A History Of Horror With Mark Gatiss

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Kelley87

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Apart from a few thrillers and comedies I have every Hammer film ever released on dvd , and by and large they are done very well.
I have a mixture of releases from the UK ,US ,Spain and even Germany and the UK ones are usually inferior from a bonus features point of view.
The Devil Rides Out has a superb commentary with Lee and Lawson but I don't think it's on the UK disc.

There are some rarities out in the US like Crescendo and Sony have released 3 boxsets with 14 films but only a few are out here.

Amicus films are another case of mix n match.
The UK releases are very good but there is a much larger selection out in the US as there are with the AIP movies of Vincent Price.
The only Amicus problem is Vault of Horror.
All UK releases have been from a grotty print .
The US release is a pristine print but it's the cut version.
The Film4 version is currently the best one on offer .
It's uncut and marginally better than the UK dvd .
 
They did a slow pan over his DVD collection in the first ep. All the usual suspects were there - Amicus, Tigon sets, Hammer titles etc.
 
On the other hand i see Scream as a Homage of the genre itself,what with its use of the rules of surviving a horror movie,it looks at what came before it and Kevin Williamson's Screenplay captures the feel perfectly
 
On the horror theme in general i prefer phychological horror like Stephen Kings IT and the Curse of the Demon to gore but i think Gatiss likes his blood and guts gore horrors which is fair enough !
 
The dvd of Blood On Satans Claw in the Anchor Bay boxset was an inferior non anamorphic version although there were some nice bonus features .
The individual release of the film had slightly different bonus features but was still not anamorphic.
I can't recall which was which but one had the Linda Hayden interview missing.
So it's worth keeping either of those even if you pick up the more recent anamorphic re-release which has no extras.
 
Shame the BBC have elected to show the crappy long version of Dawn of the Dead which in truth is actually an unfinished edit with lots of Goblin music missing .

The Theatrical Version is the true Directors Cut and it whizzes by .
The long version is a bit of a slow crawl
 
Great stuff! It was fascinating seeing the two ladies (Carla and Gloria) who were able to give first hand accounts of working with Chaney, Karloff and Lugosi!
 
Anyone interested in a proper history of Hammer should seek out the Flesh and Blood documentary that lasted 2 hours and was narrated by Cushing and Lee .
It is available on R1 dvd (was also out on R4)

The narration was the very last thing that Cushing did not long before he died.
The BBC showed it in 2 parts on 2 consecutive saturdays and Peter Cushing died the during the week between the 2 broadcasts
 
You're not the first person to say that to me lol, Maybe i just have a problem with movies like that but i always felt rather than homage to the genre it was more like a kick in the teeth

Its was also way to hollywood for me i think, it was to polished and proper, I love the 60's, 70's and 80's B movies that were raw and gritty, very few of todays horrors can still capture that
 
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