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Fans of the horror genre will be thrilled to hear that a box
set of six of Hammer's most critically acclaimed movies are
available to buy in a DVD box set. This collection includes:
Rasputin the Mad Monk; Frankenstein Created Woman; The
Vengeance of She; The Plague of Zombies; Quatermass and the
Pit and To the Devil a Daughter.
Rasputin
the Mad Monk sees Christopher Lee star as Rasputin. After
his ejection from his monastery for drunken behaviour, Rasputin
decides to try his luck in St Petersburg. His apparent healing
powers soon allow him to gain influence at the court of the
Tsar, but with his rise to power come many enemies who wish
to see him dead...
Christopher
Lee is perfect as the mad monk and this movie has aged fairly
well. Entertaining, but nothing that special, this movie is
worth a look. But I doubt you'll want to watch it more than
once.
In
Frankenstein Created Woman
Baron Frankenstein captures the soul of a recently executed
man and is finally able to give the spark of life to the body
of a young woman he is keeping at his castle. With memories
of his wrongful execution still intact, the woman embarks
on a killing spree to gain revenge on those who falsely accused
him...
Peter
Cushing stars in this Frankenstein tale which has you routing
for the mad professor. Although the premise is a little on
the daft side - two lovers joined again in death setting out
to avenge the murderer of the spirit of Frankenstein's new
creation. It takes a while to get going, but the slow build
up is necessary and certainly well executed... oops! No pun
intended.
The
Vengeance of She
sees Carol, a beautiful young girl, possessed by the spirit
of Ayesha, queen of the lost city of Kuma. An eccentric millionaire
gives Carol refuge, unaware that she brings the dark shadow
of death to everything she touches...
This
is the sequel to the Ursula Andress movie She, and
is easily the weakest movie in this collection. While some
of the location filming is breathtaking, the movie is a little
too dull to keep most people interested for long.
In
The Plague of Zombies, a strange epidemic hits the
workers of a small Cornish village much to the consternation
of the local doctor who enlists the help of an eminent professor.
Their worst fears are confirmed when the dead are seen to
live again as zombies. But who is the master that these nightmares
of the undead serve?...
This
was Hammer's only attempt at the zombie genre, which is a
shame as this movie is well produced. There are some truly
scary moments, like when the funeral procession is interrupted
and the coffin's contents are spilled. And is certainly a
movie that will be revisited from time to time.
Quatermass
and the Pit begins when digging on a new Underground line
in London is interrupted when human remains are discovered
by the construction crew. They also unearth what they take
to be a World War II German bomb. Upon closer examination
the 'bomb' contains a dead giant locust-like creature that
appears to be from another planet...
This
is by far the best movie in this collection. While the visual
effects of the locust aliens on their home planet is laughable,
for the most part this movie is chilling and gripping. The
fact that the Jubilee Line Extension of the London Underground
has recently been completed also makes this movie topical
to today's audience - very much like it would have when it
was first theatrically released.
To
The Devil a Daughter sees Christopher Lee as a defrocked,
devil-worshipping Catholic priest who convinces a man to sign
over the soul of his daughter so that she will become the
devil's representative on earth once she reaches her eighteenth
birthday. As that day draws closer, two men become locked
in a deadly battle over the possession of her soul...
Christopher
Lee is truly chilling as the clearly mad priest and what's
even spookier is that a lot of this movie is filmed around
St Katherine's Docks in London which is one of my old haunts.
Mildly pornographic in places this movie is pretty average
and watch out for the little rubber devil that tries to crawl
into a ladies rude area... scary... maybe not.
One
thing worth mentioning is that all the movies in this collection
seem to have been given a good clean before being transferred
to DVD - something that can't be said for a lot of the collections
put out recently by Warner in the UK. Let's hope this is something
they will be continuing to do for future collections.
As
it stands, this is a pretty impressive collection which at
£10 a movie is pretty good value for money. It's just
a shame that all the movies included have not aged as well
as Quatermass and the Pitt.
Darren
Rea
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