FULL REVIEW : 'THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD' SECOND SIGHT FILMS BLU RAY : GALLERY AND GIFS

FOLLOWING THE SUCCESS of their SELL OUT releases of Limited Edition Blu-rays, of the classic Amicus horrors films, 'ASYLUM' and 'THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD' SECOND SIGHT FILMS are delighted to announce that BOTH films are set to arrive as Standard Edition Blu-rays, complete with a slew of special features and new reversible sleeve artwork created by Graham Humphreys on 6 January 2020. Below is our PCASUK REVIEW and Gallery FEATURE on the STANDARD RELEASES. BOTH can be PRE ORDERED NOW HERE AND HERE. You can also read our review of the STANDARD RELEASE of 'ASYLUM' in this PCASUK REVIEW FEATURE HERE!

A FAIR FEW YEARS AGO, and more than I care to remember, my four children all then in their early teens  . . it's a long story... requested to have a peep at the kind of films, that their Dad prattled endlessly on the phone about, and why they were off limits to the likes of their sensitive nervous systems, and 'for a time when you are older'. Well, they announced, 'That time has surely come??' They had a point. More than once, during chill-time after family dinner, I sat and watched their tv choices, made up of various teen dramas, music shows and videos and was stunned to see what was considered to be 'children's television'! Is it OK to now say KNICKERS before the nine o'clock water-shed now?? They informed me it was . .  and that there was worse! It had all been checked by Mum, so I was sadly . . behind 'with the times'. 

EITHER WAY, I did take time to think on what should I let them view from the 'Collection of Peter Cushing Hammer and Amicus Horrors' VHS tapes. 'At The Earth's Core'? No, a little too soft. 'Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed'? No, Baron FAR too angry. The 1958 'Dracula'? Nope, the ending would give them nightmares, for weeks 'The Vampire Lovers? . . . you are kidding me? Cruising the VHS spines, eventually brought me to Amicus films 1971, 'The House That Dripped Blood' starring both Peter Cushing AND Christopher Lee. It has tension, some black comedy, a bit of a fakie Cushing head on a plate, but no boobs, wobbly bits, romping and funny enough, not a drop of blood and consisted in true Amicus fashion  a framework of FOUR stories. So, they shouldn't get bored! Perfect! Problem was this film was one of the very first I proudly captured on VHS during a TV broadcast, one my fav Amicus films.. and so, was well worn and grainy from obsessive playing and pausing, funny enough on the Ingrid Pitt scenes! 😊😉 

IT WOULD HAVE TO DO, they were happy to watch pop videos that looked like they were shot during the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with a cameraman tied to a Full Power Gymo Hip Vibrating  Machine, while being deliberately dazzled by light-house strength flood lights, compared to THAT viewing this would be dream like. The result? They LOVED it, but would have liked to have watched it, without the GRAIN, 'A bit like those old newspaper photographs we see in history classes' and . .  during the quiet, tense, and suspenseful scenes, it was slightly spoiled by, 'what sounded like Mum frying eggs in the background' ... sound hiss! Again, they had a point. But even though there was, hiss, grain, buzzing and. . Denholm Elloitt being a dead ringer for their maths teacher, Cushing being quite dishy and the unsettling fact that the character Dominck looked like our 'creep-guy' neighbour . . . it was a great shared experience and their first glimpse into the world of fantasy cinema and Peter Cushing. ...  

SO FAST FORWARD, to this week, 14th December 2019 and the arrival of another copy of 'The House That Dripped Blood' is ready for viewing  . .  supplied by Second Sight Films on BLU RAY and one of a few copies generously donated for inclusion as prizes in our annual PCAS CHRISTMAS COMPETITION . . . and collectively, the children, now sat together as adults, snacks on hand, drinks at the ready . .  watching the opening credits and what should be an interesting viewing ...  to be continued below . . .

THE VISUAL:
Here's a little detail, we should get into focus and something I haven't mentioned before. ALL the reviews I write and post here are based on my experience of watching them. I have little expert technical knowledge on the process f how these little gems get onto that disc, but as a paying viewer, I base my review on was the copy of good quality, worth the pennies and how it compares to other versions or releases I have of that particular. Discs are often donated as prizes for our PCAS Competitions, they come free, with no contract or deal, other than PCAS will post a feature about it's quality, content and where it can be purchased. That's it. PCAS covers the postage to competition winners, via loose change that is found in my suit at the end of the day! I am not bound to express any opinions on the release, except what I think, and my family who will at some point, watch the film with me! It's as simple, as that. I see it like recommending a PLUMBER to family or friends! 😃 If it's a good job done, I will have no problem recommending, if not .. and minus parting with hard earned cash, I feel like the DRIP... I will also tell you so 😉 

SO, IS SECOND SIGHT FILMS blu ray of 'THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD' worthy of recommendation? I am very happy to say, YES! Since from the beginnings of Home Cinema, 'The House That Dripped Blood' has had many releases on VHS, DVD and now Blu Ray around the world! Why did I never replace my tatty VHS copy of the film over the year, if it had all those releases?? Because, THIS one is the first that I have watched that makes the grade I was looking for! The fits thing that impressed me on just watching the opening titles was the DETAIL. It's very sharp. That TITLE TEXT presented in that, often causes issues on DVD's and Blu Rays RED, looks amazing. Sharp against a contrast that in the past has always looked fuzzy. At last, not here. Throughout the film, the 1.85:1 1080p image has a texture that is common in nearly ALL Amicus films. 

I AM GUESSING producers Milton and Max, shot the Amicus releases on a grade of film that was common for somewhat lower budget productions. The same can be said of certain Hammer film productions too, 'The Vampire Lovers' and 'Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter' come to mind. Maybe it was a trend at the time as it's evident in a vast quantity of British films made in the late 1960's and up until the mid 1970's. Ray Parslow cinematography looks great through-out with Tony Curtis's set design and colours, never looking better. 'The House' manages to look subtly different in each story, changes of lighting can be spotted as the contrast, as expected looks balanced . . . dark corners LOOK DARK not a washy faded grey.

LOOK OUT for those weird looking colours and areas of mist and fog during Peter Cushing's very hallucinogenic and off-kilter nightmare scene in 'Waxworks'!😊😉 Now, we can see the effort and trouble Parslow applied, at every short notice in that 'Nightmare' scene. A scene that was improvised and suggested by director Peter Duffell, on the day of the shoot! Second Sight Films Blu Ray, at last presents the film, at last.. as it was intended to be SEEN and enjoyed . .

THE AUDIO: 

JUST LIKE in SECOND SIGHT FILMS Blu Ray 'twinning' release of Amicus films 'ASYLUM'Second Sight have chosen to transfer the film's audio using its original mono via an uncompressed 24-bit 1.0 channel linear PCM . A crisp mono score by Michael Dress, also brings us Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden'. .. String Quartet Number 14 in D minor! It provides a moody and unsettling soundtrack to Peter Cushing's 'Waxworks' story . . and sounds quite brilliant! Clear and balanced, played through my Sony headphones and Sony home cinema speakers..without distortion, with volume turned up quite loud! I have very good and understanding neighbours 😊😉 Kritzerland's excellent CD release of the Michael Dress score to 'The House That Dripped Blood' last year is superb, but THIS recording, is how I remember it. . . with the scenes noises and atmos! So, a BIG thumbs up on the film's audio. 

NOW THE EXTRAS and their AUDIO. We are treated to TWIN optional commentaries one by Director Peter Duffell and author Jonathan Rigby. Very good, informative with several little nuggets of little known info. Rigby keeps it bouncy and asks plenty of questions, we would all like to ask, if we had the opportunity. The second is by author Troy Howarth, who many will known from the reviews and features he contributed to the PCASUK website over the years. An enjoyable informative commentary! Michael Higgins second director, speaks in a ten minute interview, then a 17 minute vintage featurette called ' A Rated Horror Film', which features again Duffell, but supported by Geoffrey Bayldon, Ingrid Pitt and Chloe Franks. This isn't a new feature for some, as it was produced by Anchor Bay for their 2003 dvd release. There's a nice selection of trailers, then a SKIP LOAD of vintage stills, radio spots and ads, making a five minute gallery on a loop with other promo material that plays for 17 minutes! The difference between this STANDARD RELEASE compared to the LIMITED EDITION is you are minus the 40 page booklet and the sleeve artwork, but with such crammed discs, and reduced price tag, no one should be complaining.....

AND SO, IN RAPPING UP it's a very good release . . . not just my opinion, but my 'kids' too. Now in their 20's and 30's, my sons certainly appreciated the huge difference in visual quality, some elements of the stories now made sense with clear visuals and dialogue they could HEAR! My daughters . . one gave in on the extras, as the babysitter was soon leaving BUT really enjoyed the Cushing 'Waxworks' tale and Christopher Lee 'Sweets to the Sweets' story, the other and youngest, loved Ingrid Pitt's hair and certainly creeped out during 'Method For Murder' . . so the Blu Ray made all the difference. What I found most rewarding was they, all four expressed an interest and appreciation in the production values and the huge difference Second Sight's remastering and attention to detail has made to the film and it's presentation. So, well done, Second Sight Films you have produced a winner all round and have also made me, not so behind the times, after all! 😉😃
 

REVIEW OF SEVERIN'S THE UNCANNY BLU RAY AND THE POTTED SAGA OF MILTON AND MAX

THE PROGUE
THE UNCANNY, has a title that is weirdly appropriate and fits not only the whole weird set up of the film, and by that I don't just mean, the film's characters and the script! If when following the story, you have a feeling of 'deja vu', it's perfectly justified.  Severin Films has recently released  their long awaited blu ray of this bizarre British / Canadian feature film. Anyone worth their mustard and standing as a 'Fantasy flicks' fan will be familiar with the films of Amicus Productions and it's producers, a successful partnership of Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg. Milton based in the UK, soul provider of books and script properties to fashion into worthy productions and other Max, a hard nosed deal-man who rustled up the lolly and funding for these films and projects. It all worked splendidly for decades. A wielding of two men, dedicated to the product who started and founded their company with no legal document, only a 'gentlemans' hand-shake. Such was the trust they had in each other and their belief in their skill set! Together they formed said company 'Amicus' (roughly translates as 'Friend' in Hindi) and proceeded to make some of the best British horror / fantasy films that generated some impressive box office through the mid 1960's until the early 1970's.

THE LATE Max Rosenberg called Amicus "a studio without walls". He was a New Yorker, a law graduate with a successful distribution company who when he first heard about the Eady plan, a British subsidy set up to funnel government money into movie production and encourage filming in the UK., knew he had found the 'golden hen' for their at the time, tin pan plans. Milton Subotsky was a shy science-fiction film freak, also from New York, whose parents considered the movie industry disreputable. Nevertheless, he still managed to squeeze into the feature film business, producing 'Rock, Rock, Rock' with Rosenberg in 1956, before he moved to England in 1960. 

IN 1964,, the pair made that 'shake' and with that, the founding of Amicus, to take advantage of the Eady plan and put their plan into action.  There was no capital structure, so films got made through a combination of some private investment, funding from the 'Eady Plan', all not poured but rather, dripped into some  extremely low budgets. Their first portmanteau and 'proper' production, arrived in the 1965 'Dr Terror's House of Horrors'. It was made for less than £100,000, yet starred the two horror giants of the time,  Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. It was directed by Freddie Francis, who by then was already a highly acclaimed cinematographer. Rosenberg's technique for attracting high-profile talent was simple formula: he hired them on a competitive day rate, but only for a few days, so shooting schedules were brisk. Very brisk. The box office popular 1971 'The House That Dripped Blood' was filmed over a just four weeks.



IF WALLS COULD TALK! Part THREE of the AMICUS FILMS of PETER CUSHING, includes gallery and behind the scenes story on the making of 'The House That Dripped Blood' CLICK HERE!

THE MEAT
AMICUS may have, for some fashioned what could have be seen as quite way off horror hokum, but their most popular Peter Cushing portmanteau movie, 'Tales From The Crypt' was second only to The Godfather at the US box office in 1972, and also spawned a follow-up, The Vault of Horror! All of this came into being through hard-nosed opportunism and Subotsky's love of simple, well told tales, though many adapted with an ink and mind set, darker than most and writer called, Robert Bloch, which equaled Bloch-Office-receipts at the cinema. 

AMICUS IS SEEN by many to have been the only direct competitor to Hammer films, that other British production company, who also hit gold with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee just eight years before, Amicus dig in their flag. Where Hammer based their movies in far off European countries like Transylvania, where Counts are vampires and Baron's keep not wine and antiques in their dungeons and cellars, but body parts and heads, Amicus set their plots in contemporary suburban England, a staple funds saving choice, as all sets were usually cast off's from other films, still standing at Shepperton studios! The often leafy lane and cottage needed for a tale, were always a conveniently mere three miles from the studio gate! 

WE MAY TITTER, but it worked and worked extremely well. The Amicus films were typically quite brooding and claustrophobic; they were in some ways far darker without the Gothic, these horror stories could have been taking place in our homes, basements, garden sheds or kitchens! Many of the scripts tended to reflect some of Subotsky's obsessions. 'I, Monster', the weird Amicus Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde adaptation, is stuffed with Freudian theories. It's no secret that Subotsky's wife happened to be studying psychology at the time . . .!

THE BONE
Even though at heart, Subotsky was a dreamer, he could when needed also be a shrewd businessman. "Hammer was a business set-up," the late, legendary horror director Freddie Francis once said in 1995. "Had it dealt in garbage disposal, it would have been just as successful. Milton Subotsky from Amicus, on the other hand, was a real horror buff." Only Subotsky could 'rent' a star name for a day on a flat rate to include them as part of the cast and add value to the cast list rota on the cinema poster! Such was the amazing chemistry of how, Amicus worked, before Subotsky and Rosenberg had a huge spat and it all went south. Rosenberg though carried on producing a few films under the Amicus name and then became a distributor called Dynamite, who ironically and horribly, reedited and repackaged two Hammer films, 'Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires' and 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula' both with Peter Cushing, for distribution in the US on VHS and DVD. And Subotsky? Well . . . 

THE SCRAPS
IN 1975 AMICUS made its final bow with 'At The Earth's Core'. On viewing it at a local cinema with his son, Milton was appalled. When PCASUK interviewed Subotsky in a rare video interview in the early 80's, he found it hard to cover his disappointment at the film and contempt for Rosenberg's and director Kevin Connor's handling of the film, in his absence. 'I went to the trouble to invent and devise a complete language for the Pellucidarians in the film. But that was just ignored. When Peter speaks to them and they talk back in fluid English I nearly fell off my seat! And the climax in my screenplay was entirely different. A film that ends with fire works and explosions just shows lack of imagination!' 

AND SO with the final death throes of Amicus, Subotsky set up camp elsewhere. He formed "Sword & Sorcery Productions, Ltd.", tried to get funding for several projects like the 'Thongor' stories, even a film with Stan Lee's 'The Hulk' but to no success. But all was not lost, Subotsky produced the film  'Dominique' with Simon Ward, Jenny Agutter, Ron Moody, Judy Geeson... all actors who had worked with Peter Cushing... and Jean Simmons! In 1980, he co-produced the TV series The Martian Chronicles, adapted from the short story collection by Ray Bradbury. But in between there, he joined forces with Cinevideo, Rank and several other piggy banks in Canada, to make one other film, and this is where we started . .

THE UNCANNY
Wilbur Gray (Peter Cushing) visits Frank Richards (Ray Milland ) so he can get his book published. This book Gray has written are about cats. Cats watching everyone and controlling everything. He mentions the stories in the book are all true, and gives three examples. The first involves the murder of a cat-loving old woman (Joan Greenwood, Susan Penhaligon and Simon Williams ) who gives her entire fortune in her will to her cats. Not everyone is happy about the wills, but would have to get past the cats to get the the will. The second story is a tale of black magic between two girls (Chloe Franks and Katrina Holden Bronson) and the third story is a tale of murderous revenge (Donald Pleasence, Samantha Eggar and Catherine Bégin) ... by a cat.

SEVERIN 'THE UNCANNY' BLU RAY
I FIRST SAW this film, back in 2006 on a Network DVD release. I sadly missed any chance of catching it on the big screen, as it received such a poor reception theatrically back in 1977, no local flea pit would take it. So a chance to see the film, that for many years had been given the rough treatment in Fantasy magazines and fanzines, who seemed more caught up on the idea that this could only be a feral version of anything Subotsky had to offer, since Amicus was now dead and buried! On viewing, I was much surprised! It's not Amicus, but it is entertaining. The bleak and black sense of humor that often peeped out from the traditional Amicus suburbian alcoves and curtains, is now given the full room, which is quite a change for Subotsky, who stages the stories across London 1912, Quebec Province 1975 and Hollywood 1936! Despite Subotsky's well known dislike of unpleasant graphic scenes of blood and sex in his productions, he does pull out the stops in a few scenes. Remember, cats have claws and love to chew and bite! 

THE CAST is more than capable of holding these three tales together, Joan Greenwood is deliciously unpleasant, creepy and taster than cat nip, Susan Penhaligon, does 'hungry' very well and left me peckish to want to see more of her. Chloe Franks and Katrina Holden Bronson carry their lead roles in their tale as brat and victim to the hilt, while Donald Pleasence, Samantha Eggar and Catherine Bégin, are given the full nine yards in a camp and funny, saga of silent era Hollywood. Pleasence really does go for it, right up until the macabre climax. Meee-OUCH! This isn't 'Tales from the Crypt' or 'Torture Garden' it's Subotsky having fun. Personally, or me, it's the Cats Whiskers . .😉😚

SEVERIN FILMS must be congratulated on bringing the film to blu ray for the first time, given the film's, rocky reputation, this film has had more bootleg and dodgy VHS transfers to DVD, than Peter Cushing's 'dead on arrival' Tendre Dracula! Long before this film's release, we were teased with the news that the blu ray transfer came from . . a source, that has been “scanned from an inter-negative recently discovered in a London vault.”  . . sounds like a thread from one of Subotsky's stories! The surprising thing is sporadically, at the beginning of the film, it seems that this single layer transfer, looks every frame, like it was 'found from said vault'!. Not so bad, that we have a the surface of the bottom of an old and well used cats bowl to look through, but it has that 'no longer a kitten, more an old moggy look about it'. 

THIS IS A SHAME, as the definition is certainly better than a dvd but the surface of the film and the audio during the first few minutes, has been unnecessarily neglected. Having said that, the transfer is bright, colourful as should be, the audio is presented in English 2.0 mono DTS-HD with optional subtitles in English SDH. The dialogue thankfully is always clear. If you are watching and listening with headphones, it sounds exceptable and I can't say I heard anything distracting or any audio distortion. 

THE EXTRAS on this release are slim. A twelve-minute interview with actress Susan Penhaligon, entitled 'The Cat’s Victim' is the best of a handful, Penhaligon chats about her career and some of the early roles that leads up to her role in The Uncanny. She also spends a little time on working with Peter Cushing and some of the trickiness involved in working with live cats on set during the making of the film. There is also a theatrical trailer

THIS IS NOT A BAD transfer, considering the problems with finally finding a source, but I can't help thinking, the whole thing would have been so much better and deserving of a much awaited blu ray release, had another source been used.. but that sadly, wasn't possible, and there lies another Subotsky like tale, for another time...   

MILTON SUBOTSKY died of heart disease in 1991, at the age of 69. Max Rosenberg died in Los Angeles, California in 2004, he was 89