The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

The Satanic Rites of Dracula, released in 1973, more or less marked the end of the Hammer Dracula cycle. Whether The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, released in the following year, can truly be considered part of that cycle is debatable. But The Satanic Rites of Dracula did mark the final appearance of Christopher Lee in a Hammer Dracula movie.

Like other 70s Hammer vampire movies this one is a mixture of the old and new. Like The Vampire Lovers and Dracula A.D. 1972 it still adheres in many ways to the time-honoured (some would say time-worn) Hammer gothic horror formula. At around this time more daring film-makers were starting to abandon tired old clichés of vampire lore, such as the power of crucifixes and garlic to repel vampires and the idea that vampires can be destroyed by sunlight or running water. The vampire in Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos (1971) enjoys sunbathing. Hammer seemed determined to cling to every one of the hoary accumulation of vampire clichés.

On the other hand Hammer knew they had to update their gothic horror formula in some way. And they did add some interesting new twists. Vampire movies in contemporary settings were already being made but Dracula A.D. 1972 added a new wrinkle by bringing Dracula face to face with early 70s Swinging London youth culture. The Satanic Rites of Dracula adds conspiracy theory/political thriller elements.

Neither Dracula A.D. 1972 nor The Satanic Rites of Dracula can be considered to be total successes but they are pretty interesting and they’re much better movies than their dubious reputations would suggest.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula opens with an MI5 investigation into a psychic research institution. MI5 thinks that all the occult stuff going on in the institute’s headquarters is a cover for an espionage ring. They soon discover that there is something stranger going on here. They’re going to need some help from somebody who understands all this occult guff. The man they choose is Professor Lorrimer Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Van Helsing of course immediately suspects vampirism (he always does), and that Count Dracula has been brought back to life (or to unlife) once again.

This is the same Lorrimer Van Helsing who confronted the Count in Dracula A.D. 1972. In both movies he is assisted by his beautiful daughter Jessica. In Dracula A.D. 1972 she was played by Stephanie Beacham. This time around she’s played by Joanna Lumley.

Van Helsing realises that this time Dracula is planing more than his usual programme of vampiric mayhem. Dracula has some kind of grandiose master plan. In fact in this movie Dracula takes on some of the characteristics of a Bond villain. Which is interesting since a year later Christopher Lee would play an actual Bond villain in The Man with the Golden Gun.

As you might expect the MI5 guys and Inspector Murray of Special Branch (Michael Coles) are hopelessly ill-equipped to battle vampires. And Van Helsing finds himself out of his depth as well, having to battle both vampires and a vast criminal organisation.

Dracula is of course hopelessly out of place in the 1970s. He’s a monster from the past, from an age of supernatural horrors. Van Helsing is straight out of the 17th century. The fact that both Dracula and Van Helsing don’t belong in the world of 1973 could have been a serious weakness but actually it makes the move rather interesting. One interesting touch is that there are hints that Dracula’s motivations are not just those that Van Helsing would have expected.

An odd touch in this film is that there are lots of killings early, and they’re all deaths by gunshot wounds rather than by vampiric attacks.

One of the themes of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula was the clash between science and the supernatural. Dracula’s enemies fight him not just with traditional vampire-hunting methods but with technology. The Satanic Rites of Dracula reverses this in an interesting way. In this movie Dracula uses the methods of modern science and technology while Van Helsing relies on the weapons his ancestors had employed against the undead.

I’m a huge admirer of Peter Cushing as an actor but I’ve never really liked the various Van Helsings that he played. They’re grim humourless fanatics. They always make me sympathise with the vampires. Christopher Lee gets more dialogue than usual. Freddie Jones is typically over-the-top but very effective in a small role. Joanna Lumley, a couple of years away from her breakthrough rôle in The New Avengers, looks lovely and her acting is fine.

The Warner Archive Blu-Ray is barebones but looks great.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula is different enough from the traditional Hammer formula to be interesting and it works surprisingly well. Highly recommended.

Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), Blu-Ray review

Very few of Hammer’s movies have been reviled as much as Dracula A.D. 1972, Christopher Lee’s second last outing in a Hammer Dracula movie. It’s easy to see why. Diehard old school Hammer fans violently disapproved of the idea of transplanting Dracula in Swinging London in the early 70s. Mainstream critics who didn’t much like Hammer movies anyway saw this as an opportunity for cheap mockery. The attempt to depict early 70s youth culture, fashions and music made the film look very dated within a few short years. It’s really easy to take pot shots at this movie.

Nonetheless Dracula A.D. 1972 has its defenders and I’m one of them.

The movie opens in 1872, with poor old Dracula once again being vanquished and destroyed in the kind of clever and original style that had become a trademark of Hammer’s Dracula movies. A mysterious young man fills a vial with some of the Count’s ashes and takes his ring. We then get a very good transition as the camera pans up from a late 19th century graveyard to a passing jet airliner. Suddenly we are in 1972.

There’s a groovy party going on. It was supposed to be a very staid respectable party but Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame) and his way-out friends crashed it and turned it into a wild orgy. And I do mean wild. Nobody actually takes their clothes off but there are couples kissing and girls go-go dancing. Some of these young people are clearly having fun. Total depravity.

Johnny Alucard and his clique are starting to get bored. They need new highs. New kicks. Johnny decides to give them something that will really shock them out of their boredom - a Black Mass.

Not all his followers think this is a good idea. Young Jessica (Stephanie Beacham) has her doubts. She’s pretty sure her grandfather wold disapprove. Her grandfather knows about the dangers of such things. Her grandfather’s name is Professor Lorrimer Van Helsing. He’s played by Peter Cushing.

Johnny convinces his friends that it will be a good laugh. And he’s found a deconsecrated church that will provide the perfect setting.

Johnny gets rather carried away. He wants Jessica to participate in the ritual. She’s too frightened to do so but Laura (Caroline Munro) thinks it’s a great idea. We already know that Laura is a bit of a bad girl. She likes dancing.

The summoning scene that follows is extremely well executed, with all the gothic trappings and an atmosphere that manages to be genuinely creepy and over-the-top. The first appearance of Count Dracula is wonderfully evocative.

Of course now that he’s managed to revive Count Dracula Johnny Alucard will have to provide him with some blood. That’s where Laura comes in. Laura is hysterical but there’s not much she can do about it. A nice touch is the look on Carline Munro’s face as Dracula bites her - it it horror or bliss?

As I said earlier it’s a movie that was always going to look dated within a few years. Seeing it now, half a century later, that’s very much a part of its charm. What makes it even better is that Hammer (like Hollywood when it tried to cash in on youth culture) got the 1972 youth culture totally wrong. So now it’s like a bizarre time capsule of a 1972 youth scene that only ever existed in the minds of the middle-aged men running Hammer Films at the time. It makes the movie great fun.

As for the idea of dropping Dracula into the world of 1970s sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, it was really a pretty reasonable idea. Vampire movies in 19th century settings were becoming a pretty tired idea. Hammer were struggling and they had to do something. The only other options would have been to ramp up the gore very significantly or to ramp up the sex and nudity way beyond the levels with which Hammer felt comfortable. There were lots of vampire movies around that time in contemporary settings (Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos, Jose Larraz’s Vampyres, Count Yorga Vampire, etc). Vampires in contemporary settings were very much in tune with the zeitgeist of the 70s. Hammer decided to put their own distinctive twist on the idea by putting their vampire among the crazy with-out groovy kids of the time.

You have to consider the historical context of this movie. Throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s the British gutter press enjoyed whipping up moral panics about the occults, with articles in the Sunday papers about witches in suburbia and that sort of thing.

This was also a time when Dennis Wheatley’s black magic occult thrillers were huge bestsellers and at the beginning of each book there was a warning to the reader from Wheatley - a warning not to dabble in the occult, otherwise really really bad things would happen.

This was also a time of regular moral panics about the “permissive society” - there was a real fear that young people were learning to enjoy themselves and that was something that needed to be stopped. The movie takes the same kind of pompous moralising line but that ends up adding to the fun.

So overall 1972 must have seemed like a very good time for Hammer to make a movie like Dracula A.D. 1972.

One interesting thing about Hammer’s Dracula movies is that although on the surface they take a very conservative moralistic stance Dracula always wins. He gets destroyed at the end of each movie but you know he’ll be back for the next one, fully revived and as lively as ever. It’s also noticeable that the vampire hunters in the Hammer movies are not overly sympathetic. Father Sandor in Dracula Prince of Darkness is pretty horrifying. Van Helsing in Dracula A.D. 1972 is a grim, humourless dusty old killjoy. Dracula by contrast is sexy, dangerous and exciting. It’s hard to imagine the target audience for this movie rooting for Van Helsing.

Having the police conducting a conventional murder investigation while Van Helsing knows it’s vampires they’re dealing with is a nice touch.

One criticism that has been made of the film is that Dracula never leaves the deconsecrated church. I think that was actually a wise idea. Dracula roaming around 1970s London would have looked silly, but having lurking in the church, like a spider in his web, increases the sense of menace.

This is a very visually impressive movie with some nice sets and some great cinematography.

One minor weakness of this movie is that the vampires are much too vulnerable. It seems like just about everything kills vampires. Even against an old man like van Helsing they just haven’t got a chance.

The Warner British Blu-Ray release is barebones but looks pretty good.

Dracula A.D. 1972 has its flaws and perhaps it doesn’t work in the way Hammer intended, but it works in its own way and it’s an entertaining slightly offbeat 70s vampire movie. Highly recommended.

The Vampire Lovers (1970), Blu-Ray review

The Vampire Lovers was Hammer’s first serious attempt at a truly erotic gothic horror film. It’s based on J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla (also filmed in 1960 by Roger Vadim as Blood and Roses and in 1972 by Vicente Aranda as The Blood Spattered Bride). Carmilla is regarded as a kind of foundation text for the lesbian vampire sub-genre. It should have been the perfect choice to take Hammer into the 1970s.

If you wanted to make a sexy vampire movie you could hardly go wrong with Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith as the two female leads.

The structure of Le Fanu’s tale (with the second half of the story being an extended flashback) works perfectly well as a novella but might have been a little confusing in a movie. The screenwriters have transposed the second half of the novella to the beginning of the movie. This has the advantage of letting us know straight away that we’re dealing with vampires and it has the added benefit of allowing Peter Cushing to be introduced at the beginning rather than the halfway stage of the story. At this time Ingrid Pitt was an unknown (that would change once the movie was released) but Cushing was an established star. Cushing was the obvious box-office draw so Hammer obviously wanted him there from the start.

The movie begins with a ball hosted by General Spielsdorf (Cushing). A mysterious countess asks a favour of him. Could he possibly put her daughter up for a while? The General gallantly agrees. The Countess’s daughter Marcilla (Ingrid Pit) will be company for his own daughter Laura. Laura begins to be troubled by nightmares about huge cats. She also becomes ill, although the reasons for her illness are inexplicable. Laura and Marcilla have become quite close. Marcilla is perhaps excessively affectionate towards Laura, and in particular she is perhaps excessively physically affectionate. No-one thinks anything of this. Affectionate friendships between women were not considered odd in the 19th century.

Laura dies, leaving both her father and her young man Carl (Jon Finch) devastated.

A short time later a coaching accident occurs near the home of Roger Morton (George Cole). The passengers, a mother and her daughter, are unhurt but the daughter is considerably shaken. The daughter, Carmilla, is in no state to resume the journey but the mother insists that her journey is urgent. Morton solves the problem by suggesting that Carmilla should stay at his home until the mother returns from her journey in a few months. Morton’s daughter Emma (Madeine Smith) is delighted at the idea of having a female companion since Morton’s home is rather isolated.

Emma and Carmilla get along well, although Emma seems a bit confused by Carmilla’s caresses. Then Emma starts to become ill and weak.

When La Fanu wrote Carmilla vampire lore had not yet hardened into dogma. As a result Le Fanu’s version of the vampire seems refreshingly unconventional by later standards. His vampires are not at all troubled by daylight. There is none of the silly nonsense about garlic. There are no crucifixes or holy water used as weapons against vampires. Unfortunately Hammer lost their collective nerve and decided to make the vampires in The Vampire Lovers drearily conventional. They dislike daylight, they are repelled by garlic. Carmilla exercises her vampiric mind control powers over Emma’s governess, who becomes a kind of female Renfield. There’s even the crucifix stuff. It’s all too depressingly like their Dracula movies, and by 1970 these were boring tired clichés. None of this stuff is in Le Fanu’s story.

There was a realisation on Hammer’s part that they needed to start doing something fresh but they seemed to be afraid to do so. When you compare this movie to European vampire movies made in the same year such as Jean Rollin’s The Nude Vampire or Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos then The Vampire Lovers seems very dated and conventional.

It doesn’t help that this movie looks exactly like Hammer’s other gothic horror movies and it has the same central European setting. It was time to update the vampire movie but Hammer were unwilling to take the risk.

The screenwriter of The Vampire Lovers, Tudor Gates, felt that Hammer’s gothic horror movies were becoming stale and conventional but oddly enough he wrote a screenplay that is incredibly stale and conventional. His one innovation was to add nudity and lesbianism. He apparently thought that would be enough to make the movie up-to-date for the 70s, but in fact it just serves to emphasise how stale and conventional his script is. It’s the same old formula, but with nudity and lesbians.

The good news is that at least it wasn’t another Dracula movie. They made four Dracula movies between 1966 and 1970 and the formula was wearing very thin.

While it has its problems The Vampire Lovers has one major strength and that is the erotically charged performance of Ingrid Pitt. There were problem with Pitt’s work permit and Hammer had trouble convincing the relevant government authorities to allow her to make the film. Hammer argued that no British actress could have played this part. And they were quite correct. Only a European actress could have brought the necessary uninhibited and sophisticated sexuality to the role.

She also quite effectively captures the ambiguous nature of Carmilla’s feelings towards her victims, and in fact she makes Carmilla’s feelings more complex and more ambiguous than they are in Le Fanu’s tale. Carmilla really does seem at times to be in love with Emma. She certainly seems to be sexually obsessed by her. But she still intends to kill Emma. Her whole approach to Emma is in the nature of a seduction, but it’s a seduction that will end in death. Does she really have any feelings at all for her victims? Miss Pitt leaves us wondering. It’s a wonderful performance. Ingrid Pitt is the one thing in this movie that doesn’t seem horribly dated and staid.

Hammer did understand that they needed to sex things up a bit. There’s a small amount of nudity (including brief frontal nudity) but not enough to achieve that aim. Luckily Ingrid Pitt is a mass of seething sexuality whether she’s clothed or unclothed and she is enough to make it Hammer’s sexiest movie up to this time. In fact she’s enough to make it Hammer’s sexiest movie ever. Hammer were treading very cautiously which, given the incredible rigidity and stupidity of British film censorship, was understandable. But while the censor might have vetoed any additional nudity they could not prevent Ingrid Pitt from being sizzlingly sexy.

If you want a good example of why censorship is such a terrible idea you only have to consider the reaction of the British censor to the famous scene in this movie with Ingrid Pitt in the bath and then romping nude with Madeline Smith. The censor described it as sick and unnecessary. In reality of course it’s one of the most crucial scenes in the entire movie. It’s the scene that establishes the erotic nature of Carmilla’s vampiric seduction of Emma. If the censor had had his way and the scene had been removed the whole film would have been totally pointless. Without that scene it would have been just another tired retread of the Hammer formula.

Like all Hammer gothic horror films it takes a drearily straightforward good vs evil stance and as in all Hammer gothic horror films this is undermined by the dullness and unattractiveness of the good guys, and by the fact that they seem so vengeful and vindictive. This was a problem even with the Dracula movies but when you have a villain who is an exciting sexy female it’s impossible not to hope that maybe this time the forces of good will lose. It’s also another Hammer film in which we can’t help feeling that there’s an extreme hostility to any woman who experiences sexual feelings. In fact in this movie we get the feeling that a major motivation for the good guys is to prevent Emma from becoming sexually awakened. By the end (particularly in view of a late plot twist which I won’t reveal) all my sympathies are with Carmilla.

Peter Cushing’s greatest achievements as an actor were in my opinion in Hammer’s Frankenstein movies where he got to play a villain, but a complex villain. He did an absolutely superb job. Unfortunately in his appearances in their vampire movies he always ended up playing incredibly simplistic and incredibly unpleasant heroes who came across as vindictive sadists.

The question that then arises is, was there some intention here to subvert the traditional good vs evil gothic horror movie that had been Hammer’s speciality for so long? Are we meant to be on Carmilla’s side? Sadly, I doubt that Hammer had any such intention. What makes the movie interesting is, paradoxically, the contrast between Ingrid Pitt’s exciting and perverse sexuality and complex and ambiguous characterisation on the one hand and the grinding conventionality of everything else in the movie on the other.

Without Ingrid Pitt this would have been a very tired second-rate Hammer movie, little more than a succession of creaky vampire movie clichés. Her performance is almost enough to make this movie what it should have been, the movie that would really have revitalised the Hammer gothic horror movie.

The Vampire Lovers is an odd mix of boldness (the open treatment of the sexual nature of vampirism, the fact that this vampire has emotions) and timidity (everything else in the movie). It looks forward to the 70s and it looks back to the 50s. Recommended, but mainly for Ingrid Pitt.

Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966)

Dracula: Prince of Darkness was the first Hammer film I ever saw so obviously it’s a movie for which I have a definite soft spot.

You have to try to approach this movie the way audiences at the time would have approached it. By the end of the 60s audiences were accustomed to the fact that Dracula could never really be destroyed. A way would always be found to revive him for the next movie. But in 1966 reviving a vampire who has been destroyed was still a relatively novel idea. At the beginning of Dracula: Prince of Darkness we see Dracula reduced to dust. When the hapless English travellers arrive at his castle his servant mournfully informs that that his master is dead. Of course 1966 audiences knew that Dracula would make an appearance but they would have pleasantly mystified as to how the movie would manage this trick. Would the story be just a flashback to the days when Dracula terrorised the countryside or was there some possibility that somehow, impossible as it might have seemed, Dracula had found a way to cheat Van Helsing.

The movie encourages this mystification by taking its time in introducing Christopher Lee. This was a sound move. The return of Christopher Lee as the Count was the movie’s big drawcard so it was desirable to keep the audience breathlessly waiting, and to give Christopher Lee a memorable entrance.

And whatever method they came up with to re-introduce Dracula it had to be both convincing and striking. Terence Fisher manages to do it with real style. It’s a great set-piece.

One problem facing Hammer was the absence of Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. Finding a satisfactory replacement for such an iconic actor in such an iconic rôle would not be easy but Andrew Keir as Father Sandor proves to be a most worthy stand-in.

The movie takes place in pretty much the same imaginary 19th century central Europe as most of Hammer’s gothic horror films. Villagers, led by the village priest, are about to thrust a stake through the heart of a young girl who had died suddenly. Father Sandor, a monk from a nearby monastery, is outraged. He considers the villagers to be superstitious fool. They’re in a state of hysteria over a threat which was removed permanently ten years earlier.

So we have something interesting here - Father Sandor speaking as the voice of reason, logic and science but as we will soon find out he is also very much a man of faith. He’s one of the more interesting vampire-hunters in cinema, a mix of kindliness and ruthlessness.

Father Sandor encounters a group of English travellers - Charles (Francis Matthews), his wife Diana (Suzan Farmer), his elder brother Alan (Charles Tingwell) and Alan’s wife Helen (Barbara Shelley). The monk advises them to avoid a particular town, and if they must visit it they should on no account go near the castle. But they end up (thanks to a fairly cool plot device) at the castle anyway.

From this point on the movie essentially follows the pattern of Stoker’s novel and of the established classic Dracula movies. You know that Dracula will go after the women, and there will then be a struggle for the lives, and souls, of both women. Nothing startling and it adheres pretty closely to what was by then established vampire lore but it’s done with energy and panache.

Christopher Lee gets no dialogue and is really just a monster without any nuance. All he really has to do is to look like Dracula and strike a few suitably vampiric poses. It works. He seems much more menacing and much more relentless without dialogue.

This is a movie that focuses on the vampire-hunters and the vampire’s victims rather than the vampire.

Barbara Shelley was one of the great scream queens and she’s terrific here. She was an old school Hammer scream queen, less overtly sexy (although she was certainly a beautiful woman) and more lady-like. Her lady-like quality does add to the horror of her situation - Helen is not used to being out of control of events. The other cast members are all fine, with Thorley Walters being both creepy and amusing as Dracula’s slave Ludwig.

The most horrifying act in the movie is not performed by Dracula but by Father Sandor. It’s a scene that really hits home and Fisher doesn’t pull his punches. Fisher would certainly have agreed that Father Sandor’s action was justified and necessary but it’s a very disturbing scene.

Of course modern viewers might not view this scene in quite the same way Fisher intended. They might notice that at this stage Helen hasn’t done anything actually evil. Just being a vampire is enough to warrant destruction. If you see vampire stories as metaphors for sex (and it’s difficult not to see them that way) then you might think that the hostility of the vampire-hunters towards the vampires is motivated by a fear of unbridled sexuality, particularly unbridled female sexuality. But no-one would have seen it that way in 1966. On the other hand it's impossible not to notice that Dracula seems to have pushed Helen's sexuality into overdrive.

Terence Fisher wasn’t a flashy director but he really knew how to do gothic horror and he’s in top form here with a series of great visual set-pieces.

As always with Hammer in this period the movie looks much more expensive than it was with some very impressive sets. Hammer had been exploring other genres in the early 60s - contemporary psychological thrillers, pirate movies, adventure movies, swashbucklers. In 1966 they returned to gothic horror in a big way with three great movies in the genre - this one, The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile. And Dracula: Prince of Darkness marked a triumphant revival of their Dracula cycle.

It looks great on Blu-Ray and the disc includes some worthwhile extras.

Dracula: Prince of Darkness isn’t the best of Hammer’s gothic horror films but it’s still very very good. Although you may, like me, find yourself having more sympathy for the vampires than for the vampire hunters. Highly recommended.

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Blu-Ray review

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, released in 1969, is the fifth of Hammer’s Frankenstein movies.

Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) has had to leave Bohemia after certain unfortunate events. He had been in the process of obtaining important scientific supplies. Just the usual things. Human heads, that sort of stuff. He disturbed a burglar. The burglar made his escape and went to the police with a horrifying story of severed heads and dead bodies in the cellar of Frankenstein’s house. Frankenstein decides it’s time to pack his bags.

Frankenstein now has a stroke of luck. He discovers that a young doctor named Karl Holst (Simon Ward) has been stealing and selling drugs from the mental hospital at which he is employed. This knowledge allows Frankenstein to blackmail Dr Holst into becoming his unwilling assistant. Dr Holst’s fiancée Anna (Veronica Carlson) is drawn into his plans as well.

One of the patients at the mental hospital is a Dr Frederick Brandt. Brandt had been working in the same field as Frankenstein - human brain transplants. The asylum’s chief doctor, Dr Richter (Freddie Jones), is convinced that Brandt is now hopelessly and incurably insane. But Brandt has expertise that Frankenstein needs so he hatches a scheme to snatch Dr Brandt from the asylum.

One thing about Frankenstein is that he is not easily dismayed. When he discovers that Dr Brandt has at most a couple of days to live he simply changes his plans a little. He’ll just transplant Dr Brandt’s brain into a fresh body. Problem solved.

Well, not quite. Frankenstein’s ruthless manipulation of other people will have consequences for him, he cannot entirely trust either Karl or Anna, he has the police after him and even the best-laid plans of evil geniuses don’t always go smoothly.

This is a Frankenstein movie with a monster who isn’t very monstrous and is very sympathetic. He’s a man not a monster, but his brain is in another man’s body. Having a relatively non-monstrous monster was taking a risk but it pays off handsomely giving the climax a real emotional punch. And it actually makes the film much more horrific and genuinely tragic.

Bert Batt wrote the screenplay, from a story by Batt and producer Anthony Nelson Keys. It’s a script that doesn’t just recycle the themes of the earlier Frankenstein films but adds some new touches and some new emphases.

This is the Hammer A team in action, with Terence Fisher directing, Arthur Grant doing the cinematography, Bernard Robinson handling the production design and James Bernard composing the score. And they do some of the best work they ever did for Hammer. There is nothing about this film that seems cheap or shoddy. Hammer always worked under tight budgetary constraints but at its best the studio could turn out very high quality productions and this movie is prime Hammer horror.

Peter Cushing is in fine form. He’s all icy determination and supreme arrogance. Baron Frankenstein is so convinced of his own genius that he genuinely believes that the ordinary rules of morality do not apply to him. He kills without mercy and casually destroys lives. He has become more of a monster than any of the monsters he has created. Cushing really is chilling. All of his performances as Frankenstein are slightly different and this may well be his best. And it does make sense that after devoting so much of his life to the more bizarre aspects of science the Baron has finally lost the last vestiges of his humanity.

Freddie Jones could be engagingly hammy but when he put his mind to it he was a fine actor as he proves in his later emotionally wrenching scenes in this film. The characters played by Simon Ward and Veronica Carlson at least have some depth. They know they’re serving an evil genius but they can’t see a way out. Thorley Walters is amusing as Inspector Frisch although these brief moments of humour seem slightly out of place in what is actually a very grim and very serious horror film. And it has to be said that, in keeping with the film’s overall tone, the humour is subdued.

There is of course the notorious scene in which Frankenstein rapes Anna. This scene was a late addition and was apparently included over the strong objections of Peter Cushing, Veronica Carlson and Terence Fisher. It does seem a bit unnecessary and it feels out of place, although on the plus side it does have the effect of forcing on the audience the realisation that Frankenstein really has become a monster with no redeeming qualities.

There’s not much actual onscreen gore but there’s a great deal of implied gruesomeness. These were the days when horror movies still relied on the horrific nature of the ideas presented rather than just throwing buckets of blood at the viewer. This is also a movie that doesn’t just rely on horror.

There are a couple of excellent suspense moments, especially the police search of the boarding house in which Frankenstein’s laboratory is concealed. Terence Fisher started his directing career making slightly noirish crime thrillers and he demonstrates that he can be cinematically compelling without any need for blood or gore.

The Warner Home Video Blu-Ray offers a really lovely transfer. The lack of extras is perhaps a bit disappointing but the quality of the transfer makes up for it.

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is overall the most satisfying of all the Hammer Frankenstein movies In fact it’s one of the most satisfying of all Hammer’s horror movies). It has a real edge to it. There’s no high camp here. The mood is relentlessly grim and the shocks really do shock. Very highly recommended.

Rasputin, the Mad Monk (1966), Blu-Ray review

Hammer Films were always wary about becoming too dependent on the gothic horror genre and were keen to release movies in as many different genres as possible. In the 1960s they made science fiction, action adventure movies, prehistoric adventure movies and even a few pirate movies. And they made a few films that are not easy to classify. Among these was Rasputin, the Mad Monk, written by Anthony Hinds and directed by Don Sharp.

This 1966 production, a kind of mishmash of horror and historical adventure/drama, was one of their more interesting films and it features a gloriously overblown but enthralling performance by Christopher Lee in the title rôle. Rasputin, the Mad Monk had a pretty good DVD release a few years back from Anchor Bay. More recently it’s been released on Blu-Ray by Shout! Factory and that seemed to me to be a good excuse to revisit this one.

This is a movie that hits the ground running. In the first few minutes this crazy monk (who is of course Rasputin) wanders into a tavern, cures the landlord’s dying wife of a fever, then after four bottles of wine he beds the landlord’s daughter and gets into a brutal fight. For Rasputin it’s been a gloriously enjoyable evening so he’s happy then to return to his monastery. Rasputin believes that confession is good for the soul, and it’s even better if you can give God some really big sins to forgive.

This kind of behaviour inevitably gets him kicked out of the monastery. Rasputin is jus a peasant from Siberia but he figures if he can to St Petersburg there’ll be lots of opportunities for a man of his immense talents.

You’d think that a peasant and a disgraced monk would have little chance of ingratiating himself into a position of power and influence at the Tsar’s court but that’s just what he proceeds to do. He does this by using those talents. He can hypnotise women into doing pretty much anything so he is able to use sex and his very definite charisma to establish his position, combined with a good deal of cunning. And he really can cure people. It’s probably mostly a matter of hypnosis being effective in curing psychosomatic disorders and in the case of real illnesses his ability to make people believe they’re going to be cured but whatever the explanation he can point to some very important people he has been able to heal. He also has a kind of mystical belief in his own destiny - he never doubts that he is going to end up with almost unlimited power.

He acquires several allies in the persons of Dr Boris Zargo (an alcoholic who was struck off the medical register, played by Richard Pasco) and Sonia (Barbara Shelley), one of the Czarina’s ladies-in-waiting. He has no difficulty in seducing Sonia and her sexual obsession with the crazy monk makes her a very willing and very useful ally.

He also, inevitably, makes enemies. Sonia’s brother Ivan (Francis Matthews), her friend and fellow lady-in-waiting Vanessa (Suzan Farmer) and Vanessa’s brother Peter (Dinsdale Landen) all fall into this category. Eventually they will become very active enemies, determined to bring about his downfall. They believe that if he isn’t stopped he’ll destroy them all and Russia as well.

It has to be said that historical accuracy is not this movie strong point but that’s somewhat unavoidable in historical movies. Complex events have to be simplified and compressed in time and in this case the characters has to changed quite a bit since Prince Felix Yusupov, one of the actual plotters against Rasputin, was making a very comfortable living suing anybody who tried to make a movie about Rasputin.

Rasputin, the Mad Monk was shot back-to-back wth Dracula, Prince of Darkness, using the same sets and many of the same performers - Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Francis Matthews and Suzan Farmer appeared in both movies. Christopher Lee wasn’t overly keen to do another Dracula movie but he was very very keen to play Rasputin so the two movies were more or less offered to him as a package deal.

Christopher Lee gives what I consider to be the performance of his career. His Rasputin is a man of terrifying power and will, utterly ruthless and insanely self-confident. It’s a bravura performance and it works magnificently. Lee had a bit of a personal obsession with Rasputin which probably goes a long way towards explaining the intensity of his performance.

Barbara Shelley is excellent as well. Her Sonia is quite complex. She’s Rasputin’s victim but to some extent she’s a willing victim. She’s your basic decadent aristocrat, very fond of drinking and hanging out in low dives. She’s just waiting for someone to corrupt her even further. Richard Pasco is impressive as Dr Zargo, a man who thinks he has abandoned all morality and finds out that he’s mistaken. Francis Matthews is also pretty  good, and gets one terrific scene which he plays magnificently.

What made Rasputin such suitable material for Hammer was the story’s mythic qualities, with Rasputin being a charismatic figure with almost superhuman mind control abilities. A bit like Dracula. What’s really interesting is that it now seems entirely possible that the popular legend of Rasputin was mostly a myth. I can’t say more without revealing spoilers for the movie.

Don Sharp was a very underrated director and he pulls off a couple of superb and very creepy horror moments. He also knew how to use Christopher Lee’s personal attributes - his height, his commanding presence and, particularly, his eyes. Sharp was convinced that Lee really could hypnotise people and Barbara Shelley was inclined to agree.

The Shout! Factory Blu-Ray looks terrific and it’s packed with extras - a making-of featurette, an intriguing featurette on novelisations of Hammer films, two audio commentaries (one of which features Sir Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley and other cast members) and two episodes from the World of Hammer TV show. 

Rasputin, the Mad Monk is a slightly unusual Hammer film but it succeeds rather well. It’s very well made, the acting is generally extremely good and then there’s Christopher Lee’s extraordinary performance. Highly recommended.

TV review - Hammer House of Horror (1980)

Hammer Films made a last desperate gamble at the beginning of the 1980s, turning to television production. Unfortunately it was not enough to save the company but Hammer House of Horror was actually an excellent horror anthology series and it's well worth seeing if you're a fan of Hammer horror movies. Peter Cushing even makes an appearance in one memorable episode.

Here's the link to my review of the second half of this series at Cult TV Lounge. I reviewed the first half of the series here last year.

Quatermass II (1957)

Hammer had spent the early 1950s making a large number of reasonable enjoyable B-movies. These were mostly crime movies but they included a few science fiction films. All of these films were very low-budget productions. The big change in Hammer’s fortunes came with The Quatermass Xperiment in 1955. This was Hammer’s first genuine box office hit. The formula was perfect for the times, combining science fiction and horror. Quatermass II followed in 1957 and Hammer were now a force to be reckoned with.

Both Quatermass films were adapted from BBC television serials. 

Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) is head of the ambitious British rocket program. Their objective is not merely to launch a rocket into space but to send dozens of rockets to the Moon and to establish a permanent base there. He has constructed a scale model of the proposed base. Unfortunately he faces two major obstacles. The first is that his rocket’s atomic engine is disastrously unstable. That can of course be rectified in time. The second problem is more serious - the government does not want to give him the money to make his scientific dream into a reality.

Quatermass is therefore understandably under considerable stress. He does not need another drama to cope with but he’s stumbled onto something that could be a drama of literally cosmic dimensions.

It starts when he almost has a collision with a car. The passenger in the other car is suffering from some strange burns which he apparently got from handling some rocks. The story doesn’t make much sense but Quatermass does take some samples. When he gets back to his project headquarters he finds that his chief subordinate has been tracking some strange objects that are falling out of the heavens. They don’t behave like meteorites and their nature is a complete mystery. They appear to be coming to earth in the same area in which Quatermass had his near-collision with that other car.

Quatermass, being a scientist, is naturally very curious and decides to have a closer look at the area. What he and his assistant find is both extraordinary and shocking - it’s Professor Quatermass’s proposed lunar colony, complete with gigantic metal domes, sitting in the English countryside.

Quatermass is now not only intrigued but worried. The whole area is sealed off with armed guards and all his enquiries on the subject of the base run into brick walls. Quatermass is starting to suspect that there’s something sinister going on but even though he has top-level connections in Whitehall he just keeps running into those brick walls. Quatermass is however not your usual polite self-effacing British boffin - he’s a fast-talking American and when he’s set on something he goes at it like a bulldozer. The more obstacles he encounters the more determined he gets. 

There’s more than a hint of paranoia to this story. The atmosphere is somewhat reminiscent of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which had been released a year earlier). There’s also a bit of an X-Files feel with suggestions of government cover-ups and conspiracies. 

Not everyone likes Brian Donlevy as Quatermass but I think he does a great job. He plays him as the kind of cantankerous single-minded totally obsessive visionary who gets things done because he never takes no for an answer. He’s bad-tempered and often rude but he’s aware of his faults and on occasions even apologises for them. He’s a hero who commands respect and you can’t help developing a certain affection for him.

Look out for Hammer favourite Michael Ripper - and yes he plays an innkeeper! There’s also Sid James as a drunken but courageous newspaper reporter.

The special effects are not particularly elaborate but this is a story that relies on atmosphere and suspense rather than special effects. The lunar colony scenes were obviously shot at a chemical plant but they work. On the whole it’s a movie that achieves the necessary visual impact without spending a huge amount of money. 

Val Guest was always a competent director and he gives this film the right sense of both urgency and menace.

Both the 1950s Hammer Quatermass movies were shot in black-and-white. Hammer were not yet in a position to be able to afford the risk of incurring the costs of filming in colour but the success of the Quatermass films would change that. I think the black-and-white cinematography is quite effective and meshes well with the rather stark production design.

Quatermass II provides some thrills and some chills, a great deal of action and plenty of old-fashioned entertainment. Highly recommended.

Demons of the Mind (1972)

Demons of the Mind is in many ways typical of what Hammer Films were doing in the early 70s - trying to stick to what they knew best and had had the most success with while also trying to vary a formula in real danger of becoming stale. So it’s a gothic horror movie, but it’s psychological rather than supernatural horror.

The setting is the familiar Hammer generic middle Europe, presumably towards the end of the 19th century. There have been murders and disappearances, and murmurings among the local peasantry about demons. There are in fact demons that are responsible for these horrors, but they are demons of the mind. There is a curse, but it’s the curse of insanity rather than the diabolical kind. It’s an inherited disorder of the mind, but not in the usual sense. It’s the type of madness a parent passes on to a child, but not through the blood (or through the genes as we’d see it today). 

The Baron Zorn has two children, twins, a girl and a boy, both now on the cusp of adulthood. The Baron and his sister along with Klaus, a faithful family retainer bearing at least a passing resemblance to a part-time hoodlum, are keeping the twins Elizabeth and Emil under lock and key and under heavy sedation. They have escaped more than once, and the baron has cause to believe that their minds are tainted with the Zorn family’s predilections for murder and blood. There is also reason to suspect an excessively close attachment between brother and sister, with definite sexual undertones. The last time Elizabeth almost got away she stayed in a hut in the woods with a nice young man with whom she became very very friendly indeed. She was retaken however, although the young man will reappear in the story.

In desperation the baron has called upon the services of the modern equivalent of the witch-hunter, the psychiatrist Falkenberg (Patrick Magee). But psychiatry at this point in history is little more than hocus pocus and theatrics, and even by the standards of 19th century medicine Falkenberg has a reputation as a charlatan. But where else is there to turn to? To add the necessary degree of complication to the plot a crazed wandering preacher (Michael Hordern over-acting outrageously) arrives, warning of devilry. 

For a late Hammer production this film looks handsome and classy. The atmosphere combines dark secrets, incest, insanity, bloodlust, sexual anxiety and aristocratic decay and does it effectively and with style. Director Peter Sykes provides a competent hand at the helm. 

And the cast is potentially extremely strong. Patrick Magee plays Falkenberg with his usual mix of frenzied and maniacal excess. The main task confronting Gillian Hills in the role of Elizabeth was to be sweet, innocent, sinister and completely loopy all at the same time, as she succeeds admirably. She has little else to do, but little else is necessary. Shane Briant as her brother Emil displays much the same characteristic but with added creepiness. His performance is less successful, but it’s perfectly adequate. Michael Hordern is great fun. Robert Hardy as the baron has a more complex and ambiguous part to play and he doesn’t quite nail it, but it’s a valiant attempt.

The script has weaknesses if you’re inclined to probe deeply enough, but if a horror movie has energy and style and gets the mood and feel right a few problems with the script don’t really matter and this movie has the requisite qualities. Being the early 70s, there’s some gore and some nudity. The film is both intriguing in the ideas it plays with and also very entertaining and there isn’t a great deal more than one can ask. A surprisingly interesting but oddly neglected movie which I thoroughly recommend.

Demons of the Mind is readily available on DVD.

Hands of the Ripper (1971)

In the early 1970s Hammer Films turned out a series of remarkably interesting horror films, including Hands of the Ripper, directed by Peter Sasdy. It’s a fascinatingly original reworking of a clichéd idea, this time Jack the Ripper.  It benefits from a strong cast, headed by Eric Porter as a turn-of-the-century medico who is an early disciple of Freud and wants to use Freud’s ideas to cure violent criminals.  

Jack the Ripper is not actually the subject of the film although he certainly plays a crucial part indirectly. The movie opens with one of the Ripper murders, witnessed by a small girl. We then jump forward fifteen years in time.

Dr John Pritchard (Eric Porter) is attending a séance. Pritchard is very much a sceptic. He considers himself to be as man of science. Whether Freudian psychoanalysis is actually more scientific than gazing into a crystal ball can of course be debated and in fact the movie does in its own way debate that very point. 

The séance has a tragic sequel. The medium (a rather nasty piece of work as we have already discovered) is brutally murdered. The police are baffled but Dr Pritchard knows there are two possible suspects. One is a Member of Parliament named Dysart; the other is the medium’s assistant, a timid young woman named Anna.

Dr Pritchard is extremely interested in murder. He believes that he can uncover the sequence of events that lead a person to become a murderer and he believes he can cure that person. He takes Anna into his home so that he can study her, whilst also keeping a close eye on the Member of Parliament.

More murders follow. Dr Pritchard is confident he is making progress but how many more people are going to die before he finds the answers he is seeking? And exactly what is it that he is likely to uncover? We already know part of the answer, which was revealed in the opening scene, but that opening scene left some vital details obscure.

Dr Pritchard has no patience with the paranormal or the supernatural. The MP, Dysart, on the other hand is a believer and wants Pritchard to pursue the truth through occult means by consulting a psychic. This sets up an intriguing contest between science and the occult since both the psychic and Pritchard are able to unlock vital secrets from Anna’s mind.

This is a film with, by Hammer standards, a fair amount of gore. Fortunately it isn’t really overdone. 

Dr Pritchard is a kindly sensitive man whose thirst for scientific knowledge leads him to take absurd risks. He believes that no price is too high to pay to advance knowledge. His scientific zeal proves to be irresponsible and dangerous. In some senses this film could be seen as a mad scientist movie, of the sub-type in which the mad scientist is not evil but is led into disaster by misguided zeal. It’s certainly a very unconventional but exceptionally interesting example of the sub-type.

Eric Porter is superb as Dr Pritchard, giving a subtle performance as a man who is both sympathetic and reprehensible in his irresponsibility. Derek Godfrey is very good as the slightly sinister Member of Parliament who may or may not have some involvement in at least one of the violent murders. Angharad Rees does well as Anna, a rather difficult role given that she spends much of the movie in a kind of trance state.

This one is apparently director Peter Sasdy’s personal favourite among his films. He has the benefit of an intelligent screenplay by Lewis Davidson and while the budget was naturally limited he also had the advantage of being able to use the Victorian streetscapes built at Pinewood Studios for The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes giving the movie a surprisingly lavish look. Sasdy had already made two good gothic horror films for Hammer, Taste the Blood of Dracula and Countess Dracula. He understood horror and he also understood how to work within the genre whilst adding some original touches.

Synapse Films have released this movie in a Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack, and with some worthwhile extras. The Blu-Ray transfer is excellent.

Hands of the Ripper has a plot that is intelligent and complex in both a psychological and a moral sense. The story moves along at a good pace, the acting is good, and there’s some excellent cinematography which towards the end even gets a bit arty and gets away with it.  This is a clever and original horror movie. Highly recommended.

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

The Plague of the Zombies was, I believe I am correct in stating, Hammer’s only attempt at a zombie film. And a very worthy attempt it is too.

John Gilling had made some interesting movies in the film noir genre in the 50s, most notably Deadly Nightshade (1953) and The Challenge (1960), before becoming a semi-regular director for Hammer in the 60s. He made five movies for Hammer, including two back-to-back in 1966, the underrated The Reptile and The Plague of the Zombies. In fact they were made more or less simultaneously using the same locations and sets.

An eminent physician, Sir James Forbes (André Morell), has been called down to Cornwall by Dr Peter Tompson (Brook Williams). Dr Tompson is general practitioner in a small village and he is facing a situation that has him alarmed and perplexed. Young villagers are dying in disturbing numbers and he can find no clues whatsoever as to the causes. The situation is not helped by the refusal of the superstitious villagers to allow him to conduct post-mortem examinations.

Sir James is accompanied by his daughter Sylvia (Diane Clare). It’s immediately obvious that there is something very wrong in the village. On their arrival they see a funeral disrupted by a crowd of young and obviously wealthy ruffians on horseback. Sylvia’s old school friend Alice (Jacqueline Pearce), now married to Dr Tompson, seems ill and very uneasy. Dr Tompson is drinking more than he should. The atmosphere in the village’s pub is tense to say the least.

Sir James convinces Dr Tompson that they will be able to make no progress unless they can carry out a post-mortem on one of the victims, even if they have to rob the victim’s grave to do so. Which is what they proceed to do. The discovery of an empty coffin in the grave adds to the mystery.

It transpires that someone is practising voodoo, but to what ends? Why do they need an army of zombies?

This movie doesn’t have too many familiar Hammer faces but the cast is perfectly adequate. André Morell is superb as Forbes, Jacqueline Pearce is excellent, Diane Clare is quite competent. Brook Williams is a little dull but Dr Tompson is a rather thankless role. The biggest surprise is Michael Ripper - he isn’t playing an innkeeper! He plays the local police sergeant, and has great fun doing so.

This film has all the usual strengths of a Hammer film. The gothic atmosphere is effective, as you would expect with Arthur Grant doing the cinematography. With Bernard Robinson as production designer the movie looks splendid.

The zombie make-up effects work very well indeed.

Within a couple of years of the release of this film George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead would usher in a new era of gore-drenched zombie movies. Personally I prefer zombie movies of the earlier type, and I much prefer a movies that tie zombies in with voodoo, as this one does quite effectively. There isn’t much gore in The Plague of the Zombies but it still manages to evoke some genuine chills and a nicely creepy ambience.

Anchor Bay’s old DVD release still stands up extremely well.

The Plague of the Zombies is classic Hammer gothic horror. It looks good, it has a strong cast, a decent script and it benefits from having a director who knows what he’s doing and isn’t trying to be excessively clever. This is fine entertainment for Hammer fans. Highly recommended.

Shadow of the Cat (1961)

Shadow of the Cat is a 1961 British gothic horror movie that is almost a Hammer film. It was shot at Bray Studios, it was directed by John Gilling who went on to make some of Hammer’s best 60s horror films, it stars Barbara Shelley, it was photographed by Arthur Grant and the production design was by Bernard Robinson. Officially, and for complex legal and financial reasons, it was credited to BHP Productions but it was in fact a Hammer film in all but name.

On the other hand it’s also very different to the usual run of Hammer gothic horror movies. More on that later.

Ella Venable has mysteriously disappeared. Actually there’s nothing mysterious about it - the audience knows right from the word go that Ella has been the victim of foul play. There was only one witness to the crime - Ella’s cat Tabitha. Now you might think that a killer has nothing to worry about when the only witness is a cat. You might think that, but you’d be wrong. 

Tabitha is not exactly a helpless little kitty. Ordinarily she’s the friendliest of felines but she doesn’t take kindly to having her mistress murdered. She wants revenge. And for a small tabby cat she’s rather determined.

Ella’s husband Walter (André Morell) has called Ella’s niece to the house, partly to give her the bad news that Ella wrote her out of her will shortly before her disappearance. Walter has also assembled other family members - the three most disreputable members of the family. He needs help in order to deal with a formidable menace - one small tabby cat. Walter has his faithful butler Andrew but although Andrew is a strong healthy young man he’s no match for an enraged and vengeful feline.

One interesting, and clever, feature of this film is that the cat’s actions are somewhat ambiguous. The murderers certainly believe the cat is actively plotting to get them. But does the cat actually have supernatural (or at least preternatural) powers? Or has Tabitha simply seen something horrific and is she is now merely behaving the way any animal might behave, striking out instinctively at people who have frightened her? We do get some intriguing cat point-of-view shots that imply that the cat has a more-than-animal understanding of the situation but even here she could be just fixating on something that has disturbed her animal mind. There’s a memorable scene where Walter is stalking the cat in the basement but we have the distinct impression that it’s really the cat who is stalking him. This ambiguity works quite effectively - is it the cat seeking revenge or the killers’ own consciences haunting them?

Hammer made movies in black-and-white but their gothic horror movies were invariably in colour. This was what gave them their distinctive flavour - gothic atmosphere achieved with bold lush colour rather than moody black-and-white. Shadow of the Cat is however in black-and-white. This, among other things, makes it seem old-fashioned compared to the typical Hammer gothics. One thing is immediately apparent - director Gilling and cinematographer Arthur Grant can make a black-and-white horror movie look every bit as good as a colour film. They can use shadows just as effectively as they used bold colour in other Hammer productions. If you’re a fan of the classic Universal style of black-and-white gothic horror you will be well satisfied with the job they’ve done here.

The movie opens with a shot of the decaying gothic mansion of the Venables. It is your typical gothic dark and stormy night, and an old lady is reading Poe aloud. This again emphasises the movie’s affinity with the classic American horror cinema of the 1930s. 

Another point of departure from the regular Hammer style is the setting. It’s Edwardian England rather than 19th century central Europe, with cars as well as carriages.

Barbara Shelley was one of the great scream queens and she gives her usual fine performance. André Morell, a splendid actor, is wonderful as the irascible but very frightened Walter. The other cast members are excellent but it’s Shelley and Morell who dominate the movie.

This movie is at times reminiscent of the Old Dark House movies that were so popular in the 1930s. The atmosphere and the setup are both similar and it has a lot of the same ingredients - a group of people who don’t trust one another thrown together in a crumbling gothic pile, a plot driven by scheming relatives after an inheritance, suggestions of the supernatural that may turn out to be no more than suspicions.

Apart from its gothic trappings Shadow of the Cat has a lot more in common with Hammer’s black-and-white contemporary psychological thrillers of the early 60s than with their gothic horror movies.

One criticism that has been leveled at this movie is that a small domestic cat is not a very scary monster. That criticism misses the point. In fact the key to the movie is that it’s a psychological horror movie not a monster movie. The cat is not the monster. The monsters are human. The cat is merely the catalyst (if you’ll excuse my awful pun) that triggers the killers’ own feelings of guilt and anxiety.

On the subject of the cat special mention must be made of the cat’s trainer, John Holmes. This is not the kind of movie in which the cat just has to sit on a cushion looking cute. She’s not a bit player, she’s one of the leads and she has to do some serious acting! Getting the cat to do what was needed on cue must have been quite a challenge but however they did it it worked.

Network have done their customary very creditable job with the DVD. Picture quality is superb. Unusually for Network there are some worthwhile extras including an excellent documentary on the film.

Shadow of the Cat is not at all a typical Hammer production but it’s a well-crafted and generally very nifty little horror flick. It is a throwback to an earlier era of horror, which may be one of the reasons it’s been so often overlooked. The old-fashioned feel is however quite deliberate and today it makes this film seem quite refreshing. Highly recommended.