the film up for distribution and scored an international hit. As 1958 dawned Hammer hit the ground running, the crew at Bray busied themselves with two major productions - an adaptation of Bram Stoker's most famous novel, and the sequel Revenge of Frankenstein. Jimmy Sangster was once again engaged to write the Frankenstein film and immediately faced a problem - in the final scene of Curse of Frankenstein the Baron was heading to the gallows and certain death...


Sentenced to death for his crimes, Baron Frankenstein escapes the guillotine with the help of one of his jailers, Karl a deformed man with a whithered arm. In return the Baron agrees to transplant Karl's brain into a healthy body. The Baron flees Switzerland for Germany where after 3 years of experimentation fulfills his side of the bargain and performs the brain transplant. But after suffering an injury during his recovery, Karl develops a unforeseen side affect - a craving for human flesh... Brilliant as it is, Curse of Frankenstein feels almost like a dress rehearsal for the sequel which emerges as a more confident and stylish picture. Simply put, this is a quintessential Hammer masterwork. The garish color of the original film is more controlled and balanced here, and the film has a stronger visual sensibility thanks to Terence Fisher's inventive direction - one would hardly recognise the atmospheric cavernous sets were being shared with the Dracula production, with much credit due to the genius of Bernard Robinson and his art department.


Once again Peter Cushing takes center stage as the Baron, delivering another triumphant performance mixing impeccably style and manners with cold-blooded malevolence. The monster figures even less here than the original film with Karl's marauding flesh-eater more like a drooling Mr. Hyde type character than a re-animated corpse, but Sangster wrote two of the film's most powerful scenes around Frankenstein's pitiful experiment - when Karl burns his lifeless deformed body in a crematorium, and the scene where Karl literally gatecrashes a society ball and reveals the true identity of "Dr. Stein". The film has little in the way of show stopping gory moments, but Revenge has some disturbing undercurrents, like the cannibalism element (some 15 years before another British production explored the taboo in Frightmare), or the idea of the Baron callously experimenting on the poor and sick at the hospital like a Nazi concentration camp doctor.

A quick shot of one of the Baron's creations, made in his likeness, which explains the twist ending

Columbia's 2002 DVD comes without any significant extras and packaged in a rather dull and uninspired sleeve, but thankfully the anamorphic widescreen transfer framed around 1.66 is quite nice and faithfully reproduces the film's subdued Eastman color. The film itself looks great for its age, and the DVD offers a sharp detailed image. No problems either with the mono audio. What extras there are on the disc amount to a routine photo gallery and the film's trailer in which Peter Cushing brings the audience up to speed on his exploits. (The disc also contains a trailer for Earth vs the Flying Saucers)

The Curse of Frankenstein

This is a loathsome story and I regret that it should come from a British team...the writer of this script seems to think that the X category is a depository for sewage

An unnamed BBFC reader's summation of Jimmy Sangster's screenplay for
The Curse of Frankenstein

It's almost a cliché nowadays to talk about it in such terms, but Hammer's 1957 film really did usher in a new age of Gods and Monsters. It was the first British Horror film to be shot in color, and tested audience nerves with an unprecedented level of violence and gore, significantly some 2 years before Mario Bava unleashed La Maschera del Demonio. The film was a breakthrough in the careers of Peter Cushing and director Terence Fisher; Cushing had been up to then a television actor of some renown but had yet to make his mark on the big screen, while Fisher had been a journeyman director with over 25 films to his name. The fortunes of both men, Hammer studios, and indeed the evolution of Horror and Fantasy Cinema would take a remarkable turn with The Curse of Frankenstein.

For such a pivotal moment in the Hammer story, The Curse of Frankenstein had a surprisingly complicated birth. A film of Mary Shelley's novel was first mooted as a Hammer project in 1956 when James Carreras was sent a screenplay entitled Frankenstein - The Monster penned by Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg (ironically the duo who would go on to establish Amicus Productions, Hammer's most significant rival). Hammer were initially keen to mount a grand production of the Frankenstein story, but the project faced an immediate obstacle in the shape of Universal, who jealously guarded the rights to make a Frankenstein film. When the Subotsky and Rosenberg screenplay was given to producer Tony Hinds, the project seemed fraught with potential legal problems, and began to lose momentum, with Hinds scaling back the production to a 3 week shoot and in cost-effective black & white. It was only when Jimmy Sangster produced a screenplay which was carefully tailored to avoid any ideas and elements of the Universal series - a significant achievement considering Universal having thoroughly mined the property with no less than 8 outings for the monster, that the project was revitalised and planned as Hammer's first film to be shot in color.

The film opens with Baron Frankenstein awaiting his execution for the crime of murder. In an attempt to save his life, the Baron explains to a priest the events which resulted in his incarceration, and so begins the film proper, as Frankenstein obsessively tries to engineer a living being from a collection of dead body parts... Despite sharing the basic framework of Shelley's story with James Whale's 1931 classic, The Curse of Frankenstein is a radical departure from the Universal film, with the emphasis placed on the mania of the Baron rather than the creature. If nothing else it was a practical move, as Hammer were expressly forbidden to emulate Jack Pierce's iconic stylized make-up for Boris Karloff's monster. Arthur Edeson's shadowy expressionist photography which in part established the look of Universal's Horror films, was now replaced by Jack Asher's gaudy experimental color photography. Sangster's screenplay was very much a contemporary reflection of ideas and concerns of the late '50's - if Colin Clive's Frankenstein was committing an act against God, Peter Cushing's Baron was challenging the natural order of life itself, a position the post-war scientific community were increasingly adopting with radical advances in medicine and emergence of the contraceptive pill. With The Curse of Frankenstein, the Baron emerged as a truly modern Prometheus.

Directed with a skill and vibrancy by Terence Fisher, the film contains a number of memorable visual flourishes, like the the incredible first appearance of the monster, ripping off his bandages to reveal a tortured patchwork of stitches and dead tissue, or the monster's spectacular fiery demise. The film made a star of Peter Cushing (who went on to play Frankenstein in all but 1 of the 7-film series, briefly sidestepping the role with The Horror of Frankenstein in 1970), while Christopher Lee playing the monster patiently waited in the wings until the arrival of Dracula - here he is almost unrecognisable but does a fine job, at once imposing due to the monster's impressive height, but also pitiful with its awkward, uncoordinated movements caused by a bullet lodged in it's brain. When the film was released in the summer of '57, it scored a huge hit with audiences worldwide, and Hammer set Jimmy Sangster the task of resurrecting the Baron for a sequel, which would be tentatively titled the Blood of Frankenstein before settling on the more sanguine Revenge of Frankenstein. Clearly the Baron's work was far from over...

Warners 2002 DVD of The Curse of Frankenstein can be difficult to get hold of these days, the title often lapsing in an out of print. As with their DVD edition of Dracula, the studio has paid little respect to this important film in the way of extras, but at least the Warners DVD delivers a solid presentation with a sharp and vibrant 1.85 anamorphic transfer and good robust audio. Some throwaway production notes and a battered trailer are offered as extras. Until Warners roll the film out on Blu-Ray, this DVD if you can find it, remains the best way of seeing this Hammer masterpiece. Essential viewing.

The Viking Queen

Despite having directed the hugely successful One Million Years B.C., Don Chaffey's second outing for Hammer The Viking Queen, was a far less extravagant production, a program filler pitched as a sword and sandal spectacle, filmed in Ireland while the studio was channelling its talent and resources into Frankenstein Created Woman. Set in the 1st century, Britain is a divided island under occupation by the Roman Empire. The fragile truce in place between the Romans and the Britons is threatened when a forbidden love affair develops between native Queen Salina and Justina the Roman Governor General, the relationship used by the pagan druids to sow the seeds of dissent, while Justina's second in command, the ambitious Octavian, manoeuvres to seize power and crush the Britons.

The Viking film as a genre had a brief day in the sun following the success of Richard Fleischer's The Vikings, with European filmmakers soon tweaking the formula of the sword and sandal film to factor in the Vikings' fearsome reputation for rape and pillage, as well as adding a dose of Norse mythology. By the time Hammer's film was released in 1967 the genre was all but played out, effectivly replaced by the next wave of low budget Euro-Cinema, the Spaghetti Western. Even the title of the film is a bit of a cheat - it hardly qualifies as a Viking film at all, swapping long ships for chariots and the god Odin elbowed out by something decidedly more Celtic in flavour. Given the relative obscurity of the film, The Viking Queen is all too readily dismissed and seems destined to wind up on the shelf of the Hammer completeist, unjustly so as the film makes for a rousing, intelligent and fast moving action film.


The singularly named Finnish model Carita playing the titular queen provides the required Hammer glamour, but one can't help thinking she's just stumbled out of a photographer's studio on Carnaby Street, especially when she goes to war in a miniskirt. Still, she's capable enough, and is bolstered up with support from her fellow cast, a cadre of hard-working TV actors, and Hammer stalwart Andrew Kier playing the villainous Octavian. Less successful though is actor Donald Houston who should have been thrown to the wolves for his high camp Pythonesque Druid high-priest. Visually the film has a sense of scale and space which extends past it's thrifty budget, with some evocative moody lighting, and director Don Chaffey uses some clever camera angles to transform a modest number of extras into a whole legion of Roman soldiers. As with Hammer's 1960 film, Sword of Sherwood Forest, the shooting unit was dispatched to Ireland, filming on many of the locations John Boorman would later choose for Excalibur. That the film was shot in Ireland is something of a bitter irony, as the backdrop of The Viking Queen's storyline could almost be seen as an allegory for the Troubles, which the island was heading into in the late 60's.


Optimum's DVD of The Viking Queen is a decent enough effort, with a 1.85 anamorphic transfer, but the print is rather faded looking, a shame considering the film's imaginative lighting and lush photography. The audio is perfectly adequate. Extras include the usual barn-storming trailer. If you can track it down, the 1999 US disc from Anchor Bay inches ahead with a warmer image and another episode of the World of Hammer series, Lands Before Time. There's also a German disc available with English audio, featuring a fine transfer and the World of Hammer episode Trials of War.

One Million Years B.C.

Next time you're feeling overburdened by this soulless technological society we live in, spare a thought for the cave people in Hammer's 1966 film One Millions Years B.C, having to deal with Ray Harryhausen's marauding prehistoric creatures and a primordial world going through some violent growing pains. The film became Hammer's most successful film, a huge hit world wide and made Raquel Welsh into an international sex symbol courtesy of a fur bikini and that iconic pose.

In the film, a caveman named Tumak is exiled from his feral tribe and journeys far beyond the blackened volcanic slopes of his home to the coast where he encounters a peaceful tribe, picking up some pointers on civilisation and a beautiful blonde maiden to boot... It's not made for professors, as Ray Harryhausen described One Millions Years B.C, and it's bedtime for hard factual science, what with primitive man rubbing shoulders with dinosaurs, but there is an undeniable giddy thrill from watching a pterodactyl sweeping Raquel Welsh up in its talons to feed to its hungry nestlings. Hammer did take the bold move of replacing conventional dialogue with a hodgepodge of invented language. Here it's used sparingly, with dialogue kept at arms length, unlike Hammer's 1970 prehistoric epic When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth which has the cast endlessly spouting words like "akeeta" to irritating effect.

For One Millions Years B.C, Hammer returned to the formula of their previous adventure film She, reworking an old Hollywood fantasy extravaganza (the 1940 Victor Mature film One Million B.C), adding a gorgeous glamour girl and some state of the art special effects. In many ways, the film is one Hammer's most anonymous looking films but there's much to enjoy like the charming stop-motion monsters, which may lack the seamlessness of modern CGI wonders like Jurassic Park or King Kong, but have a wonderful sensuality to their movements. Director Don Chafney was a good choice having previously worked with Harryhausen on Jason And The Argonauts, and while his direction is pedestrian at best, he simply has to point the camera at the stunning, otherworldly volcanic landscapes of Lanzorote (which gave the 20th century film makers their own share of problems with unseasonably cold weather).

For the most part, a solid, even compelling film, One Million Years B.C. ultimately runs out of steam for the final act of the film as the two tribes go to war only to be interrupted by a cataclysmic volcanic eruption. The sequence lacks focus and like many Hammer films of this era, there's a sense of getting the damn thing over with as soon as possible. Originally the film was to end with a battle with a lumbering brontosaurus but was scrapped for budget reason, the brontosaurus reduced to a short walk-on cameo in an early part of the film. But hang on in there for the film's strange and haunting epilogue, shot with a sombre sepia tint and surprisingly downbeat. Hard to gage performances with the absence of real dialogue and most of the cast hiding behind some unruly wigs and beards. Raquel Welsh has little to do except show a little cleavage, but she's a good physical actress, and Hammer girl Martine Beswick, is memorable as a feisty cave-babe. The film has become a much loved minor classic of Fantasy Cinema, and is something of a cultural export too, with a scene from the film colonising Alex deLarge's feverish imagination in A Clockwork Orange (seen during the montage of scenes scored to Beethoven's 9th Symphony) and the film's famous publicity shot of the lovely Raquel, became an integral part of Andy Dufresne's escape plan in The Shawshank Redemption.

Previously released in the UK in 2002 by Warners in a non-anamorphic edition, the Optimum DVD of One Million Years B.C. is an improvement, with a nice sharp 1.85 anamorphic transfer taken from a mostly clean print. Detail is good, but the flesh tones seem a little too hot - a few minor tweaks with your settings should be restore the balance. Audio is fine with Mario Nascimbene's excellent score, which takes in orchestral bombast, eerie choral music and avant-garde soundscapes, is well represented here. Two extras from the Warners DVD are carried over - a 12min interview with Ray Harryhausen, and an 8min talk with Raquel Welsh, both produced by Blue Underground, and are a worthwhile and interesting listen. The disc is rounded out with a trailer.

The Witches

Grow me a gown with golden down,
Cut me a robe from toe to lobe,
Give me a skin for dancing in

This 1966 Hammer chiller has slipped into obscurity over the years, elbowed out of the reference books by Nicholas Roeg's popular children's film of the same name, and among European Cult Cinema fans, it's often confused with a 1966 Italian film called The Witch, and a 1967 Italian anthology film called The Witches (notable among trivia nuts for an early Clint Eastwood appearance). Even Johnathon Rigby's otherwise comprehensive study of British Horror films, English Gothic ignores the film, a shame considering it's one of Hammer's more underappreciated films of the '60's, and for the studio, a rare contemporary-set Horror.


Gwen Mayfield, a shy retiring middle-aged woman retreats to a sleepy postcard English village to recover from a nervous breakdown following a traumatic incident at an African mission. Taking up the post of headmistress, Mayfield's respite is short lived when the strange behavior she observes in the villagers leads to the discovery of occult practices and black magic... The Witches didn't originate with Hammer but was passed to the studio by Seven Arts when the film's lead actress and star, Joan Fontaine bought the rights to the novel The Devil's Own. Hammer commissioned Nigel Kneale to write the screenplay and the Quatermass creator turned in a typically intelligent and tasteful script, which was careful not to antagonize the BBFC, who were less than enthused about devil-worship and child sacrifice. In fact, the film rarely references satanism at all, the high priestess' magical dabbling is all about extending her life rather than being an Omen-style lap-dog for the Devil.


Kneale's screenplay is perhaps a little too pastoral for most people's tastes, the pace is leisurely and the film looks positively quaint in comparison with similar rural occult films like The Wicker Man and Blood on Satan's Claw. But perseverance is rewarded with a rousing climax when Mayfield finds herself an unwilling participant at the sacrifice of a teenage girl, surrounded by trance-induced villagers who debase themselves with an infernal sticky concoction (which could be mistaken for excrement), and there's a wonderfully eerie moment when Mayfieled is confronted by a child's doll wriggling into life. Joan Fontaine was 49 when she made the film and still retains some of the ethereal beauty seen in Hitchcock's Rebecca and Suspicion. She's quite fine in her role, but is overshadowed by Kay Walsh as the grand-Witch, utterly charming and ruthless in equal measure. Of the supporting players, look out for two future stars of British sit-com - Michele Dotrice, the long suffering Betty from Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, and Leonard Rossiter, from Rising Damp and Reginald Perrin fame (or the inquisitive Russian scientist Dr. Smyslov from 2001: A Space Odyssey). Interestingly the film was directed by Cyril Frankel whose previous Hammer outing Never Take Sweets From A Stranger also featured children in peril from adults.


The Witches is one of Hammer's most exquisite looking films, beautifully shot and thankfully Optimum's DVD features an excellent 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, the print used in great shape. A few scenes exhibit some softness, but this is mostly during some process shots. The audio is fine, no issues here. Extras include a trailer. All told, The Witches is no long lost Hammer masterpiece, but anyone who likes their films cut from the same cloth as the Pan Book of Horror Stories will find this is a treat.

The Reptile

A diamond in the rough, The Reptile was afforded even less of a budget than Plague of the Zombies, the film it was shot back to back with in 1966, but over the years the film has become a cult item among Hammer fans, the fine performances, engaging screenplay and a strong visual sensilbiliy mark this as one of Hammer's stronger horrors of the 60's.


A newly wed couple arrive in a small town in Cornwall in less than happy circumstances. The husband, Harry Spaulding has inherited a cottage after the mysterious death of his brother, due to what locals call the "black death". Unconvinced Spaulding along with the villiage publican Tom (played by Hammer regurlar Michael Ripper) investigate the recent fatalities which leads to an encounter with a snake woman with cobra-like fangs and a deadly venoumous bite... Any discussion on The Reptile inevitably gets round to the thorny issue of the make-up design for the creature, which tends to polarise Hammer fans. Admittedly, FX artist Roy Ashton’s work is modest, but hardly disastrous as some have decided. On paper, the creature with its bug-eyes and paper mache scales doesn’t bear much scrutiny, but when seen in the film, is far more effective, director John Gilling restricting the creature to 2 or 3 scenes. Ken Russell must have been impressed; the creature has a definite resemblance to Amanda Donohoe's vampire from Lair of the White Worm, a film which takes an affectionate nod towards a very British picture that is Hammer Horror.


As with Plague of the Zombies, John Gilling displays a keen sense of the macabre, and the film is punctuated with little moments that chill the bone, like a shot of the reptile writhing underneath a blanket, or in a scene where the reptile's discarded skin is discovered. If Zombies was steeped in atmosphere, The Reptile is even more so, with Gilling pushing the visuals even harder than its companion piece. Another graveyard scene appears in The Reptile but ups the ante somewhat by having its intrepid investigators going about their grim business in pouring rain and soggy earth. For once the funereal gloom has more substance than mere visual dressing, and plays a significant part in the climax of the film. Tony Hinds’ intelligent screenplay is a statelier affair than Plague of the Zombies, and has a certain Stoker-esque quality; Anna’s transformation into a snake-woman is due to a curse placed upon her by her father’s dogged pursuit of a Borneo snake-worshipping cult, her suffering overseen by an ever watchful and sinister valet.


Jacqueline Pearce one of Hammer’s rare jewels steps out of the cast of Plague of the Zombies, to play the ill-fated Anna. Even under makeup, she’s terrific and brings a surprising poignancy to the role in the finale of the film, when she utters her only line as the reptile, after exposure to a sudden rush of cold Cornish air, ending the film on a strangely melancholic note. Look out for the scene where Anna taunts her father by playing some discordant notes on an oversized sitar – truly one of Hammer Cinema’s oddest moments. Also, among the cast is Michael Ripper, one the studio’s most beloved supporting players, here given one of his most substantial role, and is quite wonderful too.


Optimum's DVD of The Reptile is a weak effort. The 1.85 transfer looks okay in daytime scenes but as soon as the image becomes dark, a faint green tinge is noticable - playing around with your TV settings might help. The print used is rather faded too, the black levels are very shallow. Soundwise the disc is fine, but is completely bereft of extras. If you can find it for a decent price, the OOP US Anchor Bay disc features a superior image (but still somewhat lacking it must be said), a trailer and another episode of the World of Hammer series focusing on vampires...