Showing posts with label chrsitopher lee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chrsitopher lee. Show all posts

Sunday 23 August 2020

NEWS! MILL CREEK ENTERTAINMENT HAMMER FILM : ULTIMATE COLLECTION : 20 TITLES BLU RAY BOX SET

NEWS! WELL WE'VE NOT SEEN a package like this in a while!! Mill Creek Entertainment has announced the release of their 'Hammer Film - Ultimate Collection' a gathering of 20 Hammer films titles, ranging from the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Just two Cushing titles in there, 'The Revenge of Frankenstein' starring Cushing, Francis Matthews and Eunice Gayson, 'Cash on Demand' (1960) and 'The Gorgon' with Cushing, Christopher Lee and Barbara Shelley. Those of familiar with the Mill Creek stock, will recognise these titles from the triple and double bill releases of the last five years. But, if you missed your opportunity to bag them then and have gaps in your collection, here is an opportunity to bag them all together!

AT THE TIME POSTING, I am not aware if these titles are part of and the same 'remasters' we've seen over the past two years in Europe... but if that info is released, I'll let you know. The box set is available for PRE-ORDER NOW at $109.99 MSRP and has a street release of NOVEMBER 17th 2020. Below is the spec from Mill Creek 😉

'For more than four decades, Hammer Films’ unique blend of horror, science fiction, thrills and comedy dominated countless drive-ins and movie theaters. Enjoy this massive collection from the darkest corners of the Hammer Imagination!'

Featuring 20 Cult-Classics from the infamous Hammer Studios produced in the 50s, 60s and 70s available together for the first time in high-definition!

The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1963)
These Are The Damned (1962)
The Old Dark House (1963)
The Gorgon (1964)
The Snorkel (1958)
Maniac (1963)
Die! Die! My Darling (1965)
Scream of Fear (1961)
Stop Me Before I Kill! (1961)
Never Take Candy From A Stranger (1960)
Cash On Demand (1961)
The Stranglers of Bombay (1960)
The Terror of the Tongs (1961)
The Pirates of Blood River (1962)
The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964)
The Camp on Blood Island (1958)
Yesterday's Enemy (1959)
Creatures the World Forgot (1971)

Tech Specs:
Language: English
Discs: 10
Format: Blu-ray
Subtitles: English Subtitles
Run Time: 2065 min.
Rating: Not Rated
Region Code: Region A
Street Date: 2020-11-17
Color: Color/B&W

PLEASE COME JOIN US at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features ad prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing OBE!

Sunday 11 February 2018

THE CUSHING DOUBLE BILLS NUMBER 2 : THE SKULL AND THE CREEPING FLESH : CALLUM MCKELVIE ON SUNDAY


BEGINNING LAST WEEK, I started a series examining three pairs of films that I felt would make ideal ‘Cushing Double-Bills’, concentrating primarily on thematic links.  Last time, I looked at Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and its first sequel The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958). We continue this week with a pair of films slightly less obvious than our previous selection, 1965’s The Skull and 1972’s The Creeping Flesh. Ostensibly two unrelated films (excluding the fact that both feature Cushing and Christopher Lee and are directed by Freddie Francis) our discussion this week concerns the dark thematic subtext that links both.


MADE IN 1965, The Skull is often cited as one of Cushing’s very best whilst The Creeping Flesh (despite getting a great deal of attention from fans and this page in particular) is still sadly something of an undiscovered gem. The Skull is one of Amicus’s non-portmanteau features and is based on the short story The Skull of the Marquis De Sade by Robert Bloch. A masterpiece of atmosphere, The Skull has a powerful dreamlike quality that manages to be supremely unsettling. The Creeping Flesh, on the other hand, is one of Tony Tenser’s Tigon productions and is far more visceral in its execution, with some genuinely disturbing scenes..


SO WHAT THEN IS IT, that causes me to group these two films in particular? Well to begin with both demonstrate British horror studios attempting to do something different with the Hammer mould and are incredibly experimental in nature. The Skull, as well as being a modern day piece it’s far less explicit in exactly what its threat is than Hammer tend to be, preferring  a slower, subtler build-up. Visually The Skull is particularly arresting, be it the haunting shots from the Skull’s perspective or the Kafka-esque dream sequence. Similarly the film embraces a darkness to an extent that Hammer rarely did, from the depressing ending to the character of Maitland himself.



ABOVE AND BELOW: THE KAFKA-ESQUE POV SHOTS APPEAR IN 
BOTH 'THE SKULL' AND 'THE CREEPING FLESH'


MAITLAND, whilst not unlikeable, is hardly a charmer and as an audience we are invited to look upon his morbid hobby with a critical eye. We care about him and wish him no ills but the obsessiveness that permeates his character causes us to question his gruesome pastime. 'The Creeping Flesh' on the other hand is from, arguably, the most radical British horror studio in business from the mid 60’s to mid-70’s. 



ABOVE: THE OBSESSIVE MAITLAND OF 'THE SKULL' (1965)



IT MUST BE REMEMBERED that whilst Tigon were behind the gothic pot-boiler The Blood Beast Terror (1967), they were also the studio famed for producing Michael Reeves his magnum opus, Witchfinder General (1968) and his earlier The Sorcerers (1967). Away from Reeves, Tigons output is rich with a ‘radical’ and ‘alternative’ sentiment and whilst not always successful never cease to be interesting. Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968), Neither the Sea nor the Sand (1972), The Flesh and Blood Show (1972), The Beast in the Cellar (1970) and of course Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) are among the most innovative and experimental British horror films in this period.




ABOVE: BORIS KARLOFF AND IAN OGILVY IN TIGON FILMS 'THE SORCERERS' (1967)



ABOVE: THE EQUALLY OBSESSIVE EMMANUEL HILDER FROM THE CREEPING FLESH (1972)

THUS The Creeping Flesh similarly contains elements that go against the traditional mould. Namely, like The Skull, there are few likeable characters and our main this time, Emmanuel Hildern is equally as obsessive as Maitland. This time it is science and particularly the desire to make a great discovery, rather than collecting that absorbs him. The same can be said of his sadistic brother James (Lee), who covets his brother’s success. The film questions the nature of evil and in particular uses the Victorian scientist to do this. The usual hero of Hammer is here reverted to selfish obsessors whose desire for success and discovery makes them far more horrific, than the devil-creature that appears at the climax.


ABOVE: THE SADISTIC BROTHER JAMES, PLAYED BY CHRISTOPHER LEE IN 'THE CREEPING FLESH' (1972)



AS PERHAPS I’m already beginning to demonstrate, 'The Skull' and 'The Creeping Flesh', are without doubt two of the most sub textually rich and intelligent films that Cushing has been involved with. In both, it’s possible to feel that perhaps more than his other Gothic productions Freddie Francis is able to identify themes and motifs throughout the stories that interest him visually. Building on themes of obsession, madness is a prominent factor in both and indeed can be one of the central elements of fear that emanates from the films. In 'The Skull' we are invited to question whether Maitland is actually going insane and the nature of his haunting is a highly personal one, attacking his mind over his physical body (at least until the films climax). 


ABOVE: MAITLAND HIGHLY PERSONAL MADNESS

ONCE AGAIN in The Creeping Flesh we are invited to wonder whether our main character is indeed mad, though far more explicitly. Here the framing structure of the film has Cushing narrating his story, before at the end revealing that he is an inmate in the asylum ran by Lee. A final shot leaves us to wonder whether his story is true or not. However the theme of madness permeates the story far deeper than this, with Cushing living in fear of hereditary madness that leads him to inject his daughter with the serum grown from the remains of the skeleton.




IN SHORT, I think of all the double bills I’ll be discussing, this is easily the most personal. Whilst I love the films of Hammer these two simply blew me away with relentlessly dark tales that made comments on obsession, madness and the nature of evil. Whilst calling them Cushing’s two ‘Artsy’ horrors may sound somewhat insulting, I think it perhaps sums them up best. These films are Freddie Francis’s masterpieces and demonstrate a sub textual and visual storytelling intelligence far above and beyond any of his other horror work. Whilst Dracula has Risen from the Grave is certainly beautiful to look at and contains interesting commentary on religion, it’s not as rich or as subtle as these two films. 


IT'S A REAL SHAME that whilst The Skull has r been given a superb Blu-ray treatment, The Creeping Flesh is neglected to a mill-creek triple feature. One lives in hope that boutique label along the lines of Arrow will recognise the merit in the film and surprise us with a brand new HD transfer and a wealth of features. If you’re looking for two of Cushing’s darker, less comfortable films then these make the perfect double bill.


THE BEST OF A DOUBLE? CASTING AND FILMS, CUSHING AND LEE IN 'THE SKULL' (1965) AND 'THE CREEPING FLESH' (1972)




OH AND THEY BOTH feature skulls. Just saying. Join me NEXT SUNDAY, for another classic DOUBLE BILL!


REMEMBER! IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA 

Thursday 26 May 2016

I DON'T CARE IF HE'S GOD!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETER CUSHING : ANOTHER LAST MEETING CLIP


OUR SECOND RARE clip today from 'THE LAST MEETING' raw footage of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee meeting for the last time in 1994. Here, Christopher Lee shares the story of how he and Peter were doing the rounds of interviews and promotion for Dracula in 1958 in New York, and the larger than life radio presenter 'Long John' Nebel, giving Hammer films Chairman, James Carreras a piece of advice! Christopher Lee obviously again enjoys making Peter laugh. Just watching them both, so candid and relaxed, Peter obviously loves Lee's stories. It so good to see them both enjoying each others company, for one last time....


This is one of EIGHT clips, in an archive to which we are currently adding new clips. You can find all eight here in our Facebook video library or at our Youtube Channel. ENJOY!

Friday 26 June 2015

PATRICK MACNEE HAS DIED TODAY


We are all very sad to hear of the passing of Patrick Macnee today. A man who, without doubt, had incredible style on both on the screen and off it. Know mostly for playing the role of Steed in the Brit tv series 'The Avengers' ...in which Peter also appeared in an episode entitled Return of the Cybernauts, with his faithful side kick Mrs Peel... Macnee also appeared in a real horror entitled Incense for the Damned aka Bloodsuckers...terrible. A statement on the actor's website today reads: "Wherever he went, he left behind a trove of memories."
RIP Patrick Macnee 1922-2015
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...