News

As the format continues to gain traction, here’s our regularly-updated list of upcoming 4K Ultra HD disc releases in the UK.

Sitting alongside our list of upcoming DVD and Blu-ray releases (that you can find here), we’re also keeping a calendar for those who support the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc format. As we learn of new UK releases, we’ll add them to this list.

We have started adding shopping links too. We’d be obliged if you clicked on them, as it really helps us in our quest to make the Film Stories project of magazines, website and podcast profitable. We’re a 100% independent publisher, and we quite like drinking coffee. It’d be lovely to afford some more.

Without further ado, here are the titles we know about…

Out now

28th April: Night Moves

28th April: Russ Meyer’s Up! (100% not the Pixar Up)

28th...

Exclusive: Kaleidoscope Film Distribution (Kfd) is headed to Cannes next week with three new titles on its slate, including Irvine Welsh: Reality is not Enough.

The Irvine Welsh documentary explores the Scottish author’s influence and the themes of class, mortality, creativity and identity in his work. Directed by Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché and Tish filmmaker Paul Sng, it features readings by Liam Neeson, Stephen Graham, Nick Cave and Ruth Negga. Kfd holds world rights; the film is produced by Natasha Dack, and was previously titled I Am Irvine Welsh with Noah Media Group then handling sales.

Seventy years after it first terrified audiences, Hammer Films’ The Quatermass Xperiment is stepping into the future with a stunning 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray release. The landmark 1955 sci-fi horror classic has been meticulously restored for a new generation and is now available to pre-order as a Limited Collector’s Edition through Hammer’s own website.

Directed by Val Guest and adapted by Nigel Kneale from his iconic BBC serial, The Quatermass Xperiment holds a vital place in British genre cinema history. It was the first Hammer film to exploit the potential of horror-inflected science fiction and marked a decisive tonal shift that would help shape the studio’s future output. Now, for the first time, fans will be able to experience the film in unparalleled visual clarity, with the restoration revealing new detail in every shadow-drenched corridor and glinting lab surface.

The film follows the aftermath of a British space mission gone disastrously wrong.

Hammer Films was founded in 1934, but it took an eleven year hiatus on the way to the ‘50s, the decade when the company entered the era it’s best known for. In 1955, the sci-fi horror film The Quatermass Xperiment became their first major international success, inspiring Hammer to start building toward becoming one of the most popular genre companies of all time. Since this year marks the 90th anniversary of Hammer Films, we decided it was time to put together a list of some of The Best Hammer Horror Movies. Here we go:

Horror Of Dracula (1958)

Sure, this is yet another adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula; a re-telling of the story that any horror watcher will see roughly fifty versions of over the course of their fandom. But director Terence Fisher and screenwriter Jimmy Sangster brought some twists to this one that are not present in others and shuffled some of the characters.

Exclusive: Kaleidoscope Film Distribution (Kfd) has acquired worldwide sales rights for Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters, the documentary about British studio Hammer Films we first told you about in August.

Narrated by Charles Dance, the doc explores Hammer Films, which turned 90 this year, through the eyes of its actors, filmmakers and fans. The film traces the history of the production house, which has created classics like The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Quartermass Xperiment, and will be on show at the upcoming American Film Market.

The doc features Tim Burton, John Landis, John Logan, John Carpenter, Joe Dante and Axelle Carolyn, sharing about the influence that the studio had on them and their careers. It will also showcase rare footage and expert insights on many of Hammer’s horror classics.

Directed by Benjamin Field, co-founder of Deep Fusion Films, the doc is also produced by Field with Jamie Anderson of Hammer Films,...

Margia Dean, who co-starred in the cult sci-fi classic The Quatermass Xperiment and appeared alongside the likes of Clint Eastwood, Vincent Price, Esther Williams and George Reeves in other movies, has died. She was 101.

Dean died June 23 in her apartment in Rancho Cucamonga, California, her niece Denyse Barr told The Hollywood Reporter.

From 1948-56, Dean worked in about 20 features for producer Robert L. Lippert, founder of the B-movie studio Lippert Pictures, thus earning the nickname “The Queen of Lippert.”

She acted for Sam Fuller in two of those films, the first two features he ever directed, in fact — I Shot Jesse James (1949), in which she portrayed a saloon singer, and the Price-starring The Baron of Arizona (1950).

Based on a popular BBC serial, Hammer Films’ The Quatermass Xperiment (1956), directed by Val Guest and starring Brian Donlevy, told the story of an astronaut (Richard Wordsworth) who crash-lands back on Earth and...

Nigel Kneale, creator of the cult science fiction serial Quatermass, has been commemorated by a brand new set of stamps from his native Isle of Man.

The set of six Kneale Archives postage stamps is available from the Isle of Man Post Office and covers his career right from his beginnings in the theater, and his 1949 anthology Tomato Cain and Other Stories, to his iconic science fiction work, including the dystopian The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968), ghost story The Stone Tape (1972), and horror anthology Beasts (1976).

Naturally, Quatermass looms large (although it’s confined to a single stamp). The influence of the six-part Quatermass Experiment (1953), Quatermass II (1955), and Quatermass and the Pit (1959) – and their Hammer adaptations – can be seen in everything from Doctor Who to Stephen King.

Jane Asher, who has a small role in 1955’s The Quatermass Xperiment before going on to star as Jill Greely in 1970’s The Stone Tape,...

By the middle of the 1950s, gothic horror was dead. Modern-set films dealing with nuclear war, radioactive fallout, and the Red Scare filled American theaters with giant bugs and body snatchers. England’s Hammer Studios was no different, releasing successful films like The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and X the Unknown (1956), which were firmly rooted in these science fiction-based fears. In 1957, however, they took a gamble and single-handedly resurrected the gothic monster movie with The Curse of Frankenstein, which became an international hit. The following year they outdid themselves by resurrecting the King of Vampires. Horror of Dracula (simply titled Dracula in England) completely redefined the character, and indeed the entire vampire subgenre, for a generation, and its influence would echo through the decades to come.

By 1958, Tod Browning’s Dracula, with Bela Lugosi in the starring role, had become deeply ingrained in popular culture. The 1957 debut of Shock Theater, the package...

Val Guest’s cinema quest for his own semi-docu style pays off in this fine, intelligent police investigation into a gruesome dismemberment murder. U.K. favorite Jack Warner is the main detective, Guest’s actress wife Yolande Donlan is a ‘person of interest,’ and the illusion of reality is enhanced by real locations in Greenwich, Brighton, Lewes and points between. It’s an excellent legwork murder mystery, with good atmosphere and colorful characterizations — within the dry ‘serious business’ format, of course.

Jigsaw

Blu-ray

Cohen Media Group

1962 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 108 97 min. / Street Date April 5, 2022 / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jack Warner, Ronald Lewis, Yolande Donlan, Michael Goodliffe, John Le Mesurier, Moira Redmond, Christine Bocca, Brian Oulton, Ray Barrett, Norman Chappell, John Barron, Joan Newell, Geoffrey Bayldon, Julie Samuel.

Cinematography: Arthur Grant

Art Director: Geoffrey Tozer

Film Editor: Bill Lenny

From the novel Sleep Long, My Love by Hillary Waugh

Produced,...

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Nineteen Eighty-four

Peter Cushing, André Morell, Yvonne Mitchell, Donald Pleasence in a new restoration of

Nigel Kneale’s 1954 adaptation of the George Orwell classic

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from the BFI:

BFI Blu-ray/DVD, iTunes and Amazon Prime release on 11 April 2022

George Orwell’s enduring dystopian masterpiece is brought vividly to life in this celebrated BBC production. Adapted by Nigel Kneale (The Quatermass Experiment), Nineteen Eighty-four (directed by Rudolf Cartier) broke new ground for television drama when first broadcast in 1954. On 11 April, tying in with a Nigel Kneale season at BFI Southbank, the BFI brings this classic production to Blu-ray and DVD in a Dual Format Edition, and to Dto via iTunes and Amazon Prime. Experience Orwell’s haunting vision of a society dominated by relentless tyranny and the subversion of truth – a world in which Big Brother is always watching you.

The newly reestablished Hammer Studios has acquired U.K. rights for B Good Picture Company’s “Doctor Jekyll.”

In Nov. 2021, the U.K.’s Network Distributing sealed a deal with iconic British horror label Hammer Films to form Hammer Studios Ltd. “Doctor Jekyll,” directed by Joe Stephenson and currently shooting in the U.K., will be the first film to be released by the newly formed studio.

In the film, a modern interpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s iconic 1886 novella “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde,” Eddie Izzard plays Dr. Nina Jekyll, a recluse who finds friendship with her newly hired help, Rob, played by emerging actor Scott Chambers (“Chicken”) and they must work together to prevent Hyde from destroying her life. The screenplay is by first time writer Dan Kelly-Mulhern.

Hammer Studios managing director, Tim Beddows, said: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Joe and his...

“Death is like going on a trip, darling, only one doesn’t come back.”

Mario Bava’s final horror film Shock (1977) will be available on Blu-ray January 18th from Arrow Video

In a career spanning four decades and encompassing virtually every genre under the sun, Mario Bava inspired multiple generations of filmmakers, from Dario Argento to Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton. Best remembered for his gothic horror movies, for his final feature, Shock, he eschewed the grand guignol excesses of Black Sabbath or Blood and Black Lace for a more intimate portrait of mental breakdown in which true horror comes from within.

Dora moves back into her old family home with her husband, Bruno, and Marco, her young son from her previous marriage. But domestic bliss proves elusive as numerous strange and disturbing occurrences transpire, while Dora is haunted by a series of nightmares and hallucinations, many of them involving her dead former husband.

Alligator (Collector’S Edition) Slithers Out On February 22, 2022 In A 4K Uhd™ + Blu-ray™ Combo Pack From Scream Factory: "Los Angeles, CA – It lives 50 feet beneath the city. It’s 36 feet long. It weighs 2,000 pounds… and it’s about to break out! Alligator (Collector's Edition) comes snapping on February 22, 2022 in a 4K Uhd™ + Blu-ray™ combo pack from Scream Factory. Special features will be announced at a later date.

From director Lewis Teague and screenwriter John Sayles comes an unstoppable thriller with bite. After returning from their Florida vacation, the Kendal family decides their pet baby alligator is too much to take care of and they flush him down the toilet. At the same time, Slade Laboratories is conducting secret experiments with animals and disposing of them in the sewer. The baby alligator, fending for itself, must feed on anything it can … including the dead animals. Now, twelve years later, when several...

Let loose some airy English film aesthetes with a big budget, a French film studio and a theme somewhere between Marcel Proust and Jean Cocteau, and back comes this strange, slightly off-balance but extremely impressive objet d’art. Eric Portman is really good, Edana Romney not so much. English actresses Barbara Mullen and Joan Maude compensate greatly — they’re haunting, actually. For his first job of direction Terence Young gives us a flash of Christopher Lee in his first film, along with pretty Lois Maxwell. Content-wise the film has the screwiest construction … its style and obsessions are split between the two films presently rated the best ever made! Expect something different: the baroque style may prompt some viewers to reach for the ‘eject’ button.

Corridor of Mirrors

Blu-ray

1948 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Street Date October 19, 2021 / Available from /

Starring: Eric Portman, Edana Romney, Barbara Mullen, Hugh Sinclair, Bruce Belfrage, Alan Wheatley,...

Exclusive: Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society has come aboard to produce the Sony TriStar Pictures adaptation of N.K Jemisin’s The Broken Earth, which the studio acquired last summer in a seven-figure deal with the intention of turning it into a fantasy-action franchise. Jordan and Outlier Society President Elizabeth Raposo will produce the film adaptation via the Outlier Society banner. Jemisin is writing the script.

Each book in Jemisin’s series — The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky — won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, making her the first person to win the award three years in a row and the first to win for all three books in a trilogy.

The Fifth Season establishes the setting, a harsh futuristic Earth and a continent called the Stillness, which endures seasonal apocalyptic events that shake the world and its inhabitants during these “seasons.” They hole up in communities and then rebuild.

After several years away from the movie business, cult filmmaker and veteran producer Ovidio G. Assonitis is getting back in the game, greenlighting a series of new features including a new sequel to his own 1974 cult horror film Beyond the Door.

The original, which starred Juliet Mills as a woman impregnated by the devil after a possession, was a commercial hit, grossing more than $40 million at the box office. It has already spawned two sequels: the Mario Bava-directed Beyond the Door II, aka Shock, in 1977, and Beyond the Door III in 1989. But those films were sequels in name only. The ...

After several years away from the movie business, cult filmmaker and veteran producer Ovidio G. Assonitis is getting back in the game, greenlighting a series of new features including a new sequel to his own 1974 cult horror film Beyond the Door.

The original, which starred Juliet Mills as a woman impregnated by the devil after a possession, was a commercial hit, grossing more than $40 million at the box office. It has already spawned two sequels: the Mario Bava-directed Beyond the Door II, aka Shock, in 1977, and Beyond the Door III in 1989. But those films were sequels in name only. The ...

Features: Robert Eggers, Lawrence Gordon Clark, Piers Haggard, Alice Lowe, Jonathan Rigby | Written and Directed by Kier-La Janisse

After watching Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror you certainly can’t accuse writer/director Kier-La Janisse (Eurocrime! the Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s) of just skimming the topic’s surface. Book-ended by animated credits sequences and featuring paper collages by Guy Maddin Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is a deep dive into the definition and history of folk horror. The film’s three hours and fifteen minutes are split into six chapters that make up three roughly hour-long segments.

The first segment deals with the “Unholy Trinity” of Witchfinder General, The Blood on Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man. While it doesn’t deny their influence and importance, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched very quickly dispenses with the idea that they are the root of the genre,...

Michael B. Jordan's Static Shock adaptation has found its writer, with Randy McKinnon, who wrote the Disney+ football drama Safety, now tapped to pen the movie for DC Films, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Milestone Media. The highly anticipated comic book project is already set to be produced by Michael B. Jordan and Reginald Hudlin, who directed Safety.

McKinnon is still a relative newcomer, and alongside Disney's Safety, which tells the story of freshman football player Ray-Ray McElrathbey, who secretly raised his younger brother on campus after his home life became too unsteady, the writer has also worked as a staff writer on the Netflix horror series Chambers, and a story editor on the drama Grand Army, for which McKinnon wrote one episode.

The project will center on Static, who first appeared in 1993's Static no. 1 via the now-defunct Milestone Comics. The character was revived a decade later for an animated series,...

Jane Asher is as well-known for acting as she is for dating an ex-Beatle, and in 1964 she brought Swinging London to the canteen of Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death.

Based on the gothic short story “The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy,” the film remains the most ambitious installment in Corman’s Edgar Allen Poe cycle of movies, contrasting the bleak landscape of a dying village with the psychological torment of six rooms of color, and one with no color at all, just a deep black with a blood red crimson glow cast on it. Vincent Price stars as the sadistic and satanic Prince Prospero, whose darkness reigns over his dominions.

Price wouldn’t be this malignant again until 1968’s Witchfinder General, which was retitled The Conqueror Worm, even though it had nothing to do with the Poe story. In Masque, he throws decadent orgies...

In today’s Global Bulletin, Sky picks up hundreds of hours of Studiocanal feature film content; Banijay aims to raise domestic abuse awareness; GoQuest Media picks pair of Serbian drama series; Oble finds a home on Viu Middle East for “The Outbreak”; Abacus Media Rights snags Kate Beckinsale-narrated dog show doc; Walter Presents acquires three French Canadian series; and Eccho Rights sends a slate of Korean dramas to upstart Turkish streamer Exxen.

Film

Sky and Studiocanal have closed a deal that will see the French production outfit’s upcoming feature film slate, as well as a raft of films from the company’s catalog, made available across Sky’s services including Sky Q and to Now TV customers who have Cinema Pass.

Included in the deal are “Supernova,” starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci; “The Last Letter From Your Lover,” the feature adaptation of JoJo Moyes’ popular novel; “Gunpowder Milkshake,...

Mario, Mario, wherefore art thou, sweet Mario? I imagine he’s dust by now, having passed away in 1980. His films, however, live forever. One that is rarely mentioned is his swan song, Shock (1977); a shame too, because it is much stronger (and more effective) than critics have labeled it through the years, offering up a melee of evil kids, possession, telekinesis, and other assorted sub-genres in a compelling way.

Released on his home turf in August, Shock didn’t receive an American release until March of ’79 under the title Beyond the Door II, cashing in on the hit from a couple of years earlier while nothing to do with said film. No matter what it was called, critics were unkind and the film floated into the ephemera of the occasional mom and pop video store. But time has been pretty gentle with a film unfairly compared to Bava’s earlier...

Italian actor and screenwriter Daria Nicolodi, who played the prying journalist Gianna Brezzi in the Dario Argento cult classic “Deep Red”(Profondo Rosso), and was herself a cult figure, has died. She was 70.

The cause of her death, announced by her daughter Asia Argento and Italian news reports, was not disclosed.

Born in Florence in June 1950, Nicolodi made her acting debut in Italian master Francesco Rosi’s “Many Wars Ago” (Uomini Contro). She was working with helmer Elio Petri when in 1974 she met Dario Argento, with whom she had a longstanding romance, becoming his muse both on and off the screen. In 1975, Nicolodi gave birth to their daughter, Asia Argento, now an actor, director, singer and well-known media personality.

After “Deep Red’s” release in 1975, Nicolodi went on to perform in Dario Argento films “Inferno,”(1980), “Tenebre” (1982), “Phenomena” (1984) and “Opera” (1987).

She is also credited with conceiving the original idea and contributing...

With what was supposed to be the summer movie season now just another relic of this pandemic-blasted year, and the rest of 2020’s major film releases in a continuing state of flux, it’s important to note that there has still been a fairly steady stream of new films coming out, some in limited theatrical release but others largely available via video on demand and streaming services.

With that in mind, and with the customary “opening weekend” a rather fluid and ambiguous term as well, below is a rundown of films we’ve caught in the past month, along with information on where you can find and watch them. Some are good, some not so much, but your mileage may vary for each. The important thing to know is that movies are still coming out–just not always in the ways we expect.

She Dies Tomorrow

Although it was released back on Aug.

Creature features have been around since the early days of cinema and have become a staple of horror films. The term creature feature was popularized with TV blocks like Shock and Creature Features that broadcasted older movies like Universal Studios' The Wolf-Man, Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein, etc.

Related: The Final Features From 10 Iconic Horror Directors, Ranked According To IMDb

These movies featured a paranormal creature(s) that were either discovered and/or resulted from a human being transformed after becoming infected by said creature. They usually aired on Friday or Saturday nights. The '80s was a booming period for horror and produced a plethora of creature features that are today regarded as classics.

Mill Creek again dips into exotic Japanese sci-fi fantasy, and this time scores with the desired language choices and subtitle configurations for these spectaculars from the beginning of Toho’s strongest period. The H-Man is a stylish gangster-horror melange about a radioactive slime that cheerfully transforms Guys ‘n’ Dolls into living goo. Then, a Battle in Outer Space is the result when a two-rocket expedition to the moon uncovers an imminent alien invasion, and flying saucer vs. rocketplane dogfights break out in low Earth orbit and in the skies over Tokyo. Was matinee moviegoing ever better than that? CineSavant writes, uh, at length about all the fan concerns over this disc.

Toho Double Feature

The H-Man & Battle in Outer Space

Blu-ray

Mill Creek

Color / 2:35 widescreen / Street Date June 9, 2020 /

Cinematography: Hajime Koizumi

Director of Special Effects: Eiji Tsuburaya

Produced by Tomoyuko Tanaka

Directed by Ishiro Honda

Here’s how a...

Mill Creek again dips into exotic Japanese sci-fi fantasy, and this time scores with the desired language choices and subtitle configurations for these spectaculars from the beginning of Toho’s strongest period. The H-Man is a stylish gangster-horror melange about a radioactive slime that cheerfully transforms Guys ‘n’ Dolls alike into living goo. Then, a Battle in Outer Space is the result when two-rocket expedition to the moon uncovers an imminent alien invasion, and flying saucer vs. rocketplane dogfights break out in low Earth orbit and in the skies over Tokyo. Was matinee moviegoing ever better than that? CineSavant writes, uh, at length about all the fan concerns over this disc.

Toho Double Feature

The H-Man & Battle in Outer Space

Blu-ray

Mill Creek

Color / 2:35 widescreen / Street Date June 9, 2020 /

Cinematography: Hajime Koizumi

Director of Special Effects: Eiji Tsuburaya

Produced by Tomoyuko Tanaka

Directed by Ishiro Honda

Here’s how a...

Rip-roaring Oliver Reed’s silver-coated were-beast is one of Hammer Films’ very best screen monsters, which is more than enough reason to sample this colorful 1961 shocker. It was apparently ripped to shreds by the U.K. censors, a horror-crime spared us lucky Americans. The movie has been released more than once on Blu-ray but Shout’s new 4K scan restores it to prime condition. Numerous extras trace its stormy path through the slights and deletions of The Curse of the BBFC.

The Curse of the Werewolf

Blu-ray

Shout! Scream Factory

1961 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date April 21, 2020 / Collector’s Edition / Available from Scream Factory

Starring: Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain, Catherine Feller, Anthony Dawson.

Cinematography: Arthur Grant

Film Editor: Alfred Cox

Original Music: Benjamin Frankel

Written by John Elder (Anthony Hinds) from The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore

Produced by Michael Carreras, Anthony Hinds

Directed by Terence Fisher

When stab comes to gouge,...

In a Gold Derby exclusive, we have learned the category placements of the key Emmy Awards contenders for Hulu. For this season, the company has returning hits “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Elisabeth Moss), “Ramy” (Ramy Youssef) and “Shrill” (Aidy Bryant) as part of their 2020 campaign. Newcomers could include “The Great” (Elle Fanning), “High Fidelity” (Zoe Kravitz) and “Little Fires Everywhere”.

Below, the list of Hulu lead, supporting and guest submissions for their comedy, drama and limited series. More names might be added by the studio on the final Emmy ballot. Also note that performers not included on this list may well be submitted by their personal reps.

SEEMeet the red-hot cast of ‘Little Fires Everywhere’

“Ask Dr. Ruth”

Documentary or Nonfiction Special

“Castle Rock”

Limited Series

Movie/Limited Actress – Lizzy Caplan

Movie/Limited Supporting Actor – Barkhad Abdi, Tim Robbins, Paul Sparks

Movie/Limited Supporting Actress – Elsie Fisher, Yusra Warsama

Culture Shock...

Basil Rathbone is one of the true original movie stars. Starring in a bevy of films starting in the ’20s all the way through the late ’60s, he’s known not only for traditional classics like Adventures of Robin Hood and Romeo and Juliet, but he’s also got a foot firmly planted in the mysterious and spooky, as he’s the first person to take on the mantle of Sherlock Holmes over the course of 15 films and two seasons of a radio serial. Beyond that, he dabbled in more straightforward horror films, even popping up in the Universal Monsters realm with a stint as Baron von Wolfenstein in Son of Frankenstein. In this month’s selection, we’ll take a peek at another genre film Rathbone starred in later in his career, the 1956 B-movie The Black Sleep.

The Black Sleep comes from Reginald Le Borg, who directed a string...

Film Movement, a self-described “film service” that traffics in esoteric theatrical and home video product has released two notable examples of post-war British comedy with Whisky Galore! and The Maggie – both are seafaring satires directed by Alexander Mackendrick featuring some of Ealing Studio’s most memorable players.

Whiskey Galore!/The Maggie

Blu ray

Film Movement

1949, 1954 / 1:33:1 / 82 min., 92 min.

Starring Joan Greenwood, Paul Douglas

Cinematography by Gerald Gibbs, Gordon Dines

Directed by Alexander Mackendrick

The men and women of Ealing emerged from the second World War with their cheerful cynicism intact and more than ready to take a bite out of the hand what fed them – from Passport to Pimlico to Kind Hearts and Coronets those artists happily took potshots at the class systems they had fought so hard to defend. Though these satires had teeth (Kind Hearts was especially lethal), romance was never far away – it’s no wonder...

Filmmakers/authors discuss the movies they wish more people were familiar with.

Movies Referenced In This Episode

Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s (2012)

Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man (1976)

Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau (2014)

Top Gun (1986)

Water Power (1977)

Taxi Driver (1976)

In Fabric (2018)

A Climax of Blue Power (1974)

Forced Entry (1975)

Once Upon A Time In America (1984)

Nashville Girl (1976)

Ms .45 (1981)

Act of Vengeance a.k.a. Rape Squad (1974)

High Plains Drifter (1973)

Design For Living (1933)

Trouble In Paradise (1932)

Melody (1971)

Oliver! (1968)

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

That’ll Be The Day (1973)

Stardust (1974)

The Errand Boy (1961)

Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003)

The Bellboy (1960)

Which Way To The Front? (1970)

Hardly Working (1980)

A Night In Casablanca (1946)

The Cocoanuts (1929)

Duck Soup (1933)

Boeing Boeing (1965)

Confessions of a Young American Housewife (1974)

Cockfighter (1974)

The Second Civil War (1997)

I, A Woman (1965)

The Devil At Your Heels (1981)

The...

Hammer’s copycat Quatermass picture stands apart from similar ‘mystery sci-fi monster’ thrillers by virtue of its serious tone and realistic presentation. Talk about a sober semi-docu style: there are no major female roles and the leading character is a mass of radioactive mud. (Is there an election year joke in that?) Hammer found a new writer in Jimmy Sangster, imported the Yankee name actor Dean Jagger, tried to hire the expatriate director Joseph Losey. Former child actor Anthony Newley has a small part, but he doesn’t get to sing X’s theme song: “Who can I turn to, when nobody needs me, because the flesh is melting from my skull?”

X The Unknown

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1956 / B&w / 1:75 widescreen / 80 81? min. / X…the Unknown / Street Date February 18, 2020

Starring: Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern, Anthony Newley, William Lucas, Michael Ripper.

Cinematography: Gerald Gibbs

Film Editor: Philip Leakey

Makeup:...

The Great McGinty

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1940/ 1:33:1 / 82 min.

Starring Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff

Cinematography by William C. Mellor

Written and Directed by Preston Sturges

If the story of a unscrupulous crook who rises to great political power hits a little too close to home these days, consider that in 1940’s The Great McGinty the mobster in question is a fundamentally decent gent who sacrifices his career to do the right thing. When the jig is up he high-tails it to the border, penniless but with a clean conscience. Current events require that Preston Sturges’ bittersweet political satire be filed under Fairy Tales.

The movie opens in a rowdy little dive in South America where the once and future lowlife Dan McGinty has made his new home, lording over the bar while dispensing equal amounts booze and wisdom. One poor fellow wanders in who could use a little of both.

Don’t run away because we use the word ‘profound’ to describe this 1967 sci-fi classic — some call it the best of the Hammer Quatermass films, this time fully written by Nigel Kneale and acted by a terrific cast — Andrew Kier, James Donald, Barbara Shelley and Julian Glover. A subway excavation uncovers strange human skulls, and then a huge bluish craft that the Army dismisses as a secret German V-weapon… until it begins to emanate psychic storms and supernatural phenomena. Sci-fi fans wanting ‘more’ will be intrigued by author Kneale’s incredible ‘origin story’ for the human race as an intelligent, aggressive and literally haunted species. The disc is loaded with extras, information, history and great opinions from a half-dozen qualified film experts. Plus we can hear Nigel Kneale discuss it himself.

Quatermass and the Pit

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1967 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date July 30, 2019 / Available from Shout! Factory / 27.99

Starring: James Donald,...

Don’t run away because we use the word ‘profound’ to describe this 1967 sci-fi classic — some call it the best of the Hammer Quatermass films, this time fully written by Nigel Kneale and acted by a terrific cast — Andrew Kier, James Donald, Barbara Shelley and Julian Glover. A subway excavation uncovers strange human skulls, and then a huge bluish craft that the Army dismisses as a secret German V-weapon… until it begins to emanate psychic storms and supernatural phenomena. Sci-fi fans wanting ‘more’ will be intrigued by author Kneale’s incredible ‘origin story’ for the human race as an intelligent, aggressive and literally haunted species. The disc is loaded with extras, information, history and great opinions from a half-dozen qualified film experts. Plus we can hear Nigel Kneale discuss it himself.

Quatermass and the Pit

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1967 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date July 30, 2019 / Available from Shout! Factory / 27.99

Starring: James Donald,...

What ought to be appreciated as one of the most prescient of 1950s suspense films holds a place among the best science fiction movies ever — and it formed a style template for a thousand paranoid spy thrillers to follow. Val Guest pares Nigel Kneale’s fantastic storyline down to its essentials, making his scientist-hero the perfect secret agent to confront a sinister techno-political conspiracy… from outer space.

Quatermass 2

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1957 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 85 min. / Street Date July 30, 2019 / 29.95

Starring: Brian Donlevy, John Longdon, Sidney James, Bryan Forbes, William Franklyn, Vera Day, Charles Lloyd Pack, Tom Chatto, John Van Eyssen, Percy Herbert, Michael Ripper, John Rae, Michael Balfour.

Cinematography: Gerald Gibbs

Film Editor: James Needs

Makeup: Philip Leakey

Art Direction: Bernard Robinson

Original Music: James Bernard

Written by Val Guest, Nigel Kneale from his teleplay

Produced by Anthony Hinds

Directed by Val Guest

Here’s yet another fine 2019 Blu-ray release...

Just as there have been many spooky villains in Hammer movies over the years, there have also been many protagonists who protect our world from unholy horrors. Having appeared in several British serials and three movies, Professor Bernard Quatermass is one such hero, and Scream Factory is celebrating the iconic character by releasing Quatermass 2 and Quatermass and the Pit on respective Blu-rays. Originally slated to come out in May, the Blu-rays are now scheduled for a July 30th release, and we've been provided with the full list of special features.

Press Release: Hobbs End, Knightsbridge, London. While working on a new subway tunnel for the London Underground, a group of construction workers uncover a strangely shaped skull. Nearby, another discovery: a large, mysterious and impenetrable metal object. Initially mistaken for an unexploded bomb, the object and its strange power turn out to be far more horrific than anybody could have possibly imagined.

If the recent news of a new Quatermass movie being in the works got you in the mood to watch the original horror sci-fi movies featuring the daring professor, then you're in luck, because Scream Factory announced that they will release the Hammer's Quatermass II and Quatermass and the Pit on Blu-ray this May.

From Scream Factory: "Our love for Hammer Films this year continues as we announce today that we are prepping Quatermass II and Quatermass And The Pit for Blu-ray releases on May 14th!

Quatermass II (1957): The sequel to The Quatermass Xperiment! Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) is Britain's most clever scientist. Investigating a series of bizarre incidents that have been reported from a deserted area, he finds a group of soldiers and government officials that appear to be controlled by aliens from another world. When a close friend is brutally murdered by these beings, Quatermass leads a...

Kirsten Howard John Saavedra Jan 31, 2019

Hammer is making a new Quatermass movie and Night Manager writer David Farr is attached to pen the script!

If you've ever found yourself lounging around on a Sunday afternoon, pipe in one hand, steaming mug of tea in the other, slippers perched precariously upon the very tip of your toes, wondering to yourself whether Bernard Quatermass would ever be swept along with the relentless tide of remakes and reboots, we've got some good news for you: it's happening, according to THR.

There's more good news: Hammer's Simon Oakes is producing. Oakes was behind Let Me In and The Woman in Black, also at Hammer. On writing duties for the new Quatermass film is David Farr, whose recent jobs include The Night Manager and Amazon's Hanna TV series. Jon Silk and Jay Ashenfelter will be overseeing production on the remake for Legendary Entertainment.

If...

Last year, New York's Quad Cinema paid tribute to Mario Bava with a 21-film, multi-day marathon, and this summer they're heating up the big screen once again with a two-part Hammer horror movies celebration, and we've been provided with the exclusive details on part 1 of their massive celebration of Hammer movies from 1956–1967.

Read the official press release below for all 32 titles (21 of which will be displayed in 35mm) in part 1 of the Quad's Hammer movie marathon, and keep an eye on their website for more information!

Press Release: May 30 - June 19 It's a chilling season at the Quad! Brace yourself for mummies, vampires, werewolves, and more with our extensive two-part retrospective celebrating Britain's genre studio powerhouse, Hammer Films

Throughout film history, many countries have had their own point-of-pride movie studios; Britain can claim several, whether as backlots or sites of creative capital. In Hammer Films, a genre-oriented counterpart to Ealing Films,...

The Walking Dead, Stranger Things and even Brooklyn Nine-Nine are all getting in the Halloween spirit, but if you’re searching far and wide for a spooky movie marathon, John Carpenter has chimed in with his recommendations. Yes, the John Carpenter.

The Fader recently caught up with the illustrious filmmaker to discuss Halloween‘s lasting legacy, the ever-evolving horror genre, and those timeless classics that helped influence his remarkable filmography. It’s a fascinating insight into one of cinema’s all-time greats, and below you’ll find the eight horror films that had a bearing on Carpenter’s career. Unsurprisingly, Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero’s crowning achievement, claimed the #1 spot.

1. Night of the Living Dead

Let’s start with a movie called Night of the Living Dead. I saw this back in 1968. Back in the day, it was a pretty terrifying movie. It’s not so much anymore,...

Robot roll call! This also-ran robotic fantasy from the 1950s is precisely the kind of movie one would expect from Republic, a two-fisted anti-Commie tract for juveniles. The studio comes up with an impressive robo-hero, but short-changes us when it come time for action thrills. Still, as pointed out in Richard Harland Smith’s new commentary, Tobor filled the the kiddie hunger for sci-fi matinees, at least until Robby the Robot came along.

Tobor the Great

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1954 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 77 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Charles Drake, Karin Booth, Billy Chapin, Taylor Holmes, Steven Geray, Hal Baylor, Alan Reynolds, Peter Brocco, Robert Shayne, Lyle Talbot, William Schallert

Cinematography: John L. Russell

Production Design: Gabriel Scognamillo

Special Effects: Howard and Theodore Lydecker

Film Editor: Basil Wrangell

Original Music: Howard Jackson

Written by Philip MacDonald, Carl Dudley

Produced by Richard Goldstone

Directed by Lee Sholem...

By Darren Allison

It’s been a very long time since I last sat down to watch Caltiki - The Immortal Monster. It was back in a time when like-minded friends would exchange and trade (decidedly dodgy) VHS copies of obscure monster movies such as this. The term ‘dodgy’ of course is used in retrospect; at the time they were pure gold dust, a rare opportunity to watch something which was out of reach to mainstream admirers. You needed to put in the leg work and research, but becoming part of that community offered so many rich rewards.

Today, it’s a society that has basically become redundant. There is simply little demand for an ‘under the counter’ or private exchange community. Instead we appear to be rather satisfied, accepting and respectful of the efforts provided by the speciality labels. To a large degree, the industry has taken over the...

Tuesday, April 25th boasts an array of diverse Blu-ray and DVD offerings with a great assortment titles both new and old. Lionsgate is releasing one of the best zombie films I’ve seen as of late, The Girl With All the Gifts, on both formats, and the most recent sequel in the Underworld franchise, Blood Wars, arrives this week on 4K Blu-ray, as well as the typical Blu and DVD discs, too.

Scream Factory is resurrecting both The Screaming Skull and I Bury the Living on Blu this Tuesday, and Arrow Video has put together a fantastic 2-Disc Special Edition set for Caltiki The Immortal Monster that fans definitely will want to pick up.

Other notable titles coming home on April 25th include a special edition release of The Vampire Bat, Mean Dreams, Detour, From Hell It Came, and Psycho Cop Returns.

Caltiki The Immortal Monster: 2-Disc Special Edition (Arrow Video,...

It creeps and leaps and slides and glides along the wall… and then it eats your face, dude. Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda’s ultimate monster mastication epic now looks sensationally gory, thanks to a full restoration. Arrow’s disc has pretty much everything, including two transfers and two audio commentaries. And Savant has a guilty admission to make — it was the tripe, the whole tripe, and nothing but the tripe.

Caltiki, The Immortal Monster

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1959 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 76 min. / Caltiki, il mostro immortale / Street Date April 11, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: John Merivale, Didi Sullivan (Perego), Gérard Haerter, Daniela Rocca, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Daniele Vargas, Arturo Dominici, Gay Pearl

Cinematography: John Foam (Mario Bava)

Special Effects: Mario Bava

Film Editor: Mario Serandrei

Original Music: Roberto Nicolosi

Written by Filippo Sanjust

Produced by Bruno Vailati

Directed by Robert Hamton (Riccardo Freda) & Mario Bava

Who says that Blu-ray is dying?...

Chamber of Horrors

Blu-ray

Kino Lorber

1940 / B&W / 1:33 / Street Date March 21, 2017

Starring: Lilli Palmer, Leslie Banks.

Cinematography: Alex Bryce, Ernest Palmer

Film Editor: Ted Richards

Written by Gilbert Gunn, Norman Lee

Produced by John Argyle

Directed by Norman Lee

Near the turn of the century a struggling war correspondent named Edgar Wallace began churning out detective stories for British monthlies like Detective Story Magazine to help make the rent. Creative to a fault, his preposterously prolific output (exacerbated by ongoing gambling debts) soon earned him a legion of fans along with a pointedly ambiguous sobriquet, “The Man Who Wrote Too Much.”

A reader new to Wallace’s work could be excused for thinking the busy writer was making it up as he went along… because that’s pretty much what he did. He dictated his narratives, unedited, into a dictaphone for transcription by his secretary where they would then...

Although he is proficient at combat, his knowledge of the undead is perhaps his greatest weapon in destroying them. In 1974, viewers were introduced to professional vampire hunter Captain Kronos on the big screen, and now Titan Comics is bringing the slayer back on the printed page with their new Captain Kronos Hammer horror comic book series that will premiere sometime this year.

Press Release: (March, 2017) - Titan Comics is excited to announce the next title from its Hammer Horror line of comics – Captain Kronos, materializes in 2017!

Based on the 1974 film, Captain Kronos will be the second Hammer title following the success of Peter Milligan and Ronilson Freire’s The Mummy: Palimpsest which hit stores and digital devices last November.

Written by Dan Abnett (Aquaman, Guardians of the Galaxy) with stunning art by Tom Mandrake (Sidekick, The Spectre) Titan Comics’ new series chronicles the adventures of the mysterious and powerful Kronos...

Titan Comics have today announced Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, the next title from its Hammer Horror line of comics, that sees the publication of brand-new comic stories featuring classic Hammer properties, which is set to debut later this year! Based on the 1974 film, the book will be the second Hammer title following the success of Peter Milligan and Ronilson Freire’s The Mummy: Palimpsest which hit stores and digital devices last November.

Written by Dan Abnett (Aquaman, Guardians of the Galaxy) with art by Tom Mandrake (Sidekick, The Spectre) Titan Comics’ Captain Kronos chronicles the adventures of the mysterious and powerful Kronos who has dedicated his life to destroying the evil vampire plague. Once a victim himself, the debonair Hunter knows the vampire’s strengths and weaknesses as well as the dangers of confronting the potent forces of darkness. Now the cult-classic adventure, based on the Brian Clemens film, continues in comics form!

Jake Gyllenhaal leads the cast in the intense space horror-thriller, Life. Here's our review of an unexpectedly good genre film...

Great horror movies are, among other things, an exercise in style and tone. Alien differed from earlier monsters-on-a-spaceship films because it took its subject matter seriously and featured stunning design work from director Ridley Scott and his collaborators. Gravity wasn’t the first film about astronauts trapped in space, but it was one of the most striking thanks to Alfonso Cuaron’s dizzying use of camerawork and digital filmmaking to create what appeared to be a story told in one seamless take.

This brings us to Life, a space horror film which feels like an unholy amalgam of Alien, Gravity, plus a dash of Prometheus, John Carpenter’s The Thing and Nigel Kneale’s The Quatermass Xperiment. Life’s individual parts aren’t unique, but the way they’ve been...