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Stop—Hammer Time [Spoilers Throughout]

M

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Not he of the baggy trousers but the movie studio.

There is a kickass boxset out:

www.amazon.co.uk/Ultimate-Hammer-Collec ... 000HN31KQ/

So I thought it was time for a thread.

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_Film_Productions

Contents of the Ultimate Hammer Collection:

Special Features

  • BLOOD FROM THE MUMMIES TOMB
    • Interviews with Valerie Leon & Christopher Wicking

      Stills Gallery

      Radio Spots

    DEMONS OF THE MIND
    • Commentary with director Peter Sykes, writer Christopher Wicking and co-star Virginia Weatherall

      Trailer

    DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS
    • 57 min doc: The Many Faces of Christopher Lee

    FEAR IN THE NIGHT
    • Commentary with Jimmy Sangster

      Trailer

    ONE MILLION YEARS B.C.
    • Interview with Raquel Welch

      Interview with Ray Harryhausen

    PREHISTORIC WOMEN
    • Trailer

    QUATERMASS & THE PIT
    • Trailer

    RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK
    • Trailer

    SCARS OF DRACULA
    • Commentary with Roy Ward Baker & Christopher Lee

      Stills Gallery

      Trailer

    SHE

    • Vanilla

    STRAIGHT ON TIL MORNING
    • Commentary with Rita Tushingham

      Trailer

    DEVIL RIDES OUT
    • Trailer

    HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN
    • Commentary with director Jimmy Sangster

      Interview with Veronica Carlson

      Poster & Stills Gallery

    THE NANNY
    • Commentary with director Jimmy Sangster

    PLAGUE OF ZOMBIES
    • Trailers

    THE REPTILE
    • Vanilla

    VENGEANCE OF SHE
    • Trailer

    THE WITCHES
    • Trailer

    TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER
    • Feature doc: To The Devil...The Death of Hammer

      Interview with Eddie Powell

      Trailer

    VIKING QUEEN
    • Trailer
Click to expand...
 
Hammer Sold (Again)

Hammer horror films set to return

Cult Hammer horror films will return to the big screen after the company behind the movies was sold to a group headed by Big Brother creator John de Mol.

At least $50m (£25m) will be spent on new horror films after British company Hammer Film Productions was sold to Dutch consortium Cyrte Investments.

The new owners have also acquired the Hammer group's back catalogue.

It includes almost 300 titles such as the famous Dracula series, which made actor Christopher Lee a household name.

The company was bought for an undisclosed sum.

Other famous Hammer films include The Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy.

Simon Oakes, head of the management team for the consortium, described Hammer as "a great British brand" and said the group wanted to develop Hammer's "global potential".

The team has plans to target "a new generation of horror lovers" via mobile phones and the internet, he said :roll:

The film company was founded in the 1930s but it was not until the 1950s that its name became synonymous with the horror genre. The company produced other genres including science fiction and comedies.

It is the second time Hammer Film Productions has been sold to private equity investors.

It was bought in February 2000 by a consortium including advertising guru and art collector Charles Saatchi, but no films have been produced since.

Story from BBC NEWS:

Published: 2007/05/10 19:15:04 GMT

© BBC MMVII
Click to expand...
 
That must be, ooh, the fifth Hammer comeback in twenty years. And look how well they went.
 
I've been looking for a good collection of Hammer films for ages, but they seem determined not to put all the classics in one set. Or even release them all in one series. Are there unresolved copyright issues or something?

Or am i missing a really definitive set somewhere?
Please advise.
 
The trouble with wanting "definitive" Hammer box sets is that different companies have the rights to different films, so it's unlikely to happen. You can get their first Frankenstein, Dracula and Mummy films in one set, though, which is a good starting point.
 
Cameras roll on new Hammer horror

Hammer Films has begun shooting in Donegal on its first production in almost 30 years - a horror thriller entitled The Wake Wood.

The film - about a couple who try to resurrect their dead daughter - stars Timothy Spall and Aidan Gillen.

It is the first feature from the cult British company since it was bought last year by a Dutch consortium.

Hammer became synonymous with the horror genre in the 1950s thanks to films like Dracula and The Mummy.

Other famous Hammer films include The Curse of Frankenstein and The Curse of the Werewolf.

Commemorative

Hammer's last feature production was The Lady Vanishes in 1979, a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic starring Elliott Gould and Cybill Shepherd.

Its last horror title, To the Devil a Daughter starring Christopher Lee, came out three years earlier.

Backed by the Irish Film Board, The Wake Wood is tentatively scheduled for a UK release in autumn 2009.

Earlier this year, the Royal Mail released a series of commemorative postage stamps celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hammer's first Dracula film.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7629245.stm
 
Does anyone out there know why the first Dracula film (Horror of) is only available to buy on region 1 DVD?

There are copies of a region 2 version available to buy on auction sites / Ebay etc, but I would have thought that if there was one film that Hammer would keep in print then this would be this one, especially as all the other ones are available?

I was hoping maybe they were going to announce a new 'uncut' release or something, but its been over a year now since it was last in stock anywhere.
 
It's probably just gone out of print on Region 2, but it'll be back soon I'm sure. You could always try for second hand?
 
gncxx said:
It's probably just gone out of print on Region 2, but it'll be back soon I'm sure. You could always try for second hand?
Click to expand...


Thanks for the reply (and sorry for the late reply - see my 'locked out' thread!)!

I ended up buying the 'Hammer Originals' three film box-set in the end (Dracula / Frankenstein / Mummy) - it cost me over £30 (as opposed to £2.99, which is what all the other Hammer films have cost me!), but at least I have them now, so no more searching around!

But I guarantee that now that I own them they'll announce a cheap re-release of them any day now - just my luck!
 
Glad you found them anyway, all top entertainment.
 
Santa Santa, I'll be good aaalllll year!

Hammer horror classics to be restored

The Plague Of The Zombies is one of the films to be restored in high definition
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

Hammer rises from the grave
In pictures: Hammer's golden age
Dozens of horror movies produced by Britain's Hammer studios are to be restored for their release on Blu-Ray.

More than 30 films will be resurrected, with several gaining new or extended scenes that were cut from the original.

Among them is Terence Fisher's Dracula, which will incorporate a recently-discovered extended death scene considered too gruesome in 1958.

Hammer was established in the 1934 and became synonymous with the horror genre in the 1950s.

Its run of monster movies included Dracula and The Curse Of Frankenstein, which made stars of British actors like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

After lying dormant since the 1980s, the company and its back catalogue were bought in 2007 by a consortium, and recently started producing new films including Let Me In and The Woman In Black.

The restoration of its older titles is a large undertaking, with the likes of Pinewood Studios, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros, Studio Canal and Paramount Pictures all contributing material.

In a press release, Hammer added that the Blu-Ray discs would contain "newly-filmed extras, including interviews with cast members".

The company is also asking members of the public to help it track down lost footage and deleted scenes from its movies.

Some discoveries have already been made - the original UK title sequence has been reinstated on The Plague of The Zombies, while the UK title cards for Dracula: Prince of Darkness will be included on its release.

Other classic gothic titles slated for restoration are Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, The Mummy, Frankenstein Created Woman, The Lost Continent, The Reptile Slave Girls and The Vengeance of She.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16629619
 
Cultjunky said:
Other classic gothic titles slated for restoration are Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, The Mummy, Frankenstein Created Woman, The Lost Continent, The Reptile Slave Girls and The Vengeance of She.
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Great news, but I think there's a comma missing there! There's no such film as The Reptile Slave Girls, but there are two films called The Reptile and Slave Girls (or Prehistoric Women as it's otherwise known). Weird that they'd go for The Vengeance of She and not their more famous Ursula Andress version, unless they're doing that as well.
 
I'd watch The Reptile Slave Girls if they make it.
 
Perhaps whoever at the Beeb wrote the piece up was thinking along the same lines as Timble :lol:
 
The first trailer for ‘The Quiet Ones’, the new horror from Hammer Films, has arrived - exclusive to Yahoo Movies UK.

It’s the studio’s first production since the record-breaking ‘The Woman In Black’ - which became the highest-grossing British horror film of the past 20 years.

Inspired by true events, ‘The Quiet Ones’ tells the story of an unorthodox professor (played by ‘Mad Men’s Jared Harris) who uses controversial methods and leads his best students off the grid to take part in a dangerous experiment: to create a poltergeist.

Based on the theory that paranormal activity is caused by human negative energy, the rogue scientists perform a series of tests on a young patient, pushing her to the edge of sanity.

As frightening occurrences begin to take place with shocking and gruesome consequences, the group quickly realizes they have triggered a force more terrifying and evil than they ever could have imagined.

‘The Quiet Ones’ was filmed at The Bodleian Library and Merton College in Oxford, and also features Sam Clafli, who starred in ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’.

Hammer was founded in 1934 and produced films until the 1980s. They returned to film production in 2010 with the critically acclaimed ‘Let Me In’.
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http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/the-quiet-on ... 37948.html
 
That's a (minor) coincidence, I was wondering today what had happened to Hammer and why they hadn't been striking while the iron was hot after The Woman in Black. Anyway, this looks OK but I hope it's not a Stone Tape rerun and they've found a new twist.
 
A bit early for Halloween, the Guardian published this moment-by-moment account of Blood From the Mummy's Tomb:

Liveblog of BFTMT

It's in the funereal little box of Hammy Horrors, which kicked off this thread.

Hammer were annoyed if the bbfc did not honour their offerings with the X-Certificate. I have to say that a lot of the fun went out of film-going when that turned to 18 or, a few years earlier, when I did. I think it's true to say that horrors were not taken nearly so seriously in the US, where they were knowingly aimed at the teenage market.

My own choice for Halloween was the 1958 (Horror of) Dracula, which I was half-surprised to discover had never come my way before. I was nodding briefly at times, despite the loud DRA-CU-LA trumpetings on the soundtrack.

Harker is a librarian in this one, arriving to catalogue the collection of the Prince of Darkness - it raises a few questions about how and when vampires read. I got a bit confused when the very English family turn out to be resident in Germany but Dracula's castle is also relocated there. In case things get too claustrophobic, there seems to be a border-crossing between them, thoughtfully labelled Douane, though nothing else seems French.

Cushing seems to be wrong every time in this one but the ladies don't seem to mind too much when the rather dashing young Christopher Lee makes for their heaving jugulars. That's all the bloody blogging I am going to do. Don't have nightmares. I didn't! :)
 
And now, the ones that got away...
In the mid-1970s, as Michael Carreras struggled to keep British company Hammer Films afloat, they announced a number of projects that never went into production. With promotional advance sales artwork by Tom Chantrell and to be filmed in India, Kali Devil Bride of Dracula was one of these. Artwork on the Tom Chantrell website, shows that at some point this project was also known as Dracula and the Blood Lust of Kali.

Other film projects that never got beyond the drawing board included an adaptation of the American Vampirella comic, Nessie (obviously about the Loch Ness monster), Stone of Evil, Victim of His Imagination, and Zeppelin vs. Pterodactysl.
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http://horrorpedia.com/2013/11/16/kali- ... erodacyls/

The Nessie poster looks awesome -- it could bring down an oil-rig!
 
I have a feeling the Hammer Nessie would have been Gorgo Part 2, besides we'd already seen the beast in the Doctor Who story with the Zygons in some of the most incredible special effects ever broadcast on British television.
 
gncxx said:
...we'd already seen the beast in the Doctor Who story with the Zygons in some of the most incredible special effects ever broadcast on British television.
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"Incredible" doesn't do 1970s Doctor Who effects justice. I noticed a Zygon in the trailer for the new Who. Hopefully, the effects will be rather more credible this time around...
 
Would love to see Zeppelin vs. Pterodactysl.
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Just e-mail that title to someone in the Sci-fi channel and in a couple of months you can be sure the C. Thomas Howell will be starring as a Zeppelin captain lost over a remote Amazonian plateau.......
 
feen5 said:
Would love to see Zeppelin vs. Pterodactysl.
Click to expand...

Just e-mail that title to someone in the Sci-fi channel and in a couple of months you can be sure the C. Thomas Howell will be starring as a Zeppelin captain lost over a remote Amazonian plateau.......
Click to expand...

There was an episode of The Lost World involving an airship but no dacs.

I had a dream the other night of the Earth being struck by asteroid fragments followed by a zombie plague. I'll get on to SF about that.
 
ramonmercado said:
I had a dream the other night of the Earth being struck by asteroid fragments followed by a zombie plague. I'll get on to SF about that.
Click to expand...

You're about thirty years too late:

Night of the Comet

However it's probably ripe for a re-boot.
 
ramonmercado said:
bigphoot1 said:
ramonmercado said:
Would love to see Zeppelin vs. Pterodactysl.
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Me too.
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In The People That Time Forgot a biplane battled with a dac.
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That was Amicus, though, not Hammer. Mind you, Amicus really, really wanted to be Hammer, so...
 
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