{"id":2241,"date":"2011-01-21T02:23:44","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T07:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=1518"},"modified":"2011-01-21T03:32:42","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T08:32:42","slug":"hammer-films-i-missing-links-classics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2241","title":{"rendered":"Hammer Films I: Missing Links & Classics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Please note: this moment NEVER OCCURS in Vampire Circus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Yes, I could have used the heading “Hammer Time,” but then even I would’ve winced at such a facile, dated pop culture spin. (It was <\/em>tempting, though.)<\/p>\n

Everyone has a favourite Hammer movie, if not a warm gushy spot in the heart for that special brand of bloody, busty, blazing colour series of horror films churned out by Hammer Films<\/a>, a company that started out in 1934 with generic film fodder, but swerved into horror during the late fifties and sixties with adaptations of classic mummy, vampire, Frankenstein and werewolf tales + myriad sequels.<\/p>\n

The chief talent included actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, director Ternece Fisher, and composer James Bernard, and a whole host of very serious creative people paying heat + water bills \/ having fun making horror films\u00a0dressed with more blood, gore, and heaving bosoms than Hollywood was fondling at the same time.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the main reason the Hammer films are so beloved is the sincerity that went into them. There was <\/em>humour, but Hammer films were designed to be scary<\/em>, not silly, and perhaps that’s why fans treat them with special reverence, much in the way the Universal pre-Code thrillers are regarded as more daring than the sequels and hybrids and spoofs that followed soon afterwards in the late-thirties and forties.<\/p>\n

As a studio, Hammer\u00a0isn’t dead – their first attempt to reboot the brand name for theatrical releases was 2010′s English language remake of Let the Right One In<\/strong>, with the title shortened to the catchier, WASP’ier Let Me In<\/strong> – but their classic catalogue has often been a problem for home video releases because of censored prints for American markets, and the fact titles were distributed by whichever studio had the best offer – hence various titles released by Columbia, Paramount, Universal, Fox, and Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

Anchor Bay brought a large collection of titles back into circulation on DVD, as did Warner Home Video, but there are those odd titles that haven’t received their definitive editions.<\/p>\n

Synapse Films may have found a solution by going after the missing gems and cult titles, and their first effort is Vampire Circus<\/a><\/strong> (1972) [M<\/a>], a title many may have heard about (or heard score extracts from\u00a0various compilation\u00a0albums), but never seen.<\/p>\n

Their special edition includes a Blu-ray and DVD copy of the film with identical extras, and is supposed to be the first of several Hammer titles from the label.<\/p>\n

Another cult title is Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter<\/a><\/strong> (1974) [M<\/a>] which creator\/writer\/director Brian Clemens (The Avengers<\/strong>) had planned to spin off into a series, then attempted to launch on TV, but no one seemed to care about the film – particularly Hammer, whose main production chief, Michael Carreras, reportedly didn’t quite understand Clemens’ approach to creating a fresh vampire series largely free of the tiresome cliches Hammer had been regurgitating during the late sixties and early seventies.<\/p>\n

Not unlike Vampire Circus<\/strong>, Kronos <\/strong>didn’t enjoy proper distribution, and disappeared, but its re-emergence on DVD (with a wonderful commentary track) via Paramount in Region 1 land rescued the film from oblivion… but then Paramount’s recent penchant for deleting back catalogue titles caught up with Kronos<\/strong>, and it’s now out of print again.<\/p>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

Kronos <\/strong>is ripe for further cinematic adventures, and Hammer should revisit the title, but with one caveat: Stephen Sommers must have nothing <\/strong>to do with it, either for film, TV, or as a dietary supplement with cranberry tincture.<\/p>\n

In addition to covering the\u00a0Paramount DVD, I’ve also included a review of Laurie Johnson’s superb soundtrack <\/a>[M<\/a>], which BSX Records released as a limited CD which no Hammer fan should be without!<\/p>\n

Four of the previously released Warner titles have been repackaged into\u00a0the budget-priced TCM Greatest Classic Film Collection: Hammer Horror<\/strong>, and reviews of the vampire films have been also been uploaded – Horror of Dracula<\/a><\/strong> (1958) [M<\/a>] and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave<\/a><\/strong> (1968) [M<\/a>].<\/p>\n

In Part II, I’ll have reviews of the remaining two Hammers in TCM’s set, plus reviews of Hammer’s final feature film releases in the last stages of the seventies.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviews of Synapse’s swanky Blu-ray of Hammer’s Vampire Circus, plus reviews of Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter (from Paramount), and Christopher Lee with creepy contact lenses in Horror of Dracula and Dracula has Risen from the Grave (Warner Home Video). Also covered is a soundtrack review of Laurie Johnson’s Captain Kronos’ score (BSX Records)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-A9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2242,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions\/2242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}