ok lets all shit our pants to something old: pre-2006 horror film thread

Curse of the Werewolf got a beautiful release on Blu-ray in Germany. 1080p restoration. a slew of supplemental materials. I picked up the mediabook, as it is one of my favorite Hammer films, but I believe there is a budget version. Anolis is a company to watch. they're serious about their Hammer Horror; the next title in this line is Hands of the Ripper. the only caveat is that their releases are often limited and not always English-friendly.

Kiss of the Vampire is no more or less of a 'coproduction' than any other Hammer film of the period. Hammer secured American distribution/financing for all their horror movies in the 50s and 60s, with a variety of different studios (which is why their back catalogue is now spread amongst so many different companies.)

KOTV is, along with Brides of Dracula, an attempt by Hammer to make a vampire movie without Christopher Lee, who at the time was reluctant to play Count Dracula again. KOTV was not a hit, and the following year Hammer bit the bullet and offered Lee a substantial pay increase to appear in Dracula, Prince of Darkness, which was a very big hit for the company, thereby accelerating production on Lee/Dracula flicks.

KOTV has its moments - the direction by Don Sharp isn't quitely so stately as Terence Fisher's work, so it feels a bit more modern/fast-paced - but I wouldn't put it amongst the top tier Hammers (unlike Brides).

The recentish UK Region 2 Blu-Rays of the first Hammer Frankenstein, Dracula and Mummy movies all look beautiful, and are packed with lots of good extras (including terrific commentary tracks by Hammer experts Jonathan Rigby and Marcus Hearn).

yes, but i don't know what they were thinking with the CGI-enhanced lightning FX on The Devil Rides Out. blasphemy!

Yeah, that's Optimum/Studio Canal, who have the rights to a lot of the 60s Hammer movies. Their Blu Ray editions are inferior in every way to the Lionsgate ones I mentioned. AFAIK, Devil Rides Out is the only one so far that they've 'improved' in this way, and while the effects in the climatic scene ARE pretty poor, I agree they shouldn't be fucking with any of the films like this.

My copy of The Reptile is Studio Canal and Curse Of The Werewolf and Kiss Of The Vampire are Final Cut.

Sorry for the wording, the latter two are Final Cut.

The best Studio Canal Blu, imho, is their Quatermass and the Pit edition, which includes a Nigel Kneale commentary track and a very good supporting documentary.

Curse of the Werewolf is another Universal-backed production; I've got this Region 1 DVD set, which collects them all together (on double-side discs, unfortunately):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hammer-Horror-Series-Region-Import/dp/B0009X770O

The Region 2 DVD/Blu rights to these movies seems to be scattered across different companies/territories (I'm guessing, RAG, that you picked up these titles from Fopp's current Halloween promotion - I too have feasted on their selection.)

The Amazon page contains this helpful note:

The little Hammer studio very often had to look for partners overseas to produce their amazing pictures. While other big Film studios like Warner and MGM released “their” Hammer films some time ago on DVD it seems that these eight (European!) movies rested for ages in the vaults of the Universal studios in LA.

The Brides of Dracula starring Peter Cushing
The Curse of the Werewolf starring Oliver Reed
Phantom of the Opera starring Herbert Lom
Paranoiac starring Oliver Reed
The Kiss of the Vampire starring Clifford Evans
Nightmare starring Jennie Linden
Night creatures starring Peter Cushing
The evil of Frankenstein starring (of course) Peter Cushing
No extras like trailers or audio commentary (which is a bit of a shame)

Eureka (the ppl who own the Masters of Cinema imprint) have got the Region 2 blu ray rights to Paranoiac, which is my favourite of Jimmy Sangster's Diaboliques/Psycho knock-offs. Haven't seen the Blu, but Eureka generally do a dece job on their discs.

Yeah it was Fopp. There was lots of interesting looking noir films but I really don't know which ones to go for. Killers or Touch Of Evil wasn't there, kinda tempted on Orphee (not a noir) but it wasn't there the next time I visited. Kinda wanted Stoker to see the deleted scenes. But I got Ken Russell's Music Lovers(not horror or noir either) and Scarlett Empress (which had lovely horrory screenshots on Obscure Hollow that I linked a few months ago above).

It would be nice if there was more comprehensive Hammer box sets. The region 2 sets never seemed very good. I'm more reluctant to try the singles of films like this, especially at regular DVD prices.

There's always this:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Hammer-Horror-The-Blu-ray-Collection-Blu-ray/91045/

Or Optimum UK's massive Ultimate Hammer Collection DVD box.

What are you guys top Hammer films?

As I said above I quite liked Curse Of Frankenstein, The Gorgon, Brides Of Dracula; got some fondness for Twins Of Evil.

Less fond of Horror Of Dracula, Dracula Prince Of Darkness, Plague Of The Zombies, Countess Dracula, Vampire Lovers, Lust For A Vampire, Vampire Circus, Dr Jekyll And Sister Hyde. Some of these did have elements I liked. I might have seen one of the cavegirl ones.

Plain disliked Dracula AD 1972.

I've saw lots of bits of various other ones that didn't make me want to watch the rest. Not long ago I started Scars Of Dracula and it just seemed very poor and I switched off.

I'm drawn to the gothic ones but maybe they aren't always the best ones.

http://www.fright.com/edge/KenRussellDracula.htm

Review of Ken Russell's Dracula screenplay

No Hammer search and destroys? Oh well.

THE REPTILE

Okay, leaning towards decent. The mysterious circumstances stay secret for most of the film, so I was kept guessing for a while.
When the main character gets a venomous bite that puts him in mortal danger, his wife seems absurdly calm about it.
I wonder why so many horror films of this era end with a house on fire?

More than anything, I like the design for the Reptile. I think it's one of the coolest looking film monsters (even though the makeup isn't very convincing), certainly one of the best Hammer monsters. Reminds me of Orlok from Nosferatu.

DOLLS

An old mansion of an old dollmaker and his wife, both eccentrics. Unlucky visitors come and get terrorized by the dolls.

Rusty acting and comedy that pretty much never works. Which is a shame because I thought this had potential. Most of the scenes with the dolls coming to life were well done though.

http://www.monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2014/10/ghana-film-posters-1-of-5.html

Check out these 5 pages of Ghana film posters. If you haven't seen any of these before, you might be astonished, especially the posters for the modern western films.

KISS OF THE VAMPIRE

Very bland film, it's not surprising I never knew anything about it. There are brief moments of interest though, best of which being the opening burial scene when the shovel is thrown into the coffin.

CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF

Possibly the best Hammer film I've seen, the acting and story momentum is certainly above most of the others.
I've heard that the source material, Guy Endore's Werewolf Of Paris is a particularly cruel book and this film certainly has some of that nastiness at the beginning. The story is set over several decades and it takes a lot of time before Oliver Reed appears. There are even more folkloric supernatural rules to this film than in most werewolf stories.

This is maybe my favourite werewolf design for films. I wonder why Legend Of The Werewolf (1975, Freddie Francis) copied the design so closely? That is a film I have seen many screenshots for but relatively few people seem to have seen it; it did have Hammer regulars but it wasn't one of their films.
Unfortunately there is some really fake looking hairy hands but overall this has some strong visuals.
Yvonne Romain and Catherine Feller are very beautiful.

John Bolton did a really brilliantly drawn comic adaptation of this for a Hammer magazine and its worth seeking out.

I really need to see that. Aside from being a Hammer and Oliver Reed fan, I'm an admirer of its elaborately atonal score, by british classical composer Benjamin Frankel, which was rerecorded very well on a Naxos CD conducted by Carl Davis.

Which issue of the Hammer mag has the bolton comic? I need to see if I can download that.

http://www.comics.org/issue/990030/

I owned it in the original issue above.

http://www.comics.org/issue/263308/

I've heard but cannot confirm this reprints it. But it seems fairly certain from all the details. Someone told me this series (2 issues) reprints all his Hammer art. I think it's also a tie-in for Monster Club (for which he did a great illustrated sequence in the actual film).

Here's a sample
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/459507968202896858/

John Bolton in Monster Club
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhqZlAAB5UI

I've never been a great fan of Mummy films but after seeing a clip of Christopher Lee Mummy carrying a woman through a murky swamp, I'm sold.

The Mummy is a bit of a snooze, I'm afraid - it was Michael Carreras' first attempt to push Hammer in a slightly more 'respectable' direction, so the film has some of the same tone and style (but not budget) of a big technicolor biblical epic. The swamp section is far and away the best part.

Curse of the Werewolf was probably the Hammer film most heavy snipped by the British censors, who unsurprisingly were especially troubled by the rape scene. Richard Wordsworth is scarily intense as the beggar (he's also amazing in the first Quatermass film - Hammer should've used him more often).

Legend of the Werewolf is knocking around as a bootleg, and used to be shown on UK TV fairly frequently. It's one of the small handful of horror films produced by Tyburn, run by Kevin 'son of Freddie' Francis - I'm guessing that their back catalogue is now caught up in some kind of copyright limbo. The screenplay is by Anthony Hinds, the former Hammer executive who also wrote Curse, hence the make-up similarity. Curse is the much better film.

Thanks for advice about The Mummy.

Yes, Richard Wordsworth was quite memorable I have never seen Quatermass but I recognised his face from images of it. His cv says he was in Revenge Of Frankenstein and Camp On Blood Island.

I also remember Yvonne Romain in Corridors Of Blood, a Boris Karloff vehicle that also features Christopher Lee. The strange thing about that film is that it's a film about an ambitious idealistic medical doctor but it's (perhaps inappropriately) filmed like a horror film. Really lovely black and white.

REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE

Two runaway girls roam the countryside, find a castle and are taken in against their will by a vampire family.
Even by Rollin standards this is a quiet film, I don't think anyone speaks until 40mins in. Quite a few nice images and settings. As with many Rollin films, it has an interesting soundtrack but not quite standout.
Some of the vampires look a bit daft (a recurring vampire film problem) and the film needed something more, even if it was more of what it already has. But I can understand why this is seen as an introductory film to Rollin's world.

How about Blood And Roses (1960) by Roger Vadim?

NIGHT OF THE HUNTED

A mystery story of people with severe memory loss kept in a home run by corrupt people.

This one is set in modern day, full of skyscrapers. There's several sex and rape scenes and I don't think most of the Rollin horror films had as much as this. There's deleted scenes that mostly consist of various sex positions.
I think it's too long and there wasn't a whole lot for me to enjoy, even though it's more professional than most Rollin and almost feels like early Cronenberg in places.
Mainly for Brigitte Lahaie fans I guess.

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n203/iamragmar/rollin_zpsa2d8b52e.jpg

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n203/iamragmar/rollin2_zpsfbddef63.png

I don't think I can sustain the interest to buy Demoniacs and Rape Of The Vampire. I checked out the trailer and found some cool screenshots of the latter film.

Checked out both trailers I mean.

HOUSE OF LAUGHING WINDOWS

Good: Really nasty grim film. Quite a few strong atmospheric looking and sounding scenes. The shabby old houses. Very little of the hiccups or sloppiness you find in most giallo films.

Bad: To be honest, I was bored for most of the film. The ending will be unintentionally funny for some people.

I'm sure some of y'all owned a copy of Stephen King's Nightshift collection of dollar babies back in the day. On one of the VHS tapes, there was a trailer for some weird low-budget film. It was in black and white and featured a guy crawling through the desert, then this giant mantis or something flies by and drops a skyscraper on his head. Anyone have any idea what I'm talking about?

― how's life, Tuesday, September 16, 2014 6:53 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Found some info on this

http://serialkillercalendar.com/serialkillercalendar/VHSWASTELAND/VHS-WASTELAND-April-26.html

The best thing on the tape is actually the lone coming attraction before the two shorts. It's for something called Slightly Astounding Stories (I can't find anything about it online) and it features a giant insect-like craft flying over a crowded city, landing on a high-rise building, clutching it, tearing it out of the ground, flying it far out of the city, and eventually dropping it on an old man who's crawling through the desert. It's totally bizarre and hilarious, and the cheap special effects are surprisingly well-done. I hope that some day I stumble across some more info about that movie, but somehow I doubt it. I'll keep my fingers crossed though.

Rewatched Dead Of Night for the first time in a decade. I didn't realise it was mostly based on old short stories.

There are some good moments and scenery scattered across the film and the freakout at the end is well done but I don't think it's a very good film overall. Like I've said about a lot of the films on this thread, it seems quite half-hearted to me.
A lot of people consider the golf comedy segment to be the main weakness of the film but I think it has quite a few funny ideas(which like everything else, could have been executed better), especially the guy walking to his watery grave.

The teenage girl excitedly saying "do you fall madly in love with her?" is quite funny. Bizarre seeing her sing a younger boy to sleep. Sometimes old British films seem more alien than old American ones even if you're from Britain.

Somebody posted this link on Ligotti forum.
https://archive.org/details/LeptiricatheShe-butterflyyugoslaviaHorrorFilmEnglishSubtitles1973

Sounds interesting.

Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell.
It moves along better and is more interestingly written than most similar films but I don't particularly recommend it. Probably the goriest Hammer film I've seen.

Just in case anyone is interested. I don't know if this is only region 2. There has been a couple of recent box sets with some of these films, but this must be the most comprehensive yet.

VINCENT PRICE IN SIX GOTHIC TALES (BLU-RAY)

From the Merchant of Menace, Vincent Price, and the King of the Bs, Roger Corman, come six Gothic tales inspired by the pen of Edgar Allan Poe.

In The Fall of the House of Usher, a young man learns of a family curse that threatens his happiness with his bride-to-be. In The Pit and the Pendulum, a brother investigates the untimely death of sister, played by Barbara Steele. Tales of Terror adapts three Poe classics, Morella, The Black Cat and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, each starring a horror icon. The Raven is a comic take on the famous poem concerning three rival magicians. In The Haunted Palace, a newcomer in a New England town is suspected of being a warlock. And in The Tomb of Ligeia, filmed in Norfolk and at Stonehenge, a widower s upcoming marriage plans are thwarted by his dead first wife.

The six films boast a remarkable cast list: not just Price and Steele, but also Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr, Basil and a very young Jack Nicholson. Adapted for the screen by Richard Matheson and Robert Towne, these Six Gothic Tales now rank as classic examples of sixties horror cinema.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

High Definition Blu-ray presentation of all six features
Original uncompressed mono PCM Audio for all films
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for all films
Trailers for each film
Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork for all films

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

Audio commentary with director and producer Roger Corman
An interview with director Joe Dante
Interview with author Jonathan Rigby
Video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns examining Corman s film in relation to Poe s story
Archival interview with Vincent Price

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

Audio commentary with director and producer Roger Corman
Audio commentary by critic Tim Lucas
A new making of documentary featuring Roger Corman, star Barbara Steele, Victoria Price and more!
Shot in 1968 to pad out the film for the longer TV time slot, this scene features star Luana Anders
Price reads a selection of Poe s classic stories before a live audience

TALES OF TERROR

An hour-long documentary on Roger Corman featuring contributions from James Cameron, Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard
Critic and novelist Anne Billson discusses the contributions of our feline friends to genre cinema
The Black Cat, a 1993 short film adaptation of Poe s classic tale directed by Rob Green (The Bunker)

THE RAVEN

Peter Lorre: The Double Face, Harun Farocki s 1984 documentary, subtitled in English for the first time
An interview with the legendary novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson
An interview with Roger Corman about making The Raven
The Trick, a short film about rival magicians by Rob Green (The Bunker)
Promotional Record
Stills and Poster Gallery

THE HAUNTED PALACE

Audio commentary by Vincent Price s biographer David Del Valle and Ron Chaney, grandson of Lon Chaney, Jr
Kim Newman on H.P. Lovecraft
An interview with Roger Corman
Stills and Poster Gallery

THE TOMB OF LIGEIA

Audio commentary by director and producer Roger Corman
Audio commentary by star Elizabeth Shepherd
All-new interviews with cast and crew
200-PAGE BOOK LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE

Collector s book containing new writing the films, an interview with Roger Corman, extracts from Vincent Price s autobiography and full reproductions of tie-in comic books for Tales of Terror, The Raven and The Tomb of Ligeia
LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES

Masque Of The Red Death isn't there, it would have made more sense than Haunted Palace, even though I vastly prefer Haunted Palace.

Borowczyk's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne coming out from Arrow. Pleasantly surprised, I've seen it strongly recommend and I didn't think I'd have the opportunity this soon.
I thought Beast was deadly dull but I hope this is good.

Potent and poetic, mischievous and macabre, Borowczyk s film shows how many imaginative worlds the horror movie can open up when the right artist holds the keys (Nigel Andrews, Financial Times)

It s the engagement party for brilliant young Dr Henry Jekyll (Udo Kier) and his fiancée, the beautiful Fanny Osbourne (Marina Pierro), attended by various pillars of Victorian society, including the astonishing Patrick Magee in one of his final roles. But when people are found raped and murdered outside and ultimately inside the house, it becomes clear that a madman has broken in to disrupt the festivities but who is he? And why does Dr Jekyll keep sneaking off to his laboratory?

We know the answer, of course, but Walerian Borowczyk s visually stunning adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson s much-filmed tale is crammed with wildly imaginative and outrageously perverse touches characteristic of the man who scandalised audiences with Immoral Tales and The Beast, not least the explicitly sexualised nature of Mr Hyde s primal urges.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

Brand new 2K restoration, scanned from the original camera negative and supervised by cinematographer Noël Véry
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the film, released on both formats for the first time anywhere in the world
English and French soundtracks in LPCM 1.0
Optional English and English SDH subtitles
Introduction by critic and long-term Borowczyk fan Michael Brooke
Audio commentary featuring archival interviews with Walerian Borowczyk, Udo Kier, Marina Pierro and producer Robert Kuperberg, and new interviews with cinematographer Noël Véry, editor Khadicha Bariha, assistant Michael Levy and filmmaker Noël Simsolo, moderated by Daniel Bird
Interview with Marina Pierro
Himorogi (2012), a short film by Marina and Alessio Pierro, made in homage to Borowczyk
Interview with artist and filmmaker Alessio Pierro
Video essay by Adrian Martin and Cristina Alvarez Lopez
Eyes That Listen, a featurette on Borowczyk s collaborations with electro-acoustic composer Bernard Parmegiani
Jouet Jouyeux (1979), a short film by Borowczyk based on Charles-Émile Reynaud s praxinoscope
Introduction to Jouet Joyeux by production assistant Sarah Mallinson
Returning to Méliès: Borowczyk and Early Cinema, a featurette by Daniel Bird
Reversible sleeve with artwork based on Borowczyk s own poster design
Booklet with new writing on the film by Daniel Bird and archive materials, illustrated with rare stills
More to be announced!

Since this is a year with two Friday the 13ths in a row, I've just watched the first 2.5 movies of that franchise on Netflix. Lost heart and gave up, but my assistant at work tells me today that I have to make it through 4. Anyway 1 is an engaging enough artifact which becomes magnificently deranged in the final yards, 2 is kind of dispiritingly shit, 3 was making me depressed except for the great fun of in your face 3D moments defanged by non 3D presentation.

I never made it as far as 3, 2 was so bad. I kinda love Jason Goes To Hell, though. It's not really a good movie by any metric but it at least has the courage to be completely batshit.

I could never even make it far into the first one. 6th film is atrocious but in an occasionally funny way, you wonder what they were thinking.

Jason X is pretty (intentionally) funny in places.

Yes, the Arrow Poe/Corman/Price set is Region 2 only - irrc, Kino/Lorber are producing similar discs for Region 1 (the Corman commentary tracks were recorded some years ago for Region 1 DVDs). Masque of the Red Death is available as a Region 2 bare bones disc from StudioCanal/Optimum; Masque is easily the most visually ravishing of all this series - Nic Roeg cinematography - and cries out for a fully restored Blu-Ray set.

Friday the 13th IV - aka Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter - is directed by versatile genre hack Joseph Zito, who made one of my favourite slashers, The Prowler. IV is probably the 'best' after 1 - it opens with a useful flashback recap of ALL the previous murders. Agree that 2 is very boring, but it was the most heavily censored, fwiw.

Dunno why Arrow has done a lot of lesser Bava films but not Kill Baby Kill yet. It's my second favourite Bava.

Scream Factory included most of the Corman pics in their two Vincent Price BD boxes.
Arrow Films just launched an Arrow US, with crowd-funded assistance. so that should help negate region coding.
Rumor has it that Arrow's OOP Stray Cat Rock box will be coming back in some form. fingers crossed that the same is true for the Boro box.

KBK is a rights nightmare. i'm impressed that Arrow was able to sort out (and restore) Blood and Black Lace.

best friday the 13th is def "jason lives"

in 'jason lives' jason looks too slight and he walks wrong imo. but it has probably the most iconic shot of jason besides the ending of the first one:
http://www.horrordvds.com/reviews/a-m/f136/f136_shot8l.jpg

i also like those movies the most when they're grimy gory serious horror like the first one or total schlock like jason x. 'jason lives' is too torn between the two for me.

"Friday IV" has the best Savini FX, for sure. "Jason Lives" is pretty by the numbers except for all the hilarious one-liners (which I'm sure I've quoted before). But just in case:

Camper one to camper two: "So, what were you going to be when you grew up?'

Also, I read the novelization when I was younger!

4 > 2 > 1 > 3 > pretty much anything that followed except the one with the telekinetic girl b/c it seems to piss off fans so much

And 4 wins almost by default because of Crispin's crazy dancing and shaved boy Feldman.

Has anyone seen Nosferatu with the original score? Is it particularly good?

This Shinoda version of Demon Pond sounds brilliant.
http://www.fright.com/edge/DemonPond79.htm

Tried to watch Kaidan Yukijoro (a female snow ghost film) on youtube but it disappeared.

Should probably get my hands on Illusion Of Blood because it's one of the few DVD period Japanese horrors I haven't seen.