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Welcome to the Hammer Factory. This month we dissect The Mummy’s Shroud (1967).

While Hammer Studios has been in business since 1934, it was between 1955 and 1979 that it towered as one of the premier sources of edgy, gothic horror. On top of ushering the famous monsters of Universal’s horror heyday back into the public eye, resurrecting the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy in vivid color, the studio invited performers like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt and so many more to step into the genre limelight. Spanning a library housing over 300 films, Hammer Studios is a key part of horror history that until recently has been far too difficult to track down.

In late 2018, Shout Factory’s Scream Factory line began to focus on bringing Hammer’s titles to disc in the US, finally making many of the studio’s underseen gems available in packages that offered great visuals...

The Flesh and the Fiends

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1960 /95 min.

Starring Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence, George Rose, Billie Whitelaw

Cinematography by Monty Berman

Directed by John Gilling

The Flesh and the Fiends lives up to its name and then some. The setting is Scotland but the squalid streets and charnel houses suggest Dickens’ London at its bleakest. Everything is for sale here, the fleshy whores of the cathouses and the fiends who haunt them. On the other side of the tracks lives Robert Knox, a respected anatomist at Edinburgh University who pays for his flesh too – the bodies necessary for his livelihood are in scarce supply and grave robbers William Burke and William Hare are ready to deliver.

Venerated by his students while castigated by old guard medicos, the forward-thinking Knox is a formidable presence at the podium with only one thing to mar his handsome profile, a blind eye.

January 14th is a relatively quiet day for horror and sci-fi home media releases, with Scream Factory doing the heavy lifting this week with their Blu-ray presentations of Demons of the Mind and The Mummy’s Shroud. If you missed it in theaters, you can catch up with Ang Lee’s Gemini Man this Tuesday, and for you cult film fans out there, Srs has put together a very limited edition release of Creep (1995).

Other releases for January 14th include She Walks The Woods, The Jogger, and Home With a View of the Monster.

Creep: Limited Edition

Angus Lynch, a psycho, escapes from prison and hooks up with his stripper sister named Kascha. Some death ensues eventually leading Angus to cross paths with a police captain named David who has a daughter named Jackie and whose wife was murdered when she was a child.

Demons of the Mind

In the 19th century,...

Elizabeth Sellars, the Glasgow-born actress who appeared in films that starred Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart and Peter O’Toole, on TV with Laurence Olivier and onstage opposite Alec Guinness, died at her home in France on Dec. 30. She was 98.

Her death was announced by her family.

Trained at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Sellars made the first of many stage appearances in 1946’s The Brothers Karamazov, starring Guinness.

By 1949 she’d embarked on a long film career, making her debut in the British film Floodtide, and, in Hollywood, she appeared in 1954’s The Barefoot Contessa with Bogart and Ava Gardner. Also that year, she performed in the Brando film Désirée.

Other film highlights include Prince of Players, starring Richard Burton, in 1955; 1957’s The Shiralee, starring Peter Finch; 1960’s The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, with O’Toole; and, reteaming with Gardner in 1963, 55 Days in Peking. In 1967 she...

Elizabeth Sellars, the Scottish actress who starred with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa, with Marlon Brando in Désirée and with Peter O'Toole in The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, has died. She was 98.

Sellars died Monday at her home in France, her family reported.

Sellars co-starred as the wife of a pilot (Jack Hawkins) in Decision Against Time (1957), one of the last films made by famed Ealing Studios, and worked with Gardner again in the historical drama 55 Days at Peking (1963).

She also appeared in the Hammer films Cloudburst (1951) and The Mummy's Shroud (1967),...

Elizabeth Sellars, the Scottish actress who starred with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa, with Marlon Brando in Désirée and with Peter O'Toole in The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, has died. She was 98.

Sellars died Monday at her home in France, her family reported.

Sellars co-starred as the wife of a pilot (Jack Hawkins) in Decision Against Time (1957), one of the last films made by famed Ealing Studios, and worked with Gardner again in the historical drama 55 Days at Peking (1963).

She also appeared in the Hammer films Cloudburst (1951) and The Mummy's Shroud (1967),...

Curious about all those Region B Hammer Blu-rays from overseas, the ones requiring a region-free player? As a public service, Savant has solicited an expert opinion (you'll have to take my word for that) of a film restoration/transfer specialist who is also an informed fan of the filmic output of the little horror studio at Bray. I know, real Hammer fans buy first and worry about quality later, but this little guide might be of help to the rest of us budget-conscious collectors.

A 'Guest' article Written by a trusted Savant correspondent.

(Note: I receive plenty of emails asking for advice about the quality of Region B Blu-rays, most of which I don't see. I have access to industry people qualified to compare and judge the discs, but they stay off the record, because their employers forbid them to go online with their opinions. They must sometimes simmer in...

Warners answers the call for Hammer horror with four nifty thrillers starring the great Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. The transfers are immaculate -- Technicolor was never richer than this. The only drawback is that Chris Lee's Dracula has so few lines of dialogue.  On hi-def, Cushing's Frankenstein movie is a major re-discovery as well. Horror Classics: Four Chilling Movies from Hammer Films Blu-ray The Mummy, Dracula has Risen from the Grave, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Taste the Blood of Dracula Warner Home Video 1959-1970 / Color / 1:66 - 1:78 widescreen / 376 min. / Street Date October 6, 2015 / 54.96 Starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux, George Pastell, Michael Ripper; Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Barbara Ewing, Barry Andrews, Ewan Hooper, Michael Ripper; Peter Cushing, Veronica Carlson, Freddie Jones, Simon Ward, Thorley Walters, Maxine Audley; Christopher Lee, Geoffrey Keen, Linda Hayden, Isla Blair, John Carson, Ralph Bates, Roy Kinnear. <Cinematography Jack Asher; Arthur Grant; Arthur Grant; Arthur Grant.

The Horror Channel has announced the return of the Hammer double features.

The season, which runs on Saturday nights from February 1 to 22 at 9pm, promises "vampire vixens, creepy castles, mouldy mummies, satanic sadists and Lee & Cushing on top show".

Hammer recently unveiled the trailer for The Quiet Ones, the studio's follow-up to its successful critical and commercial return with The Woman in Black.

The full schedule is below, complete with synopses from the Horror Channel (Sat 319 / Virgin 149 / Freesat 138).

February 1 9pm - Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)

This sequel to the 1958 The Horror of Dracula sees the supposedly dead Count Dracula back in bloody business once his trusty servant Klove entices the English Kents - Charles (Francis Matthews), brother Alan (Charles Tingwell) and their wives Diana (Suzan Farmer) and Helen (Barbara Shelley) - inside his welcoming castle. Directed by Terence Fisher, this is seen as the "quintessential Hammer horror".

February 1 10.45pm -...

The Horror Channel has announced the return of the Hammer double features.

The season, which runs on Saturday nights from February 1 to 22 at 9pm, promises "vampire vixens, creepy castles, mouldy mummies, satanic sadists and Lee & Cushing on top show".

Hammer recently unveiled the trailer for The Quiet Ones, the studio's follow-up to its successful critical and commercial return with The Woman in Black.

The full schedule is below, complete with synopses from the Horror Channel (Sat 319 / Virgin 149 / Freesat 138).

February 1 9pm - Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)

This sequel to the 1958 The Horror of Dracula sees the supposedly dead Count Dracula back in bloody business once his trusty servant Klove entices the English Kents - Charles (Francis Matthews), brother Alan (Charles Tingwell) and their wives Diana (Suzan Farmer) and Helen (Barbara Shelley) - inside his welcoming castle. Directed by Terence Fisher, this is seen as the "quintessential Hammer horror".

February 1 10.45pm -...

★★★☆☆ After the success of the Daniel Radcliffe-starring chiller The Woman in Black (2012) earlier this year, Hammer Films are on a bit of a high once again and you can now treat yourself to the latest high definition releases from the extensive back catalogue of the horror giants. The newest wave of entries in the studios ongoing restoration series sees three Blu-rays of enjoyable horrors from the latter half of the 1960s; Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966), The Mummy's Shroud (1967) and The Devil Rides Out (1968).

Read more »...

Hammer Blu-rays The Devil Rides Out (1968, dir. Terence Fisher)

Hammer applies its trademark Gothic veneer with considerably greater care than usual in this, the second and best of the company's three stabs at the satanic stylings of author Dennis Wheatley. Christopher Lee comes over to the light for a rare foray as central hero the Duc de Richleau, teaming up with friend Rex van Rijn (Leon Greene) to prevent the evil Satanist Mocata (Charles Gray) from enmeshing the son of his old friend (Patrick Mower) into a devil-worshipping cult.

The Devil Rides Out is perhaps best remembered for what Lee argues in his commentary to be Hammer's most enduring image, that of our heroes fighting a series of spectral and psychological nemeses from within the protective confines of a ritual circle. And yet the most chilling scene contains no special effects, but is instead a simple conversation between the wife...

Ever since 1951, Bray Studios have had a special place in Britain's film culture. Now, unable to compete in a changing market, they will finally close. A media centre will open in their place, suitable for making small scale TV projects, and local councillors have called for a memorial to be erected in recognition of their contribution to the Berkshire economy.

Bray Studios were initially developed by Hammer Film Productions, who realised it was cheaper to convert a real stately home to house their gothic melodramas than to keep building elaborate sets on sound stages. They first featured in Cloudburst and proved surprisingle adaptable, going on to host productions like The Old Dark House, The Phantom Of The Opera, The Mummy's Shroud, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the original St Trinians films. Bray was also a location for TV series including Space 1999 and Doctor Who.

Down Place, where the studios.

Hammer's classic horror titles are to be restored in high definition for DVD and Blu-ray release in the UK. Dracula Prince of Darkness will be the first movie to be reissued in the HD format, available in the territory in March through StudioCanal. The Reptile, The Plague of The Zombies, The Devil Rides Out, Rasputin the Mad Monk and The Mummy's Shroud will follow later this year. Hammer will also reissue its iconic films The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy in the new format, complete with newly-filmed extras, including interviews with cast members. StudioCanal, a key Hammer backer, has teamed up with Anolis Entertainment, Pinewood Studios and Htv for the initiative. (more)...