Category Archives: retrospective

1960s Horror Retrospective: The Flesh and the Fiends (1960)

20 Saturday Apr 2024

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Having journeyed through the rise and fall of Universal Classic Monsters during the early thirties and the passing of the baton to British Film production company Hammer Films in the mid-fifties, it’s time to switch my celluloid gaze upon the 1960s and the twists and turns that the decade would take in the name of horror. 

To begin, my focus falls upon a feature that at the time struggled to get deserved recognition, both in production and when it eventually hit the screens, but has since gone on to become a cult film in its own right.

Directed by John Gilling (who would go on to call the shots for a few Hammer Films later in the decade) The Flesh and the Fiends would be a re-working of a previous feature called The Greed of William Hart penned by Gilling, but suffered at the hands of the British Board of Film Censors. The request that all references to the real-life murderers, Burke and Hare be removed would be rectified for TFATF, with the opening title displaying, “”[this] is a story of vice and murder. We make no apologies to the dead. It is all true.” 

Based on the macabre events set in the 1820’s when the 19th Century medical doctor, Robert Knox would purchase corpses for medical purposes from the afore-mentioned Burke and Hare. Knox, brought to the screen by another Hammer alumni, fresh from his rise to fame as Doctor Frankenstein, Peter Cushing, who noted the similarities between Knox and the Baron, “The minds of these exceptional men were driven by a single desire: to inquire into the unknown. Ahead of their time, like most great scientists, their work and motives were misunderstood.”

Cushing was magnificent in this role, even going to significant measures to enact the same droopy eye that Knox bore from contracting smallpox when he was young. 

Cushing is not the only standout though as both Burke and Hare are magnificently portrayed by George Rose and Donald Pleasance, adding some offbeat humour amongst the gruesome scenes, especially in some of the murders that take place. The finest example of this coming when Burke (Rose) suffocates Aggie (Esme Cameron) while Hare (Pleasance) is dancing a jig, perfectly juxtaposing the brutality on show.

Cinematographer Monty Berman also provides some striking images, a master pf black and white photography, he managed to capture the dank and dismal scenes in 19th Century Edinburgh. This along with Gilling’s knack to take the action scenes by the horns with his own unique bruteish fashion, is one that left a compelling mark on the genre, kick-starting the decade in style. While it was impactful in British cinemas, it went without a trace Stateside and was considered a failure. It does deserve greater recognition, outshone as it was by the likes of Hammer’s style and substance, The Flesh and the Fiends, the mood of the piece was a grim and tormentous affair.

– Saul Muerte

The 4 Faces of Hammer’s Dr Jekyll

02 Saturday Mar 2024

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Across Hammer Films extensive canon of work there have been four adaptations of RL Stevenson’s Gothic tale, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Having found success in recreating Universal’s Classic Monster line with adaptations of Frankenstein and Dracula, it would seem logical to turn to another dark tale for inspiration. The mode of choice would fall under scrutiny however by casting English actor Bernard Bresslaw to lead a comic interpretation, called The Ugly Duckling, off the back of their somewhat successful comedy feature, I Only Arsked! Producer Michael Carreras had high hopes for the feature but the box office return would counter his bold prediction with a loss of $20,000.

Their second foray released less than a year later in 1960 would bring Hammer staple Christopher Lee as a supporting role and veteran director Terence Fisher at the helm. The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll would see Paul Massie take on the titular role, experimenting on himself, he turns into his alter ego, Mr. Hyde, a lothario playboy who discovers his friend, Paul (Lee) has been taking advantage of his fortune and stealing the heart of his wife, Kitty (Dawn Addams). Now hellbent on revenge and fury, Jekyll allows Hyde to fuel his energy with a plot to kill Paul.

Despite the combination of Lee and Fisher, the feature failed to ignite the paying public. Lee, who was initially disgruntled at not being offered the lead, actually turns out a decent performance, but surprisingly Fisher’s direction falls flat and fails to connect with screenwriter Cyril Wolf Mankowitz’s vision; Fisher choosing to go with old school formality and adapting the initial intention.

Eagle-eyed viewers however, would spot young up and comer, Oliver Reed as a troublemaker at the Sphynx nightclub.

The choice to alter and cut out certain choices due to time constraints ultimately led to a poor box office return, losing around $30,000. So far, Stevenson’s tale had not proved successful for Hammer and the glow of Hammer Horror was starting to lose its lustre. It would not however deter the British film company from going back to the source material with a third outing released over a decade later in 1971 and starring Hammer’s new flesh and blood leading male, Ralph Bates to take over the mantel from Peter Cushing, mainly due to him taking on the iconic role of Baron Frankenstein. The title of Brian Clemens screenplay, Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde was the stuff of Michael Carreras dreams, leaning heavily into the sex and image that Hammer became synonymous with in the seventies.

With model Martine Beswick as the alter ego to Bates’ Dr Jekyll, the piece was played for laughs but would heighten the terror through the guise of womanhood to hide the bloody male persona lurking beneath the feminine exterior. It’s potentially the boldest of directions taken by Hammer’s revisioning of RL Stevenson’s work, and one that was lost on the audience at the time, failing once again to connect. A shame as it holds up well today and still poses an interesting perspective.

The latest incarnation takes the concept one step further with casting Eddie Izzard as a transgender descendant of Dr Jekyll, and could easily have slipped into worrisome terrain had the creatives decided to take the story in a troublesome direction.

Movie Review: Doctor Jekyll (2024)

Thankfully though, the Hammer Films team play it straight and keep the terror to a slow burn rising of fear and dread, never fully knowing where or when evil may strike next.

It’s still early to say whether this version will leave a mark on the audience, but this new Hammer vision that has been orchestrated by new CEO, John Gore promises to lead the infamous horror production company before a modern audience whilst still keeping the tone and flavour of the films of yester-year.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: The Whip and the Body (1963)

29 Tuesday Aug 2023

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1963 would prove to be an instrumental year for the Master of Macabre, Mario Bava. Having kick started with the giallo flick The Girl Who Knew Too Much, before teaming up with Boris Karloff for the horror anthology Black Sabbath, he would round things off with the stylised and sadomasochistic film starring Christopher Lee called The Whip and the Body.

A somewhat convoluted tale, Lee stars as Kurt Menliff, a man who has been kicked off the family will because of his relationship with a servant girl, who committed suicide. When Menliff returns to reclaim his title, he is later found murdered, but mysterious sightings lead locals to believe that he has returned as a ghost to seek vengeance. 

The Whip and the Body is probably most known for its sadomasochistic themes that dominate through the middle period of the film, causing Italian censors to slap an 18 rating on it, only for it to be seized for charges of obscenity. The movie would be heavily cut down for American and British audiences along with being heavily dubbed by none of the original actors, which then demolished any clear narrative, reducing it to a complex mess.

There are some genuinely interesting scenes on show, but due to the nature of its release, the film is pale in comparison to the other two movies that Bava released that year, despite being at the peak of his filmmaking. 

Despite all this, Bava still manages to capture his visual style, working alongside cinematographer Ubaldo Terzano once more having previously combined for Black Sunday. Lee too provides a magnanimous presence on screen that proves he was born to be a leading man.  

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: Cannibal Girls (1973)

08 Thursday Jun 2023

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When the name Ivan Reitman is mentioned, most cinephiles will bring to mind 80’s comedy films such as Meatballs, Stripes, or Ghostbusters, all of which star the great  Bill Murray with the latter two featuring Harold Ramis. In the early seventies though, for his third feature, Reitman would direct another comedy great Eugene Levy as Clifford, a travelling guitar player who runs into trouble along with his girlfriend, Gloria (Andrea Martin – another Canadian comic alumni). 

It’s evident that Reitman has a dark comic vein, especially notable in Cannibal Girls, which uses a low-budget to tell a grindhouse story about a couple who unwittingly stay at a house run by a woman with an appetite for human flesh. 

This feature is integral to the style and approach to Reitman’s filmography that would pave the way to iconic cinema hits. It would provide the building blocks for the film director to recognise the need for the talent to shine on screen, when their natural comic ability resonates. None more so than with Levy here, who along with his co-stars was provided the opportunity to improvise their dialogue throughout.

As the film ebbs and flows through the outer rims of morbid humour, it struggles to lift itself in places, snagged under the weight of what is essentially a simple premise. It plays some typical traits in a dream sequence and and a few twists that also includes an untrustworthy narrator in the mix. Despite some of these flaws, it is fun to see Levy with some freedom to ad-lib and for Reitman to hone his craft, for movie lovers to delve into.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: Psycho II (1983)

03 Saturday Jun 2023

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Where unrest lies around remakes and sequels, there also comes the age-old response of untouched gold concerning “classic’ features that come into effect. Among them is undoubtedly Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, based on Robert Bloch’s novel.  The feature is so embedded in masterly terrain that the very notion of going near such material would be scorned upon, even Gus Van Sant’s controversial shot-for-shot remake was lambasted for daring to go into the material. So, when Bloch himself ventured with a novelised sequel back in 1982, that lambasted slasher films, Hollywood decided to strike back and carve out their own Norman Bates return some 22 years after its predecessor was released. 

Psycho II would even struggle at first to entice its star Anthony Perkins to reprise the infamous role, but upon reading the script by Tom Holland, he agreed to do so. Holland himself had only been tied to screenwriting duties and would cameo as Deputy Norris here. It would only be another 3 years before Holland would capture horror enthusiasts further with his directorial role for Fright Night. 

Helming the directorial duties for Psycho II would be Hitchcock student and heavily influenced by the auteur, Richard Franklin, who had already made Patrick and Roadgames using similar styles and techniques that the Master of Suspense came synonymous for. It would seem then that Franklin was the perfect choice to steer the ship and blend this continuation for the Norman Bates storyline.

Part of the appeal for this narrative would be the magnificent Vera Miles also returning for her role of Lila Loomis, although the treatment of her character arc is brought to contention which sees her on a malicious vendetta to put Bates behind bars again. Whilst you can understand her views, it is her gruesome demise that gets fans fuming a little. Personally, I like this journey and the subject of nature vs nurture that is brought to the helm. Can a man really change or is he doomed to repeat himself when constantly subjected to forced opinions and spectacle?

Throw in the mix, some great supporting roles in Meg Tilly as Mary Loomis (slightly biased opinion on my count as I adored her when I was younger… and still do), Robert Loggia as Dr. Bill Raymond to cast the psychological scrutiny, and Dennis Franz as the drunk motel caretaker.

Eagle-eyed viewers will also note Perkins’ son, Oz (now a notable film director – The Blackcoat’s Daughter, I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Gretel and Hansel) as a young Norman Bates too.

The question remains though, is Psycho II a worthy sequel?

Well let’s look at Surgeons of Horror’s own six step criteria to place the feature under the microscope.

1, Identify the ideas, themes & executional elements that make the first film great.  Or at least good.  Or at least worthy of being sequelised.

The original movie was the epitome of suspense, filled with certain twists and turns in storytelling technique. It also posed an intriguing antagonist in serial killer Norman Bates and his alter ego “Mother”, that would lead some to ponder what happened to him and did he remain in the confines of a psychiatric ward?

2. Pay homage and do not violate/ignore said ideas and themes and elements.

It helps to have a visionary such as Franklin at the helm to carry out the look and feel of the original Bringing back Perkins and Miles to resurrect their character also lends weight to carry the torch, but with the worthy depth to character also forces the direction into a different stance in order to establish the narrative. There is also a lot of set design and props taken from the original that features here to recapture the look and feel.

3. Introduce new/expanded themes, ideas and elements that will NATURALLY ALIGN to your first ideas, themes & elements.  (Ie: Don’t use your second movie to discredit & contradict your first).

Set 20 years later lays the grounds for further expansion by placing Bates in the position of rehabilitation. The subject matter of can a person be truly reformed when they were fundamentally unhinged is ripe to explore and Perkins does a magnificent job of placing Bates with the usual “innocent’ wonder combined with a slow descent into madness. Introducing a second generation of Loomis also explores shared trauma but under a new, more sympathetic outlook that contrasts her mother’s. Both Mary and Norman have a similarity in dominant mother’s and try to shirk their control to their own detriment. By placing the psyche under scrutiny, and twisting the perspectives of all throughout, the audience is kept guessing as to which way the knife will turn. In this respect it more than ticks the fourth rule.

4. To underline point 3 – DO NOT rehash the first film and just give people “more of the same”.

5. DO NOT-NOT rehash the first film by giving more of the same…. BUT “BIGGER”.

To support this choice of direction, the slow unravel of psychosis on our central characters and in doing so, grounding the narrative, the larger than life component that some sequels suffer under, is thankfully absent here.

And finally…

6. Be a good enough stand-alone film by itself.

Can this film truly stand alone without the impact of the first? In short, no, not without the same kind of delivery. The film does carry a narrative that is strong enough, and with the flashback placed in the prologue, enough is provided for an audience member to come in cold and still value the film by its own worth,

While it’s clear that one can’t merely replicate the quality and vision of a classic, the team behind Psycho II give a damn good crack at pushing into new terrain without scarring the original vision too greatly. For me, the film is a decent attempt at exploring Bates’ character and I am grateful that Perkins was given a fairly tight storyline and subject matter to expand and explore this character in more detail. Some forty years have passed now since its release, and looking back it’s well worth a revisit.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective – The Birds (1963)

28 Tuesday Mar 2023

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Before Steven Spielberg instilled our fear of the ocean and created the first Summer Blockbuster in Jaws, Alfred Hitchcok attempted to do something similar but instead of sharks, the attack on humanity came from the skies for his feature adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s The Birds.

Not for the first time would Hitch go to Du Maurier’s bibliography for inspiration having done so some twenty years earlier in arguably his first success in Hollywood, Rebecca. That film would go on to receive Best Picture Academy Award, but notably had Producer David O. Selznick’s fingerprints all over the production’s end result. By 1963 however, Hitch had firmly established himself as a prominent actor in the Golden Hills with a style remarkably his own and riding on the crest of the success of Psycho.

The Birds, a short story, would be given a face lift from the small Cornish town from which it was initially set, being transported to north of San Francisco and the idyllic Bodega Bay (a place and region that Hitch fell in love with).

Looking back at this film at the time of writing to celebrate its 60th Anniversary, there are obvious flaws that come to light when contrasted with Jaws. Namely, depth of character, which has often been criticised towards the screenwriter, Evan Hunter, but to do so would be to neglect the Hitchcock style and direct precision choices made by the auteur. The Birds is the epitome of style over substance. 

We initially follow Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), the depiction of Hitchcock Blonde captured on screen, the perfect mould for him to carve out his vision of the “statuesque blonde with a cool, sophisticated manner”. The scene is set in San Francisco as we witness her enter a pet store and encounter the brash, machismo Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) and a cool-yet-flirtatious dialogue sparks between them. Enough to encourage Daniels to buy lovebirds and drive off to his hometown of Bodega Bay to give his younger sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright – yes, that Veronica Cartright) as a birthday present. As you do. All this foolish foreplay is a facade and symbolic of the complacency that is created in humanity. It serves as the true horror lurking in the clouds and the menace that hangs in the air – The Birds. After all, as Hitch put it, The Birds are the stars. Hitch was the king of suspense, and this is what he plays with, delicately enticing the fear to come to the audience in strong steady beats, starting with the one swooping gull attack Melanie Daniels head, then the attack on the farm, which leads Mitch’s mother, Lydia (the magnificent Jessica Tandy to play the overbearing matriarch) to discover the bloodied remains of a local farmer. This scene is also the only real gory sequence shot, the rest, by design, leads the audience to fill in the gaps. 

The film would be iconised by two particular sequences, the school attack as birds descend on the children trying to escape. And the moment that Melanie gets trapped inside the attic with the feathered frenzy in an isolated environment. That’s not to forget the carnage that escalates outside the town eatery, when a further attack ensues, following a weighty dialogue sequence where local townsfolk try to unpack the cause of the bird attacks. The real moment of despair would be in the picture’s final sequence as a traumatised Daniels has been reduced to her core, escorted away in her car with Mitch and his family surrounded by a sea of birds, never knowing when the next strike will come, if it all. This ambiguous ending, one that is echoed from the source novel, left a lot of moviegoers bewildered, but for me, it’s the killer stroke deliberately left hanging in the air that hits strong and true. 

By flipping the perspective of caged birds to caged humans, hiding in fear of predators, seeking protecting behind fimble walls, and also leading to an unknown conclusion and embracing the exterior, the audience are also thrust into the wilderness with a faint sign of hope to lead the way.

  • Saul Muerte

 1 Counts, K. B. (1980). The Making of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Cinemafantastique, 10, 15-35.

Retrospective – The Crazies (1973)

16 Thursday Mar 2023

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A young brother and sister teasingly play together one evening when all of a sudden their father begins smashing up their living room with a crowbar and dousing it all in gasoline. The young girl rushes to her Mother, only to find her lying dead in bed. The house goes up in the flames and the opening credits begin. It has been fifty years since George A Romero’s The Crazies hit screens. Now sitting down to watch this film in a post-pandemic world there is certainly a strange element of familiarity here at times though certainly this is a much darker and bleaker imagining.

The pace of the first 20 minutes is rapid, from the opening scene that hooks you right in we’re introduced to our main characters, ex-green beret and volunteer fire-fighter, David and his wife, Judy, a local nurse. Both awoken in the night from calls for both of their professional assistance, David to the house fire and Judy to two children who have barely survived the arson of their home. Already the military has boots in the ground and quickly take control of the situation, we’re informed via an exposition dump montage as the various levels of military confer on the situation across locations; a military plane crash landed in the hills near this town, an experimental vaccine (we later learn bio-weapon) has leaked and found its way into the water supply. The goal is to maintain a quarantine of the town so that the virus does not spread further. The way that Romero injects so much energy into this set up is a little disorientating, it feels stylised yet authentic and immediately hooks us.

The Crazies was Romero’s third film post-Night of the Living Dead, (after There’s Always Vanilla & Hungry Wives) and truly feels like the spiritual successor to Night.  The film follows a group of townsfolk, bound together by happenstance, trying to survive a plethora of dangers: a virus that has leaked into their water supply, the infected Crazies violently causing destruction, the hazmat-suited soldiers trying to contain the outbreak and the uninfected townsfolk fighting against this forceful quarantine. The main theme of the film is a distrust of the government and the bureaucracy in charge of keeping us safe that will ultimately lead to more bloodshed. The shadow of the Vietnam War looms large here, we even have two of the main characters being vets, with one of them experiencing bursts of paranoid violence evoking wartime flashbacks thanks to the virus. The soldiers rush into peoples homes, dragging them out of bed, displacing them. A character even remarks that “this will feel like an invasion”. Romero has always passionately struck at the structures of power and control with his social commentary. It’s messily done here but the ambition and obvious talent gives this film a level of depth and interest that is utterly lacking in so many other grindhouse movies of the time.

The film truly feels like the stepping stone from Night to Dawn, the scale is sized up from a farmhouse to a whole town. The imagery of the hazmat suits is iconic and a deeply unsettling force that is often undercut by the ADR lines inserted for them, often comedic or mundane. The soldiers are mostly unaware of what they’re doing here and so there is some empathy built towards them. It’s the lines of communications, the unnecessary red-tape that ends up being the main villain of this film.

The Virus code-name Trixie, is initially reported to be an experimental vaccine that has been let loose, the truth is that it is a man-made bio-weapon, when infected the victim often becomes violent and acts straight-up coo-coo. This element is a lot of fun, giving us an old woman knitting happily while her husband is having an active shootout one room away, a priest setting himself on fire, and a father and adult daughter almost- Ok maybe FUN isn’t the right word. It gives us absurd and unsettling variety though, like the image of a bunch of infected townsfolk rushing violently towards the soldiers, accompanied by a woman that is just sweeping with a broom, unperturbed. It all lacks the clean and simple effect that we get from the Night of the Living Dead’s ghouls but when a character starts giggling at danger or acting a little goofy you start getting nervous. It’s interesting to think that if this film was more successful at the time Romero could’ve made Dawn of the Crazies, robbing us of the modern zombie genre but giving us something that would have been far wilder and weirder.

I had a lot of fun watching this but it does feel a little strung together. The initial impact wanes in the middle chunk with a few great impactful moments scattered towards the end, particularly with the main scientist desperately working towards a cure. It’s a fascinating piece of horror history and an important DNA strand for the zombie genre as we know it. The fans of Romero will find a lot to enjoy here, but it ultimately lacks the finesse and character depth that would elevate Dawn and Day of the Dead into crossover appeal. It’s an inventive grindhouse flick with the makings of greatness, and that is definitely something worth witnessing.

  • Oscar Jack

Further links:

Podcast: George A Romero’s The Crazies

Podcast: George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead

Podcast: George A Romero’s Dawn of the Dead

Podcast: George A Romero’s Day of the Dead

Podcast: Lori Cardille interview

Retrospective – The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)

11 Saturday Mar 2023

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To conclude the decade, following a string of successful hits in the horror genre, Hammer Films would produce an oft neglected feature when placed alongside their showpieces, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy, possibly as a result of poor distribution in the States. It’s a shame as it bears all the hallmarks of Director Terence Fisher’s classic traits that made such an impression on moviegoing audiences, and stars Christopher Lee as our potential hero and romantic love interest.

The stage is set in Paris at the turn of the century where we meet a doctor named Georges Bonnet (Anton Diffring, who for years I thought was the same guy who played Decker from the A-Team (Lance LeGault) Where Eagles Dare). Bonnet harbours a disturbing secret however, the secret to eternal youth, using a procedure that belies his 104 years of age. The only way that he can maintain this is through a surgical operation on the glands, and needs the assistance of long time accomplice Dr. Ludwig Weiss (Arnold Marle) and the use of human fluid. Not exactly something that is available on tap, and so Bonnet resorts to murder, all in the name of immortality.

When Ludwig’s age becomes a hindrance though, Bonnet must seek alternative means, perhaps in Pierre (Lee) a fellow surgeon with a high degree of promise. Bonnet is also slipping up however when a model Margo (Delphi Lawrence) goes missing in mysterious circumstances, and Janine (Hazel Court – The Curse of Frankenstein) continues to pursue his love interests. How long can Bonnet hide his secret? And will Pierre (who also has an adoration towards Janine in this macabre love triangle) find out the truth and put an end to Bonnet’s evil doings?

Initially based on a play by Barry Lyndon called The Man in Half Moon Street and starred both Diffring and Marle in their respective roles in an anthology tv series, in which an adaptation was scripted by Jimmy Sangster. Hammer would garner the rights to a movie adaptation peppered with their current look and feel through Fisher’s more than capable hands. Initially if Producer Anthony Carreras had his way, another Lee, Cushing vehicle would have been produced but Cushing would have to step aside due to illness, a move that infamously had Carreras fuming and seeking legal action against the high profile actor.

Some may feel that there is more style than substance on show here, which I can see their position but despite this and the dialogue heavy sequences, both Diffring’s performance and the effects when the ageing process starts to take effect, make this a worthy watch.

  • Saul Muerte. 

Retrospective – The Mummy (1959)

24 Friday Feb 2023

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Within the last three years of the 1950s, Hammer Films had reshaped the Universal Classic monsters canon with The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Revenge of Frankenstein, bringing into full glorious and gory colour for a then, modern audience, With it, Hammer would also unite one of celluloid history’s greatest co-stars in the horror genre in Peter Cushing and Sir Christopher Lee. Before the turn of the decade, the British production house would turn their attention to yet another Universal offering, The Mummy, and keep that winning formula of Cushing, Lee and film director Terence Fisher. Cushing played the dashing hero, and Lee subjected to the ‘monster’ character and hidden behind full make up for the last time with Hammer. It was a tortuous and gruelling affair for its two leads, and would lead Cushing to the hospital following a scene gone awry. Cushing would also become more bold in his acting choices and in cementing his character traits on screen and guiding his director in some of teh action sequences.

The familiar tale of the mummified High Priest Kharis (Lee) resurrected under the power of Mehemet Bey (George Pastell) to seek revenge for disturbing Princess Ananka’s tomb, is given the Hammer treatment. Here Cushing plays the part of John Banning, one of the doomed expedition crew. His father, Stephen (Felix Aylmer) has been driven mad and escorted to the asylum with his prophecies of the forthcoming mummy. Initially scoffed at and ridiculed, the subject takes a dark and sour turn when Stephen is killed by Kharis’ bandaged hands.

Kharis would also be moved by his lost love, Ananka, whose appearance is uncannily similar to John Banning’s wife, (Yvonne Furneaux) and thus brings about our damsel in distress theme.

Jimmy Sangster would once again herald the screenplay writing duties, fusing Universal’s The Mummy; The Mummy’s Tomb; and The Mummy’s Ghost to puff out his take on the story for Hammer. 

Upon its cinematic release, the name Hammer was starting to cause quite a stir among moviegoers, and The Mummy became a big success for the company. It even surpassed its successors in the box office and in some ways is a more solid feature in its narrative, and effects. Despite the climatic ending where Kharis played by go to stuntman Eddie Powell sinking into the depths of the quagmire, the British Film company was rising to new heights. And it was all in the name of horror.

  • Saul Muerte. 

Retrospective – The Hound of the Baskervilles (1958)

24 Friday Feb 2023

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Before Benedict Cumberbatch donned the deerstalker hat for Moffat and Gatiss’ modern interpretation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s infamous detective, another British icon had made an impressionable mark for Hammer Film Productions’ The Hound of the Baskervilles. Having already portrayed literature icons Baron Frankenstein and Van Helsing, it was time to turn his head towards Sherlock Holmes for one of his greatest adventures. 

His Doctor Watson would be ably performed by Andre Morell (The Plague of Zombies) who himself would become a Hammer staple, but it would be the casting of Sir Chrisopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskervilles (once again unite Hammer’s most memorable duo on screen) in the first representation of the tale in colour surrounding the dreaded curse and the beast the walks the moors.

Hammer would look to sensationalise or create drama that was absent from the initial storyline, including the tarantula scene. Probably the hardest trick was to produce a larger than life hound for the film’s climax; a tough act considering Lee’s stature, but Hammer found their answer with a Great Dane called Colonel. 

It was initially conceived to be the gateway to many more Sherlock Holmes’ adaptations, but would be the only occurrence, much to the company and cinephiles’ dismay. It would have been interesting to see Cushing take on the role in numerous other stories. 

The great Terence Fisher who had stamped his signature vision; and one that became synonymous with the Hammer style with The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula, would wield his take of the action from the Director’s chair. With the talent in front of the screen from which to mould the narrative, Fisher had created a feature that stands alongside these Gothic treatments that made Hammer Horror’s name, so it’s a shame that there weren’t more chances to delve within Conan Doyle’s world.

  • Saul Muerte