The HAMMER Collection: Part 3 of 3 (1970-76)

The HAMMER Collection:

DVD Box Set - Part 3 of 3 (1970-76) 

A twenty-one disc DVD box set containing some of the best and worst films that the legendary HAMMER studio made before it succumbed to financial trouble and was forced to put away the costumes and close its doors.

I'm splitting the collection into three parts with seven films apiece and in chronological order.

That's not the order they're arranged in the box, but it makes sense to me, more so than the unusual order they're presented in the actual collection, and means that the post for each of the three parts will be roughly equal in size.

Part 1 can be found HERE, while Part 2 is HERE. Click on the text below for thoughts on the final seven films in the collection, including individual entries in three famous franchises:

Horror of Frankenstein (1970)

Dir. Jimmy Sangster | Release: 8th November (UK)

HAMMER's sixth Frankenstein film is basically a retelling of their first but with a comedic slant that's both direct and subtle.

It sounds like a terrible idea on paper, doubly so when you discover that Peter Cushing is absent, so it's all the more surprising to find that it's genuinely entertaining for the first hour, only going to shit once the creature appears.

Ralph Bates takes on the Baron's role, playing him with a supercilious and icy chill.

HAMMER semi-regular Veronica Carlson is the glamour, but her character is trounced by Kate O'Mara's. As the house maid, O'Mara meets the Baron's iron will with her own cold-cast one.

Scars of Dracula (1970)

Dir. Roy Ward Baker | Release: 8th November (UK)

Scars does things a little differently. It has a priest that isn't a dick and it places at the beginning of the film what's traditionally nearer the ending. The bulk of the rest is taken up by the more familiar hunt for a missing person; yes, the one that went to the castle despite being told that they ought not to. Sheesh!

One of the highlights of the work is the semi-tragic character in the vampire's employ, played by a hairy Patrick Troughton. I suspect that the Count's recurrent need to have a weathered manservant at his beck and call and a busty lady resident in his parlour may point to some deep-rooted psychological problems.

The villagers are equally troubled, though. Burn the STONE castle! Good idea, lads, because that always worked out well in the past, right?

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)

Dir. Seth Holt / Michael Carreras (uncredited) | Release: 14th October (UK)

The studio's fourth and final Mummy feature is an excellent film overall, in my opinion. I suspect a fair number of viewers will disagree, perhaps with cries of "There's no actual Mummy in it!"

It's true. The story is based on Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903) novel, focussing on the restless spirit of an Egyptian Priestess (Valerie Leon), with no dusty bandages in sight. But there's plenty of blood, tons of atmosphere and the connection between past and present is integrated better than usual.

It was the first of the series I ever saw, many years ago, and while there's certainly a feeling of nostalgia attached to each viewing, I genuinely do believe that it deserves legitimate praise.

Fear in the Night (1972)

Dir. Jimmy Sangster | Release: 9th July (UK)

Mr Dear John himself, Ralph Bates, plays a newly-wed schoolteacher with a quaint blonde wife (Judy Geeson) who thinks she's being stalked by a murderess one-armed man.

Acting legends Peter Cushing and Joan Collins are also present, he as the school's headmaster and she as his wife.

It seemed an unusual film for HAMMER studios to have made in the 70s, because it's a straight-up psychological horror not a supernatural one.

It's not as stylised or menacing as the Italian giallo style movies that it takes much of influence from, but I urge anyone who gives it a try to stick it out to the end because the last third is where all the good stuff happens.

Straight on Til Morning (1972)

Dir. Peter Collinson | Release: 9th July (UK)

Brenda (Rita Tushingham), a simple working-class girl from Liverpool, breaks her mother's heart by moving to London to find a man to father her baby. She's naïve, out of her depth and eager to please; in a contemporary city setting that's a combination that's easy for socialites and psychopaths to exploit.

Rita is perfectly believable as a sheltered woman wholly unprepared for the dangers that await her - one of which is blonde-haired Peter (Shane Briant), a charming loner with a lot of free time and some deep emotional issues.

Artistically it has Nicolas Roeg-esque levels of cross-cutting, both visual and audio, that serve to disorientate, with an occasional sinister edge.

Demons of the Mind (1972)

Dir. Peter Sykes | Release: 5th November (UK)

A widowed Baron (Robert Hardy) keeps his daughter Elizabeth (Gillian Hills) locked and sedated in her room, fearing for her sanity.

In the same house is the pale, skinny-legged Emil (Shane Briant), whose feelings for Elizabeth cause much anguish for everyone.

The already strained situation goes from bad to worse when a discredited doctor (Patrick Magee) is allowed to help cure the sickness.

It's a story of insanity and incest that at best is like a Poe-esque tragedy with a dark cautionary fairy-tale vibe, and at worst a silly and confused attempt at delivering something psychologically sophisticated - the latter being the 'demons' of the title, as opposed to the supernatural kind.

To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

Dir. Peter Sykes | Release: 4th March (UK)

A novelist (Richard Widmark) attempts to save the soul of a young nun (Nastassja Kinski) from a satanic cult in a horror that's tonally different to anything the studio had made before.

It dropped the traditional theatrics, got overly-serious with themes, went on location shoots and tried to mimic American films like The Exorcist (1973) and Rosemary's Baby (1968).

The last five minutes are a travesty, but up to that point it's a glimpse of a bold new direction for the studio that sadly was too little too late.

It's loosely based on a 1953 Dennis Wheatley novel of the same name, so loosely that Dennis himself might've struggled to pick out much that's similar beyond the film's actual title.