Icons of Horror: Hammer Films

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Product Description For more than four decades, Hammer Films' unique blend of horror, science fiction, thrills and comedy dominated countless drive-ins and movie theaters. Now for the first time ever, you can bring home four of their most spine-tingling favorites from the 1960s era. desertcart.com Though perhaps not as iconic as their Dracula and Frankenstein pictures, this quartet of fright flicks from England's Hammer Films deliver enough Saturday afternoon creature feature thrills to please devotees of the legendary studio's output and vintage horror fans alike. 1964's The Gorgon will be the title to attract the most immediate attention due to the presence of Hammer's biggest stars, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, in its cast, and its most celebrated director, Terence Fisher, behind the camera. It's an atmospheric and offbeat entry in the Hammer canon, with one of its most unusual villains: a snake-haired fiend from Greek mythology who turns men into stone. Cushing and Lee are typically fine (both are on the side of the angels for once), and the picture's sole stumbling block is the lackluster makeup for its monster. Lee is also present in supporting roles in two other films in the collection: Scream of Fear (1961), one of several competent psychological suspense features made by Hammer in the wake of Psycho, with Susan Strasberg as a fragile young woman plagued by terrible visions and a house full of suspicious types; and Fisher's The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), a revamp of the Stevenson story with Paul Massie as the dour scientist whose personality experiments unleash a virile but unhinged alter ego. Hardcore Hammer aficionados will be thrilled to discover that the DVD version is uncut and preserves much of the (mildly) salacious material trimmed for its release in America under the title House of Fright. The final film on Icons of Horror is Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, with Hammer exec Michael Carreras (son of company founder James Carreras) behind the camera for a featherweight monster romp that doesn't hold a candle to Terence Fisher's Mummy in 1959. Unlike previous Icons of Horror DVDs, the supplemental features here are slim--just the theatrical trailers for each film--though they do offer their own degree of charm, especially the ballyhoo-heavy tone of Mummy and the oddly elegant and unnerving preview for Scream of Fear, which is centered solely around an image of Strasberg's face. --Paul Gaita Review: HAMMER'S GREATEST PACKAGE FOR HORROR FANS - I have always been a fan of Hammer horror films, and I regret the studio's passing. As long as we have excellent DVDs such as this package, however, it is not forgotten. This combo package is one of the best that I have seen. The others reviewers on this page discuss it quite well, so what I have to do add is perhaps from the position of an academic who loves writing about literature and films. The best of this group is arguably SCREAM OF FEAR, a black-and-white thriller that has been compared to PSYCHO and other Hitchcock works. Perhaps such a comparison is justified, but this little film exists as an eerie mystery in its own right. It is one of the best of the mystery genre -- a work that may have supernatural overtones, but all of these are rationally explained at the end. It is fun for viewers to discover that characters turn out to be not who they are initially set up to be. Ronald Lewis, whom I first saw as Aeneas in Robert Wise' HELEN OF TROY in the mid 1950s, is a centerpiece here -- an apparently sympathetic character who claims to be helping the heroine, the lovely Susan Strasberg. Who can be more helpless than a heroine confined to a wheelchair? A good mystery keeps its viewers guessing. Does the wheelchair-bound heroine really see the corpse of her dead father throughout the Rivera villa? Is he a ghost? Is Christopher Lee someone on hand to help her or menace her? Does the heroine have some secrets of her own? Perhaps the mystery is clear-cut until the end -- is her father dead or alive? Did someone murder him? If so, who? However, the ending is meant to throw us for a loop, and it succeeds quite well in this endeavor. Christopher Lee, who plays a Dr. Gerrard -- using the French spelling of a name that I carry, although mine is the Scottish version of the name -- is a stalwart presence who could easily be the bad-guy of the piece. He is Dracula without fangs, the pirate chief without his sword, and he takes center stage during the few moments when he is on-screen. Casting him as the swarthy-looking physician who appears to know more than he is saying was a deft touch. At the end, we see him in a new light -- as we do all of the major characters. Quite gripping and compelling little mystery. Another black-and-white British thriller, which also starred Ronald Lewis, is worthy of being released on DVD. I am unable to recall its name, but it was released in theatres about the time that SCREAM OF FEAR appeared. It also stars Diane Cilento and Claude Dauphin and has a few twists and turns of its own. THE GORGON is of interest to me because of its mythological origin. Megaera was a sister of the better-known Medusa -- the Greek monster with snakes for hair and a stare that can keep you stoned for good. She was supposedly dispatched by Perseus, son of Zeus, but her sister, as the narrative of THE GORGON sets it up, supposedly fled to the area near this European village. This is a bit hard to swallow, but if one accepts this premise, one is in for a good time. Unfortunately, someone with Ray Harryhausen's skill did not create the Megaera monster herself, and the make-up job is pretty atrocious. One of the minor characters is the actor who played a more significant role in THE WILD GEESE, another Brit actor who, like Michael Ripper, shows up now and then. Peter Cushing, although top-billed here, is an unsympathetic character who only gets in the way of the hero, played by the very capable Richard Pasco. Cushing is shielding the Barbara Shelley character, and an interesting touch here is that the Megaera monster is played as the evil half of a Jekyll and Hyde character or as a type of werewolf who does a transformation act. How this came about is never explained either. However, in the heat of the battle, who really cares? Cushing's old nemesis, Christopher Lee shows up as a crusty professor who tries to save his former student. Nice switch for Cushing and Lee. Many of the characters get stoned in the film, and it is to the film's credit that they are not always the characters you expect to meet such a stiffening demise. That said, why the bohemian artist is found hanging instead of being turned to stone like his pregnant girl friend is not clear. If he did not kill himself, who did it and why? If I missed something, which is entirely possible, I apologize. The music, it should be mentioned, is top notch, adding the perfect pitch to the supernatural proceedings. It is the type of eerie film score that you cannot imagine belonging to any other horror film. Also not just like any other horror film is THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL, originally released in the US, for some idiotic reason, as HOUSE OF FRIGHT. Although this film includes some top-notch performances, it is far from frightening. Paul Massie speaks his role as Jekyll as if he has a head cold and decided to spout from the bottom of a mug of root beer. God, what horrible make-up! He is definitely no John Malkovich when it comes to playing Jekyll, but his role as Hyde is closer to Malkovich's version of Hyde than any other Hyde character we've seen on the screen. Like Malkovich's Hyde, he is handsome and amoral, vicious and self-serving. The ending of THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL is not the violent shoot-out we often get in a Jekyll and Hyde film. Oliver Reed makes a brief appearance as a sleezy friend of an even sleezier prostitute who meets his end because of his untimely leap across the table at Hyde, who subsequently bashes in his head for his troubles. Christopher Lee again steals the show as an against-type playboy who mooches off of the guileless Jekyll while romancing his estranged wife, played here by Dawn Addams. He oils his way through the proceedings and meets his end too quickly for the good of the film. Incidentally, Addams being raped by Hyde, who is actually her own husband in another guise, provides an interesting, ironic touch, but it is not enough to save this tepid production. Another tepid film is the weakest of this collection, probably the weakest in the Mummy collection. The best is, of course, the version with Christopher Lee portraying the mummy in stiff, bandaged wrapped fashion and Peter Cushing starring as the sympathetic hero stumbling around with a limp because his father, the distinguished Felix Alymer, was too busy desecrating the mummy's tomb to have his broken leg set properly. THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB, unlike the superior BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB (based loosely on Bram Stoker's JEWEL OF THE SEVEN STARS), would almost be forgettable were it not for the appearance of American Fred Clark as a Barnum and Bailly showman type. Clark is obstreperous and superb, as he usually is, off-setting the British performances who are more staid and colorless. That he lacks integrity because of his ballyhoo-conscious intentions is not surprising, since this is the way many British and Europeans see the typical American -- an image that is not always unjustified. Terence Morgan in the lead as the man who is a lot older than we think steals the heroine from the hapless and straight-laced Ronald Howard character. His real identity is a surprise, but the twist of an ending is not really believable and in no way matches the twists of SCREAM OF FEAR. All in all, THE ICONS OF HORROR is a collection of Hammer films worth adding to your own collection. SCREAM OF FEAR and THE GORGON are the top-liners, but the others are not really shabby. They all just remind us of what the little British studio was able to add to a decade or more of horror greats. It's unfortunate that VAMPIRE CIRCUS and TWINS OF EVIL are only available from foreign markets, and even then in limited supply. Come back, Hammer. We miss you. Review: For the love of "Gorgon" - I got this set because I love "The Gorgon", truly a classic horror movie. Since it's my favorite in this set, I shall review "The Gorgon" first. The movie is filled with tension and suspense, and is highly atmospheric (an element I love in these classic horror movies). The movie is also quite unique as it has Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee playing reversed roles than what one would expect them to portray, i.e. Lee is the good guy and Cushing is the misguided baddie. The story in brief - a small town in Germany circa early 20th century is plagued by gruesome and mysterious deaths which the local authorities hush up. The bodies have all been turned to stone, and Peter Cushing who plays Dr Namaroff, the director of the local asylum, is complicit in this hush-up as well. Amidst this setting, a young man named Paul Heitz arrives to investigate his brother and father's mysterious deaths. He learns from a letter left by his father that there may be an evil force lurking in the small town, a Gorgon whose stare is fatal to all who see it, turning them into stone. As Paul investigates, he meets an attractive lady who also happens to be Namaroff's assistant, Carla (Barbara Shelley). When things get more dangerous, he pleads with his old professor to come and assist him (Christopher Lee). There is much suspense in this movie, and I thought the production qualities were above average. The acting is excellent, especially by Cushing, Lee and, Shelley, and the quality of the DVD is clear. Now for the other three films: "The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb" - revolves around the resurrection of the mummy Ra, who goes on to carry out despicable acts under the control of an evil person who possesses a powerful amulet. This is a weak horror movie, ridden with cliches, and truly underwhelming. The actors are ho-hum, with an especially atrocious dubbing job on the actress who err, gets unwelcome attention from the mummy. There is an interesting twist in the movie though which kept it mildly interesting. Not one I'd care to see again. "The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll" - directed by Terence Fisher,this 1960 Hammer production stars Paul Massie as Dr. Jekyll, and also co-stars Christopher Lee, David Kossoff, and Dawn Addams. What was interesting about this movie is the way the two personas are conceived - Dr. Jekyll is portrayed as a tepid character whereas Dr. Hyde is portrayed as charismatic and good-looking. "Scream of Fear" - Susan Strasberg plays a crippled young woman at the mercy of an evil person/s bent on driving her insane. This movie is more of a psychological thriller, and is quite a well-done suspense movie. Final verdict - a great set for classic horror fans!