NEWS: THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA AND DRACULA AD 1972 COME TO BLU RAY REMASTERS AT LAST! WARNER BROTHERS ARCHIVE

EXCLUSIVE NEWS: WARNER BROS ARCHIVE have announced that they will be releasing BOTH DRACULA AD 1972 AND THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA, as REMASTERED BLU RAY BOTH IN OCTOBER 2018! Both promise to be GREAT treats!

DRACULA D 1972 SPECIFICATIONS:
NEW 2018 1080p HD remaster! Running Time 96:00 Subtitles English SDH
Sound DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English Aspect Ratio 1.78:1, 16 X 9 WIDESCREEN COLOR. Disc Configuration BD 50. RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 2018

THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA SPECIFICATIONS : NEW 2018 1080p HD remaster! Running Time 88:00 Subtitles English SDH Sound DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English Aspect Ratio 1.78:1, 16 X 9 WIDESCREEN COLOR Disc Configuration BD 25 Release date: October 2018

THE CLASSIC HAMMER FILMS starring both Christopher Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, have long been on the  'want it' BLU RAYS shopping list of many Hammer film fans. Now in REMASTERED BLU RAYS, that time has finally arrived! If the standard of the print and packaging of the previous WARNER BROTHERS Hammer BOX SET release of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, The Mummy and Taste The Blood Of Dracula, is anything to go by, this shpould be a REAL treat. We await any news of EXTRA features. As soon as we get the, you will HEAR IT HERE FIRST!

LOOK OUT FOR UPDATES! MORE NEWS ON THESE RELEASES TO COME!
 

ABOVE ONE OF OUR PAST features on THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA  BEHIND THE SCENES :  CLICK HERE!

OUR PCASUK Satanic Rites Of Dracula REVIEW FEATURE and RARE STILLS Gallery : CLICK HERE!

FIND GALLERIES RARE IMAGES and much more besides in our TWO PART SERIES on THE HAMMER DRACULA FLICKS. Featuring some of the BEST moments from the Hammer / Christopher Lee Dracula archive! Now at this website . .

 

CALLUM MCKELVIE : THE THREE ROLES THAT MADE THE CAREER : RARE GALLERIES

THE THREE ROLES THAT CREATED the career of Peter Cushing! A NEW series of features from CALLUM MCKELVIE starting very soon! The RARE photograph of Peter in this promo banner marks probably one of Cushing's best known roles. Over at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE we asked, which THREE roles would you personally list as being Cushing's TOP THREE? Lots of interesting answers and many suggesting the THREE we have chosen  to focus on, in this new  weekly feature! Feel free  to visit the PCASUK page and join in!

REMEMBERED TODAY : PETER WILTON CUSHING OBE AUGUST 11TH 1994

IN MEMORY of Peter Wilton Cushing 26th May 1913 - 11th August 1994:

TODAY WE MARK the 24th Anniversary of the day the Peter Cushing left us. As a society, here at our Peter Cushing Facebook fan page and at our website we mark the many birthdays and the sad news others passing, and also remembering those who worked with or knew Peter Cushing. It's a sad day, but as always, we ask that the mood be one of celebration...the celebration of a life well lived, of his career, his professional achievements and of him being the most of gentle, of gentle men.

POST HERE AT OUR WEBSITE on the 20th anniversary of Peters passing, ROY HUDD REMEMBERS PETER CUSHING. READ IT by CLICKING HERE!

STAR WARS actor DON HENDSERSON : REMEMBERS PETER CUSHING also, you can find that by CLICKING HERE!

PLEASE FEEL FREE to share your memory's of Peter over at the FACEBOOK PETER CUSHING APPRECIATION SOCIETY FAN PAGE  where many are celebrating and remembering, Peter Cushing OBE . . .

REMEMBERING JON PERTWEE AND VAN HELSING'S TERROR TALES NOW AVAILABLE IN HARDBACK WHILE STOCKS LAST!

IN THE USA, for decades there was never a shortage of comics and magazines, with a Hammer film or Cushing and Lee angle, along with the usual Universal Monsters focus too, when the 70's arrived, the UK started some very interesting comics and magazines too.  One of which was House of Hammer, a magazine edited by Dez Skinn and published by Top Sellers / Warners. Launched in 1976, the format of the mag was to lead with a comic strip adaptation of a Hammer movie, run several articles and interviews pertaining to Hammer horror films, and end with a short, complete twist-in-the-tail comic strip entitled Van Helsing's Terror Tales.

THE VAN HELSING monthly strip, was maybe one of the most popular strips in the magazine. It featured artwork by some of the UK's top creators such as Brian Lewis, John Bolton, Angus McKie, Trevor Goring, Martin Asbury, Jim Baikie, Patrick White, and more. 

NOW, DEZ SKINN has unearthed those horror classics from the vault and is publishing them in one 80 page limited edition hardback book. (The signed edition is limited to just 100 copies.) The hardback features some of the best, and there are some great pieces that I personally remember from that time. The comic strips were always really well presented . . 

IF YOU WOULD LIKE to order your very own, HARDBACK COPY, just follow the details and the order email adress on the panel above, while stocks last . .  

TODAY WE REMEMBER Jon Pertwee who we sadly lost on this day in May 1996. Pertwee became best known for spending 18 years (1959–1977) playing Chief petty officer Pertwee in the popular series The Navy Lark on BBC Radio. But achieved world wide recognition from playing the Third Doctor in Dr Who whom he played from 1970 to 1974.

WITH Geoffrey Bayldon his co-star in Wurzel Gummidge in 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1970)

WITH Ingrid Pitt In The House That Dripped Blood

AFTER DOCTOR WHO He had continued success in TV playing the title character in the television series Worzel Gummidge from 1979 to 1981 (reprising the role from 1987 to 1989). What are some of your favourite Pertwee performances?

. . . AND With A Broken Tardis! From Spearhead from Space 

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 reach all lovers of Peter Cushing's work AND Help Keep The Memory Alive!

HAMMER'S LAST DRACULA AND VAN HELSING STAND OFF : MOMENTS OF TERROR MONDAY!

#MOMENTOFTERROR MONDAY! Hammer films 'Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires' is another one of Cushing's Hammer appearances, where despite HE going all out, something within the production values, fall short of the feature. . . If you ever get the chance to read the actual script, it ALL sounds amazing and what could have been a imaginative and impressive departure, from the standard set up, if only by location! 

THERE ARE MANY THINGS, that are seen as not up to that Hammer standard... but you have to remember, even as far as John Forbes Robertson's 'make up' as Dracula, that were produced in the STYLE of the values of fantasy film in the country in which Hammer had joined forces with Hong Kong's SHAW BROTHERS.... Take a look at many of the 'fairy-tale-ghost-stories' produced there, and everything clicks and matches for that culture and audience. Maybe it's not what is expected by the audience in the high street Odeon in Bradford UK, but in Hong Kong, certainly. It probably helped and went someway to pulling in quite a box office smash within that culture. Sadly, missing the Kung Fu craze in the rest of the world, Seven Golden Vampires arrived a little too late.

 

 

 

BUT WATCHING IT TODAY, there is much to appreciate. A cast that includes Chinese actor David Chiang, very popular with fans of other Sahw Bros karate fighting movies. Two UK TV popular's in Julie Ege, Robin Steward and the reputation of one of Hammer's leading actors, Peter Cushing, who plays Van Helsing for the fifth and last time, despite production problems felt by director Roy Ward Baker, the film is full of action, all 'horror visuals' have to be viewed with the understanding, this is really a film produced with supernatural and vampire antics, coming from a DIFFERENT culture. 

MONEY DOES look tight, but then at this time, productions filmed in Hong Kong by the Shaw's ALL looked like this. Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires was another brave attempt by Hammer's manager Michael Carreras, to try another and different angle. Personally, I am glad he tried. What do you think?

EXTENDED REQUESTED STAY: #TBT: REMEMBERING MELISSA STRIBLING AND THE SPECKLED BAND

REMEMBERING: Melissa Stribling who was born today November 7th 1927. Stribling appeared in just the one film with Peter Cushing...but boy did she pick the right one! She also got to play in one of Hammer films most iconic scenes in their 1958 'Dracula', where Christopher Lee's Count, in the dead of night, visits her home and..without a word.. seduces her. 

THE SCENE is so super charged with sexual tension, it almost crackles off the screen and as a result got the scissors treatment from the censors at the time. In 2013, in Hammer's restored print the exorcised footage was replaced, giving us the full picture of what Director Terence Fisher, Stribling and Lee had originally intended and created.

 

I'VE READ IN SEVERAL reviews of 'Dracula' both from the time of the films' release in 58 and in more recent times, that Stribling was a curious choice for the role of Mina Holmwood, that compared to the likes of Valerie Gaunt and other Hammer actresses, even though she was only in early 30's when she appeared in Dracula, many thought her slightly ordinary and plain. I totally disagree...but if that was the case, I can't help thinking that, director Fisher's choice in Stribling was intentional. That subtext in the story of Arthur Holmwood's wife being frustrated and bored, suddenly being charmed and seduced by the exotic and erotic Count, Stribling was...the perfect choice.

#MOMENTSOFTERROR MONDAYS! CAROL MARSH AS LUCY HOLMWOOD CAPTURED BY CUSHING'S POWERFUL PROF VAN HELSING!

TODAY'S #MOMENTOFTERROR clip, LINKS with a film and actress that is the title and person who is the subject matter of our #FEMMEFATALEFRIDAY! The ACTRESS CAROL MARSH and the film, Hammer film's 'DRACULA' from 1958.

IT'S A SCENE that most fans of the film appreciate, not only because of Cushing's VAN HELSING fighting off the evil of LUCY HOLMWOOD's vampire but also actresses Carol Marsh and a very young Janina Faye, presenting such horrible pathos and trauma  . . . a niece who truly wants to help and love her, DEAD AUNT!

CAROL MARSH, would have found this role another of many, that asked  for a certain ability. Ability that many had no idea about, what it meant to her as an actress or where the  ability came from . . . what that means, will be revealed in OUR PCAS #FEMMEFATAL FEATURE on CAROL MARSH . .

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

#SILENTBUTDEADLY #GIFS! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRAM AND THE MANY DEATHS OF DRACULA

BORN TODAY November 8th 1847 in Clontarf, Dublin, Republic of Ireland… BRAM STOKER, creator of Dracula and a hundred thousand nightmares! Happy Birthday, Mr Stoker! . . I guess it would never have crossed his mind that his creation, would in the future, die SO MANY DEATHS!

 BELOW: 'Dracula' / 'Horror of Dracula' (1958)

'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave'  (1968)

'Taste The Blood Of Dracula' (1970)

'Scars Of Dracula' (1970)

'Dracula AD 1972' (1972)

'The Satanic Rites Of Dracula' (1972)

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  . .