Films of the year

And I haven't really seen enough movies this year, even with membership of our local arts picturehouse in Cambridge. Suffragette was an impressive and important movie. The Lady in the Van was bit cutesy although the performances were good. The Martian was enjoyable but only about as third as good as this simply splendid book, and they disappointed me by adding the Iron Man ending that is quite rightly ruled out in the book for good scientific reasons.

Marvel put out the Avengers Ultron movie and Ant Man and I can remember very little about them. By contrast Daredevil and Jessica Jones on Netflix were much more enjoyable and memorable for all the right reasons.

So that just leaves me with the four big blockbusters for the year. I had a good time at Spectre but the plot holes were huge and it was at least one set piece too long. I can't see Daniel Craig returning for a fifth go because this film ends with him hanging them up and choosing a life over a gun which was very refreshing.

Somehow Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation managed to out Bond Spectre and led the field in its use of practical effects and a splendid scene-stealing turn by Rebecca Ferguson. Strangely Tom Cruise managed to be less annoying that usual and it was all just terrific.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens also contained huge plot holes and moments of madness that made no sense but I didn't acre. It perfectly captured the magic of the original films and left me a very happy geek. I also was able to see it with my wife and kids, the first time we've gone to see a film together in years which was just as exciting. And when that music started I almost shed a tear.

But far and a way the best time to be had in a cinema this year was with Mad Max: Fury Road with Max himself almost reduced to a supporting character as Charlize Theron's Furiosa tore up the road and the screen. A movie where pretty much the first scene direction read cut to the chase, where former doctor George Miller threw everything at the screen and reminded us all how good action movies can be when we know it's actual stunt men doing this ridiculous stuff rather than those tedious bouncing CGI sprites. Best film of 2015 by several furious road miles.

If anyone can, Carlos can

A pleasant trip to London last weekend to meet up with the 2000AD Southern contingent and peruse the fine offerings on display in Forbidden Planet before repairing to a nearby hostelry for a drink or seven. If you want details of these and other area meet ups check out the events page on the official 2000AD forums.

Forbidden planet had a Doctor Who comics signing so I took the opportunity to get writing droid Nick Abadzis to sign my ongoing Thrill Power Overload charity book. Later on in the afternoon Orbital comics were also holding a similar event with Paul Cornell signing his Four Doctors comics so I nipped across to get him to sign my book as well, and while there I spent a little money on some nice old Progs and then I saw this up with the other wall books for a mere four earth pounds.

Art by Carlos Ezquerra with a cover by Bill Sienkiewicz, and all presented in a glossy prestige format comic. How could I resist? Before my review I have two confessions to get out of the way, first of all I quite enjoy the Stallone movie. Clearly it's not a Judge Dredd film, or not the one we wanted, but as a dumb Sylvester Stallone action film from the 1990s it's pretty good popcorn fare, and my mind can edit out most of Rob Schneider's performance and have an enjoyable time. Secondly, and perhaps more shockingly, I didn't get the appeal of Carlos Ezquerra's art when I first saw it in the late seventies and early eighties. It took a while to grow on me, it was the same with Jack Kirby's work which first left me cold and now I can see how brilliant he was. Of course I now worship at the altar of King Carlos and he leads my list of the top three original 2000AD artists, have I told that story about me buying him and John Wagner a pint in Kendall? OK, just checking.

However over in the US comics market I think most readers would share my initial impressions of Ezquerra's work. It can be an acquired taste and one that apparently a lot of American readers don't bother to get. So choosing Carlos for the official comic adaptation of the movie is an interesting choice but it worked for me.

His usual storytelling and frenetic action sequences are all present although I did miss those signature jagged black lines around his panel borders or on Dredd's helmet. I'm guessing that they may not have had the rights to use the likenesses of any of the actors apart from Stallone, or maybe they just thought it wasn't worth the effort and seeing Fergy as a more typical Ezquerra lowlife goes some way to blotting out the memory of Schneider. And Carlos can now claim that not only did he co-create Dredd but he is also the first artist to actually show Joe's face in a comic. Although interestingly even when Dredd loses his helmet Carlos cannot resist the opportunity to show the top part of his face hidden by shadows whenever he can. Old habits die hard

Andrew Helfer's adaptation is pretty straightforward and discards a lot of the catch phrases and attempts at humour from the film itself. The result is a frenetic action romp which would probably have produced a film more in keeping with the tone of the comics. yes there is off beat humour in Dredd but it's far more subtle than the caperings of Rob Schneider and a strained catch phrase. Michael Danza colours Ezquerra's art and gives it a look that is perhaps more typical of US monthly comics and in keeping with DC comics who published this one shot.

It is a bit of an oddity but with Ezquerra artwork and a Sienkiewicz cover you can't go far wrong. Definitely one for the completists and not likely to cost you to much money to acquire a copy.

Hell is bits and pieces of other people

The final Hammer Frankenstein with Peter Cushing was Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, directed by Terence Fisher from a script by Anthony Hinds.

Baron Frankenstein has faked his death and is quietly carrying on his strange experiments posing as a prison medic called Doctor Victor (that old trick again). Unfortunately his hands have been badly scarred by fire, possibly at the end of Frankenstein must be Destroyed, and his surgical results are crude. Luckily a brash young surgeon is imprisoned for trying to copy Frankenstein's methods and soon they have teamed up to work on a new creature, ably assisted by another mute female assistant in the form of the lovely Madeline Smith. To round out the quartet Dave Prowse wears a rather ludicrous looking rubber monster suit which appears to have been covered in matted fur rescued from a barber's floor.

As ever Frankenstein stops at nothing to get the necessary spare parts for his creature, driving one inmate to suicide when he realises he has a suitable brain to slot into the monstrous body. The Baron is of course the most horrifying creature in all of the Hammer films, and Cushing becomes more villainous in each one. This was filmed just one year after the sad death of Cushing's wife and the toll that grief had taken on the actor is obvious from his first moments on screen. He still turns in a fine performance although he is further hampered by the dodgiest wig Hammer ever made him wear.

Madeline Smith is lovely to look at and almost steals the show even without using her most famous assets. In terms of the creature it's strange that Frankenstein has lost the ability to produce beautiful specimens as he did in Revenge and Frankenstein created Woman, but presumably that is down to his crippled hands. Meanwhile Prowse lumbers and grunts and is finally dispatched rather easily by two bullets and a bit of zombie entrail ripping that Romero would have been proud of.

And then it all just peters out and Hammer's light fades through the seventies. Their Frankenstein series did many interesting things, notably making the Baron the true monster at the heart of the stories. Christopher Lee's performance as the creature in the first film is still the best of the various scarred horrors, while the famous creation sequence in Evil of Frankenstein beats all the rest. I watched this film on a slightly shonky DVD from a Dutch box set and the difference in quality between the picture and the pin sharp Bluray of Evil was startling and the biggest advert I've yet seen for the power of Bluray. Two stars for the Monster from Hell but overall four stars for Cushing and the Hammer Frankensteins. Now where's a good Vampire hunter when you need one?

Paper Mache Monster Mash

The Evil Of Frankenstein from 1964 was directed by Freddie Francis from a script by Anthony Hinds.

Chronologically this fits between Revenge of Frankenstein and Frankenstein created Woman but story wise it seems to be in a completely different universe, or should that be Universal? Hammer reached a deal with Universal pictures to use the famous Karloff creature design, and the laboratory creation scenes. So professional wrestler Kiwi Kingston was covered in some ghastly paper mache makeup with an enormous boxy forehead held on with bootlace stitching, and he lumbered round the sets in the familiar gravel spreader platform boots. On the other hand the creation sequence, which is meant to be a flashback to Frankenstein's first laboratory, looks absolutely spectacular with fizzing sparklers, arcing electricity, glowing tubes and small explosions every time he throws a switch. Interesting that the designers went with blue light as the colour of advanced technology even back in the sixties, and now it's everywhere.

This is the first of the Hammer films that I have watched on Blu-ray and the difference is startling. It looks pin sharp, as if it was made in the last ten years instead of half a century ago. But while the laboratory special effects do very well in Blu-ray the makeup really suffers by comparison. Anyone who have cut up a cereal box and worn it on their head to play act the lumbering Frankenstein creature (just me then?) will find it very familiar and almost charming as a result.

The story is a bit all over the place with Frankenstein discovering his original creature frozen in one of those convenient blocks of ice and then recruiting a fairground hypnotist to try and control the shambling brute that he has unleashed. It all ends in a familiar burning building sequence with Peter Cushing leaping about in a fashion that looks quite unsafe. As it turns out from the making of documentary on this disc it was as dangerous as it looks and Cushing did indeed need treatment for burns. The things actors would do back in those days.

Peter Cushing is as commanding a screen presence as always and there are some touching moments with a mute beggar girl who can control the creature. Apart from that there are the usual pitchfork waving yokels, a few comedy authority figures, and at least one heaving bosom. It gets three stars for the spectacular creation sequence alone but apart from that it's all very middling. Just one more Hammer and Peter Cushing Frankenstein to go and it's time for everyone's favourite west country Sith lord to fill the monster's boots.

Snakes on a Mane

Another Hammer horror from 1964, The Gorgon directed by Terence Fisher from a script by John Gilling based on J.Llewellyn Devine's story.

Another attempt by Hammer to start a monster franchise of their very own by raiding Greek mythology and putting another horror in a derelict castle that terrorises the locals of a European village. And it brings Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee back together again which was apparently great fun for the two friends although they share very little screen time together. Cushing's local doctor is a bit of an oddity, he clearly knows what is going on but tries to keep it all covered up possibly because of his love for Barbara Shelley's character. This leaves Christopher Lee to turn up in the second half of the film as Professor Meister who takes on the Van Helsing role.

Along the way various unfortunates get completely or partially paralysed by the mythical Megaera but it does take a while to get to the castle climax that we've been headed for right from the opening shot. Part of the problem was that the Gorgon's snake wig didn't really work and they quite rightly chose to keep her in the shadows for most of the time. When she does step into the light the ballet dancer Prudence Hyman gives her a beautiful and sinuous movement which goes some way to distracting from the failings of the snakes in her hair which were worked by air pipes trailing from the back of her costume. Apparently Barbara Shelley had offered to play the part with real grass snakes in her headdress and it's a shame they didn't at least try that.

This is rather like The Reptile with another new monster who has to be hidden because the make up isn't great. But any film that opens with a title card reading Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee has got to be worth a look. Four out of five petrified thumbs up and Hammer time continues.

The Evil that Men do

Frankenstein must be Destroyed from 1969, directed by Terence Fisher and written by Bert Batt. And yes I am out of order with these Hammer Frankensteins.

I'm a bit confused by the basic plot to this one. Baron Frankenstein wants to learn the secrets of brain transplantation from his colleague Doctor Brandt. However Brandt is an inmate in an asylum with his brain slowly being destroyed by some disease or tumour. So in order to get the secret the Baron has to blackmail Simon Ward and Veronica Carlson to help him abduct Brandt and transplant his brain into Freddie Jones' body. Which leaves me wondering what piece of knowledge Frankenstein lacked because he seemed to do a pretty good job of the transplant by himself. He certainly doesn't carry out the procedure in order to help an old friend because by this stage the Baron is a thoroughly nasty and completely self centred piece of work.

Which brings me to the troublesome scene in the middle of this movie where he rapes Carlson. A scene that was not in the script and was added by the producers against the objections of Cushing, Carlson and director Fisher. Clearly there was a shortage of the trademark Hammer heaving bosoms and the producers wanted some titillation for the the American distributors. It's a nasty scene that has no relevance or comeback on the rest of the plot. It's never referred to again and all the characters carry on as if it never happened, which of course from a script point of view it hadn't. Watching recent episodes of Game of Thrones reminds me that the depiction of rape within popular culture is just as prevalent and troubling now as it was in the sixties. I can only imagine how much trouble and embarrassment this caused the kind and gentlemanly Peter Cushing, and what a horror it must have been to film for Veronica Carlson.

Frankenstein doesn't make his creatures any more and seems to be set on brain transplant as his main area of research. Perhaps this reflected public concern about organ transplant in the 1960s, the first successful heart transplant took place in 1967. Freddie Jones does get to lumber around with a neat scar around his scalp but it's disappointing that Hammer have replaced gruesome creature makeup with unpleasant sex scenes. Just one our of five surgical stitches for this offering. Let's hope for better from The Evil of Frankenstein.

High Priestess Karate

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb from 1971, written by Christopher Wicking and directed by Seth Holt. Well there is blood and a tomb but no real mummy on show. However the film more than makes up for that deficit with the distinct charms of Valerie Leon, the woman who put the Hai in to Karate, and caused a funny feeling in the pants of many a teenage boy during the seventies.

Leon plays the traditional role of the Egyptian princess and her modern day counterpart. In this case it is the Princess who has the dark powers and who slowly possesses Leon and forces her into acts of evil. This is based on Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars and it is rather clunky as a result. Notably because Andrew Keir's egyptologist discovers the perfectly preserved body of a millennia old princess who just happens to be the spitting image of his daughter, so of course he keeps the body in his cellar with no one taking any notice. Meanwhile the body count starts to mount up while Valerie Leon appears in a string of revealing nightgowns to give the audience what they came to see.

It has the required Hammer elements of heaving bosoms a'plenty and lots of brightly coloured gore but it's all a bit dull and lacks a central figure to focus upon, other than the obvious things that distract the male gaze. It's perhaps a mistake to have Andrew Keir be incapacitated for most of the movie and not driving the investigations forward. And Valerie Leon's boyfriend is a bit of a damp squib who looks very early seventies but does very little.

Not a great Hammer horror to be honest but it does have a unique selling point (or points), so they get two out of a possible seven stars. Now back to that dastardly Baron.

Best served cold

Revenge of Frankenstein from 1958, directed by Terence Fisher and written by the other half of that familiar team from early Hammer, Jimmy Sangster.

Hammer knew when they were on to a good thing and this sequel was knocked out just one year after the Curse of Frankenstein, and yes I am doing the Frankenstein movies out of order but I'm watching them as I get hold of them. In the same way as the Hammer Draculas had to find a new way to revive the Count for each successive film here they have to spirit Peter Cushing's Baron Frankenstein away from the guillotine so that he can set up shop in a new town and start practising medicine as the not at all suspicious sounding Dr Stein. While he is popular with both society ladies and the patients of the workhouse hospital, he also has his secret laboratory and has soon recruited Francis Matthews to assist him in bringing life to his new creation. 

Frankenstein skills have advanced and this time he has fashioned a perfect male body into which he transplants the brain of his deformed servant, Karl. At first all goes well but once the creature (Richard Wordsworth) has escaped and encountered a sympathetic society lady his body betrays him and starts to revert back to his deformed shape. The usual mayhem ensues and once again the mob is soon turning on the villainous Baron. Fortunately Francis Matthews is on hand to save the day and rescue Cushing who escapes to London to start again as Dr Victor Franck. Apparently Baron Frankenstein shares Count Dracula's belief that if you spell your last name slightly differently no one will notice. Works every time.

Peter Cushing makes Frankenstein a nastier person in each film and Richard Wordsworth gives us a very sympathetic creature. His slow degeneration recalls his iconic performance as the doomed astronaut Victor Carroon in the movie version of the Quatermass Experiment. Elsewhere Michael Ripper has again beaten everyone else to the punch in the Hammer Michael Ripper drinking game. Here he makes up one half of a comic pair of drunken gravediggers with Lionel Jeffries filling the other role. The gore of the first film is mostly missing and all the bosoms are well hidden with little or no heaving to be seen. Not a bad outing for the Hammer monster but maybe only three out of five twitching disembodied hands.

Through a Fog Darkly

Interrupting my Hammer-fest for some classic John Carpenter. The Fog from 1980, a film I haven't seen since the early days of VHS rentals, and there was the DVD in a cheap bin at the London Forbidden Planet on free comic book day. How could I resist?

Carpenter's first three movies were Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13 and then Halloween which are all classics in their own rights. Following up the huge success of the night Michael Myers came home he turned to a creepy revenge ghost story with this tale of a strange fog enveloping a Californian coastal town and the return of the crew of a ship the townsfolk lured to its doom 100 years ago. Cult favourite actors Tom Atkins, Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis and Janet Leigh all find themselves trapped in tight spots with rotting, zombie sailors breaking through doors and windows.

There's plenty of slow build up as Carpenter develops the tension in what seems like a typical Stephen King version of small town America. Various bits and pieces go bump in the night before Adrienne Barbeau's disc jockey realises what is going on and starts to broadcast a warning about the fog. Meanwhile the rest of the cast retreat from the fog and the watery walkers and seek refuge in priest Hal Holbrook's church for the final reveal about what the sailors want and the battle to keep them out at all cost. Strangely the events of the final night all happen rather quickly and there aren't as many deliberate jumps and frights as in Halloween. This is a more atmospheric piece that recalls a classic ghost story in a tone that is set by veteran actor John Houseman's opening camp-site retelling of the legend of the lost ship.

It's all quite creepy and although it never hits the heights of his first three films it's not too bad and the special effects have stood up quite well over the last 35 years. Of course it has a nice piece of John Carpenter electronic music for the theme and the cast are all pretty good. It's nice to see Napoleon Wilson himself, Darwin Joston, showing up briefly as Dr Phibes (the name is another nice reference). Like all films from the 1980s it has been remade recently, I haven't seen it but the reports are not good. If the original shows up somewhere then check it out and if you treat it like a ghost story rather than a slasher horror then it will be pretty entertaining. Three dripping zombie stars.

A Matter of Taste

No sooner has Dracula been impaled on a cross at the end of the the previous film than Roy Kinnear pops up to collect his fallen cloak and clasp, signet ring, and collect his dried blood in a test tube. This can't possible end well for the Antiques Roadshow. Taste the Blood of Dracula is the fourth of the Christopher Lee Hammer vampires. Released in 1970 and directed by Peter Sasdy.

Before long we're back in old London town where three jaded business men are looking for something a little different in the way of extreme experiences. Up pops a batty Ralph Bates to lure them to Kinnear's shop and then the scene is set for a bizarre regeneration in an old church, which is an odd place to choose for the Prince of Darkness to be reborn in. Having said that the dust covering Bates' body and then cracking open to reveal the reconstituted Count is well done. And the foaming blood in the goblets during the corrupted version of the communion service is also effective, although the presence of Peter Sallis as one of the three men did lead me to make various comments along the lines of "Nice brew, Gromit. Any biscuits? A bit of cheese perhaps?"

Once Dracula is on the loose it is fairly easy for him to hunt down the three business men and corrupt their children to carry out a bit of Patricide in a variety of gruesome ways. Michael Ripper arrives, this time as a police detective, and almost does his own version of the Hammer Ripper drinking game by heading straight for the decanter himself.

The problem is that once the three men are dispatched Dracula seems at a bit of a loss. The Hammer vampire films are obsessed with finding new ways to destroy and then resurrect the Count, but overall he doesn't seem to have a grand plan and is too easily distracted by a pretty neck. I always felt that the Stoker and Lugosi versions had some horrible intentions to spread their curse across the channel but Lee just looks menacing and does little more before he is dispatched once again.

Hammer moves into the 1970s so the sex quotient is increased with a bawdy bordello sequence but all in all the power of the Hammer Count seems to be waning as the films progress. Two and a half out of five foaming goblets for Taste the Blood. Now let's find out how Baron Frankenstein is getting on.

Frankenstein created Playboy

I've skipped a couple of the Hammer Frankensteins to get to Frankenstein Created Woman from 1967 with Terence Fisher back on board as director.

Baron Frankenstein is in a new town and quietly carrying on with his experiments. Meanwhile a trio of nasty toffs frame a young man for murder, and his execution leads his disfigured girlfriend to commit suicide. With two bodies on his hands Frankenstein creates the perfect woman and transplants her boyfriend's soul into her beautiful form. As soon as the bandages are off she becomes the ideal vehicle of revenge, luring each of the villains in turn to a bloody death.

The Playboy model Susan Denberg is surprisingly good as both incarnations of the tragic Christina, and Peter Cushing is as charismatic as ever. Out of the rest of the cast a young Derek Fowlds stands out as one of the bad guys, years before he would go on to Yes,Minister or Heartbeat, or even his stint as Basil Brush's straight guy.

It's a surprisingly bloodless Hammer film. There's no grisly surgical detail and the killings are mostly off camera. At least Denberg provides the heaving bosom to distract the bad guys from the sharp implements in her hands. Cushing does some athletic leaping about rooftops but for the rest of the movie he's fairly quiet and restrained and Hammer seemed to be hoping that Denberg's charms would win the audience over. A fairly enjoyable romp but not a classic, three out of five guillotine blades and onwards.

Making a grave error

Dracula has risen from the grave from 1968 is the third of the Hammer vampires that count. Freddie Francis took over as director and does some interesting things with colour filters whenever Christopher Lee is on screen.

A clumsy priest falls and cuts his head and soon the blood has dripped through the ice to the frozen Count who having completed his own version of the ice bucket challenge is up and about terrorising the roof tops of another non-specific European town. There are the statutory heaving bosoms, two of which are provided by the gorgeous Veronica Carlson, and of course Michael Ripper is on hand as a friendly baker and innkeeper.

Lee is given some lines to speak and more to do but I sense that Hammer are struggling to know what to do with him. Invading attractive women's bedrooms to ravage their necks is all very well but he doesn't seem to have any grander plan, and it's only a matter of time before the vampire hunters are on his trail for another desperate race against the sunrise as those familiar black horses carry him back to his castle. Which, incidentally, has had a bit of a facelift and been moved up into the mountains since we last saw it. Hammer had moved production from Bray to Pinewood studios so there are all new sets to play with.

As well as the weird colour filters Freddie Francis also gives us lots of close ups on Lee's bloodshot eyes which look very uncomfortable indeed and presumable involved some more hard contact lenses. Lee is as imposing as ever but the whole film seems to add little to the canon apart from a spectacular new way to kill the Count. It's  middling three out five fresh baked strudels for the third film and time to see with the Baron has been up to since his first outing.

Make mine zombie

Hammer cracked out The Plague of the Zombies using the same crew, the same sets, and some of the same cast as The Reptile as the two films were filmed side by side by John Gilling.

Once again there are two outsiders brought to a Cornish village because of a string of mysterious deaths and disappearing bodies. The locals are unfriendly to the new people even when one of them is a distinguished Professor of medicine whose former colleague, now the local GP, has summoned him. But the GP's wife, played by the equally doomed Jacqueline Pearce is not at all well and seems in thrall to the sinister local squire who lives in a rather familiar big house.

Possibly the greatest Professor Quatermass Andre Morell is brilliant as Professor Forbes who represents a mix of Quatermass, Doctor Who and Van Helsing all wrapped up into one. Michael Ripper trousers another pay cheque, this time as a sensible police sergeant who is soon acting as backup for Forbes. And yet again there's lot of grave robbing to bring up a succession of empty coffins and all filmed on exactly the same set as the Reptile. I'm sure they coordinated the diggings to fit both films,

But of course we want Zombies and before long they appear with their flaky grey face make-up, painful looking complete white contact lenses, and strange monk like sacking robes. Their appearance provokes many a scare and one notable dream sequence that pre-dates the Romero horrors to come one year later. However when we learn that evil Squire is killing off the locals, turning them into zombies, and then setting them to work in the tin mine beneath his house it does seem rather a waste of the potential horror of a new Hammer monster. Well it is a creative use of a wage-less workforce to create capital. Left unchecked the Squire would probably have gone on to a seat in the House of Commons or a job at a city bank. But despite his voodoo powers and his always on tap trio of tribal drummers he is doomed for a sticky end as his workforce turns on him in a zombie occupy movement against the 1%.

And the big house goes up in smoke again, or probably at the same time as in The Reptile. The presence of Andre Morell makes this a success along with the genuinely creepy zombies who would be much more effectively used by Romero, although interestingly Hammer had spotted their potential as a signifier of social injustice. Plenty of good bits in this film, four out of five uncomfortable zombie contact lenses. And next we'll find that fangs ain't what they used to be.

For goodness snake.

Continuing my exploration of this Hammer box set with The Reptile from 1966, directed by John Gilling.

A couple inherit a charming cottage in a village where people are dying from a mysterious black death. With the help of the ever reliable, and ever present, Michael Ripper they investigate and find that a local doctor may be hiding a dark secret about his daughter and a strange curse they have brought back from India.

Jacqueline Pearce who would go on to play the sinister Servalan in Blake's 7 provides some youthful beauty as the daughter before she has to don the rather poor Reptile make up in her were-snake transformation. Apart from that there's a fair bit of digging up bodies to try and find out how they died, before the secret is revealed and the big house goes up in smoke.

It's a brave attempt by Hammer to create their own monster myth but it's all a bit dull and the revealed Reptile is just not very scary. Apart from Michael Ripper the cast are fairly anonymous and it all drags a bit to its 90 minute ending. A mere two out of five Indian sitars and on to the other picture that was shot on the same sets at the same time, Plague of the Zombies.

Neck in line for the throne

It took Hammer eight years to persuade Christopher Lee to don the cape again for Dracula: Prince of Darkness. Once again Terence Fisher directed, sadly no Peter Cushing this time, so Andrew Keir fills in as Father Sandor.

Four British tourists find that there is no such thing as a free lunch when they stumble upon Dracula's castle and the supposed hospitality of his loyal servant Klove. Before long one of them is hanging upside down bleeding over Dracula's coffin leading to a lovely special effects sequence as the Count's body rebuilds itself. The rest is mostly familiar stuff with the usual Vampire conventions. Keir provides a reassuring presence as the new Vampire hunter, and Francis Matthews makes a good lead. And of course there is a marvellous turn by cult horror legend Barbara Shelley who gets to utter the great line "There will be no morning for us" before her husband provides the liquid component for Dracula's regeneration and she joins the ranks of the undead.

In usual Hammer fashion it rattles along in a tight 90 minutes leading to a splendid chase and the finale as Dracula is trapped on thin ice with Sandor firing bullets to crack it and send him plunging to a watery doom. Quite why Dracula allows running water around his castle is perplexing but best not dwelt on. The other strange thing is the decision to have Dracula remain mute throughout the film. Depending on who you you believe this was either due to Lee refusing to say the lines, or the writer Jimmy Sangster not writing any for him. Either way it does detract from Dracula's established urbane menace which is a shame.

It's a four star film mainly for the performances of Lee, Keir, Matthews and Shelley. This is my first film from a Dutch box set of Hammer classics which also includes the Quatermass movies which kickstarted the Hammer story. Next up may well be some British zombies.

Wolf Whistle and I'll come to you

Hammer completed a foursome of horror archetypes with Curse of the Werewolf in 1961. Terence Fisher directed again and Oliver Reed making his first credited film appearance as the unlucky lycanthropic Leon.

This time they turned to the ur-text for the Wolf man mythos, The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore, but decided to relocate the action to Spain. And there is an awful lot of back story to get through before we finally see Reed in his full shaggy glory. So we have an evil Marques tormenting a poor beggar who turns a bit lupine after a long stay in the dungeons. In the process he attacks Leon's poor mute mother who then has to escape the rapacious clutches of the ageing Marques before she gets taken in by a friendly couple who discover she is pregnant. Then we have the boyhood of a werewolf as her strange child howls at the bars of his bedroom window, and may be responsible for tearing the throats out of a nearby herd of goats.

Of course this is a Hammer horror so we get some familiar faces turning up, including the ever reliable Michael Ripper, and Warren Mitchell as the local gamekeeper with a Spanish accent direct from the east end of London. Once Leon has grown into lean and hungry looking Oliver Reed we get plenty of Kensington gore and glimpses of some hairy hands but it's not until the last 15 minutes or so that we get the full wolf man make up.

Sadly it's probably the weakest of the first four of the classic Hammer horrors. The strange Spanish setting doesn't really add anything, and the delay in getting to the full Werewolf is rather tedious. But Oliver Reed does make Leon a sympathetic and rather pathetic figure who at the end is begging for the silver bullet to end his rampage, and of course there are plenty of heaving bosoms and Kensington splatterings along the way which do help a bit. Let's give it a middling 2.5 out of 5 great dane ears and move on to the return of the Count.

Mummy Dearest

Third of the original Hammer colour horrors was their version of The Mummy from 1959, again directed by Terence Fisher and starring Cushing and Lee.

By this time Hammer had arranged a deal with Universal which allowed them to use the titles and characters from the original films. So the plot is initially very similar to the Karloff film, particularly the back story about the high priest and his love for the princess and the lookalike heroine. Again the Hammer version keeps the locations fairly limited around Cushing's house and a nearby swamp. There are also some comic turns from Michael Ripper and a few other Hammer regulars.

Peter Cushing gives his usual fantastic turn as the hero but yet again Christopher Lee steals the show as the Mummy, and this time we have a fully mobile and murderous member of the living dead swathed in those crusty bandages. The Mummy walks and he looks suitably terrifying. Lee really put his whole body on the line for this role, apart from having his head completely buried in the make-up he also sustained a number of injuries. He did his back in carrying the heroine Yvonne Furneaux, sprained his ankles on hidden pipes while wading through the studio swamp. the exploding squibs that created the effect of bullet holes caused burns, and then he dislocated his shoulder crashing through an incorrectly rigged prop door, a moment which I think you can see in the film. It was a good job he was already wearing all those bandages.

Unfortunately when Lee is not on screen this one becomes a bit dull and is the least chilling of the first three Hammers. Three out of five death scrolls I think, but I can't leave it there. Let's dig up some more Hammer and find out how the Frankenstein and Dracula franchises continued. Watch this space.

Raising the Stakes

Straight on to Dracula from 1958, or the Horror of Dracula as it was known in America to avoid confusion with the Universal movie. Again directed by Terence Fisher and with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as the Count. 

Once again Hammer took the basic story and kept it all very contained, the action is entirely limited to somewhere in mittel-europe with Dracula's castle, the nearby village and the town where Arthur Holmward and his wife Mina and sister Lucy live all in close proximity. This gets rid of the whole Dracula moving to England plot and so the unfortunate Jonathan Harker becomes a librarian who has come to catalogue the Count's books rather than an estate agent looking to facilitate his move to London.

Christopher Lee is allowed out from under the Frankenstein monster make-up and becomes a very suave and urbane count who is much more believable and affable than Lugosi's creepy interpretation, Peter Cushing is fantastic as ever as Van Helsing, particularly in the climactic scenes of the film, but it's really Lee who steals the show. His height is used to good effect and it's quite clear that he is a very sexual vampire as he runs his lips over the face of the swooning Mina before turning his attention to her neck.

There are some good moments particularly the confrontation with the vampiric Lucy in the graveyard and when Harker turns vampire hunter and dispatches the delectable Valerie Gaunt, making her second appearance in a bosom heaving role. But of course the key scenes are the final desperate race back to Dracula's castle and the confrontation between the Count and Van Helsing. Peter Cushing's  dash (or his stunt man's) along the table to leap and tear down the curtains is fantastic. And hats off to the special effects wizards for the way they show Dracula dissolving into dust. It's a marvellous ending and one that earns the film the full five out of five crossed candlesticks.

It's a shame it took eight years for Hammer to persuade Lee to don the cloak and fangs again for a sequel, but a year after this film's release he was back in full make-up for The Mummy. Can't wait.

Vital Gore

Straight from Universal to Hammer and their take on the Frankenstein story. Curse of Frankenstein from 1957, directed by Terence Fisher with Peter Cushing as Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as his creation.

Hammer's first colour horror film and the first on-screen pairing of Cushing and Lee together in a horror film. Clearly keen to avoid litigation from Universal the studio had too use a different title and a remarkably different make up from the Jack Pierce original. It's also all very self contained with most of the action taking place in and around Baron Frankenstein's house which presumably kept the budget down.

Cushing is suitable sinister and unpleasant as a murderous version of Victor Frankenstein. Meanwhile Christopher Lee is buried under the make-up but still manages to bring a remarkable pathos to his version of the monster. And of course there is the first appearance of that bright red blood that characterised the Hammer horrors, particularly in that famous and oft repeated sequence when the creature is shot in the eye and clasps his hand to his face as the blood pumps out.

And it wouldn't be a Hammer without some heaving bosoms and Valerie Gaunt and Hazel Court prove to have the corsetry, and the screams, to fit the part. But the film belongs to Cushing and Lee who are both terrific. It all rattles along quickly before Frankenstein is condemned for his crimes. Somehow the studio will have to get him out of that for the inevitable sequel, but first they would have a stab at (or stake at?) that bloodsucking Count.

Four out of Five buckets of gore for Curse of Frankenstein but I can hear a hearse pulled by riderless black horses thundering this way to see if Dracula can beat that score.

Creature Feature

Last of the box set and last of his kind, it's The Creature from the Black Lagoon from 1954, directed by Jack Arnold.

The final archetype of the canonical Universal monsters and a real shift from Gothic to the science fiction horror films of the 1950s. In fact it's all science even starting with a lecture on evolution before the clean cut science team pack their bags, charter a knackered old boat and head for the Amazon and the Black Lagoon itself. The Creature himself is rather fantastic and maintains a real sense of rubbery menace in his lovely gill suit, and Richard Carlson is pretty good and the lead scientist and clean cut hero.

It's impossible to discuss this film without mentioning two things, firstly the iconic white one-piece swimsuit worn by Julie Adams as she takes a risky dip in the lagoon. A sequence that provided inspiration for many a science fiction and horror writer. And then there is the work of the underwater stunt man Ricou Browning swimming in the creature suit. The marvellous watery ballet that takes place as the Creature swims back and forth beneath the unsuspecting Adams is just a triumph for everyone involved in it. It's the stand out moment in a pretty good sci-fi horror move.

Somehow I'd never seen this film before and I'm glad I finally got the chance to. It's a good solid 4 out 5 webbed fingered thumbs up, and right up there with Bride of Frankenstein as the pick of this box set. That's it for the Universal monsters, but I can't leave it there. It's time to open a can of Kensington gore and see what the Brits can do as I switch to Hammer studios and see how well they update the horror archetypes.