.jpeg)
In my last post, a tribute to LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS magazine, I mentioned that the Hammer Films brand may be stronger than ever. One prime example of that is this mammoth box set from Severin. It contains three Hammer movies--all directed by Jimmy Sangster--but it's the supplemental materials that make this set stand out.
The set contains 7 total discs--3 UHD and 4 Blu-ray. There are 18 hours of special features spread out over the discs, and this set also contains a 312 page (!!!) book containing all sorts of articles on Hammer and English Gothic cinema.
The films in this set are THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, and FEAR IN THE NIGHT. All of these productions have been released on home video numerous times, and I wouldn't call any of them among Hammer's best (but I would put LUST FOR A VAMPIRE among Hammer's worst). The first chapter of the 312 page book has Severin's David Gregory even explaining why his company put out this set in the first place. Are these three films worthy of reappraisal? They haven't exactly been in hiding (I think you can even watch some of them for free on the Tubi streaming channel). It appears that Severin got a chance to put together a Hammer set with these three features, and they figured they better make it stand out....and it certainly does.
Each of the three movies gets a UHD and Blu-ray disc, and each get plenty of extras, along with new audio commentaries. I've had this set for a couple months now, and I'm nowhere near watching or listening to everything on it.....but I'd much rather have a release that has too much stuff on it (if there is a sort of thing) instead of not enough.
I'm not going to list all the extras in their entirety (you can go on the Severin website to find that) but I will list some of the highlights. There are new interviews with performers such as Judy Matheson, Christopher Neame, and Kirsten Lindholm, and archival talks with Veronica Carlson, Yutte Stensgaard, and David Prowse. There are special programs detailing the life and careers of Jimmy Sangster and Ralph Bates, along with a featurette on the horror film career of Joan Collins. There are also discussions on Mary Shelley, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, the Frankenstein myth, and lesbian vampire movies.
Now we have to get to the book, which has chapters on Kate O'Mara, Ralph Bates, Mike Raven, David Prowse's performances as the Frankenstein Monster, and Hammer's production history during the early 1970s. The cover of the book has the famous (or some would say infamous) image of Yutte Stensgaard's blood-spattered Carmilla rising from her tomb, an image that pops up all over this set, as well it should.
The accumulated extras are not just a bunch of random fluff--they are interesting and intriguing, and pure catnip for major Hammer fans. One could say that the extras on this set are more important than the films themselves.
Speaking of the films, it must be pointed out that this is technically a Jimmy Sangster set. The program on his life and career makes the case that Sangster--whose main work in film was that as a writer--was an important player in classic English Gothic cinema. I agree with his importance to the genre--but I don't feel he was a great writer. I believe that Sangster was good at plot construction and good at coming up with ideas, and he certainly knew how to take famous tales and transform them into Hammer product. The extras on this set point out that Sangster did a lot of work on American television in the 1970s and 80s. That might surprise some, but his knack for quickly coming up with ideas and writing for a certain budget made him perfect for that era of TV. Sangster wasn't the best director in the world--an opinion he would have agreed with--but considering what he had to work and deal with, he did the best he could. I think Sangster's best work as a screenwriter was on the series of so-called "mini-Hitchcock" suspense stories he created for Hammer, and FEAR IN THE NIGHT, included in this set, is an example.
I'm sure most Hammer fans already own the three films in this set, but Severin has provided so many exemplary extras that it is a must for English Gothic lovers. Severin knew they had to come up with something extraordinary to stand up to all the high-end sets Hammer themselves have been recently putting out, and you can't deny that they truly did so.
