The Ultimate Hammer Collection
1965 -1976 R2-21 Disc Box Set DVD
From Optimum Classic come 21 productions from the notorious
Hammer Films. Featuring an extensive variety of everything from horror, science
fiction and fantasy, this represents a mixed bag from the famous studio. Alongside stone cold-classics, such as the Devil Rides Out, are misfires like One Million Years B.C and She. A disappointment that the opportunity
wasn’t taken to include 21 of the studio’s best, this is still an excellent
package with something for all tastes.
The beauty of a set like this comes in discovering forgotten
gems, like Quatermass and the Pit, or
getting acquainted with old favourites, for me The Nanny. Looking over this set, the number of quality titles defiantly
out way the bad (Something to always watch out for in a box set). Featuring
appearances from renowned Hammer stars, like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and
Andrew Kier whose names are now synonymous with the studio. With Hammer
now back in production (Let Me In), this
is the perfect time to discover their early delights.
The Set:
This
collection comes in a stylishly designed original box set.
Inside are four
compartments (books) housing the 21 discs.
Rounding off this
set, are a collection of 6 colour postcards .
Imprinted on the front is the Hammer logo, accompanied by two crosses on either side of the box.
Included along with the discs is a full colour booklet
detailing hammers history, and a brief summary of each movie.
Book 1:
1.She 1965
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059710/
After doing military service in the Middle East, British archaeologist
Holly, and his handsome young friend Leo are spotted in
Palestine and approached by a mysterious oriental. Who identified Leo by
his uncanny likeness to the portrait on an ancient coin. An adventurous
search for the lost Pharaonic city of Kuma proceeds relying on a
recently-acquired map. Their hasty mini-expedition reaches a hidden city
where the Hellenistic age is still alive.
Features:
- None
2.The Nanny 1965
Bette Davis is an English nanny whose charge is 10-year-old Joey, just released from a home for disturbed children. where he'd spent two years undergoing treatment, for drowning his little sister in the bath. Shortly after his arrival home, suspicion arouses again when his mother is poisoned. But Joey continues to insist Nanny is responsible, just as she was with the death of his little sister, with only a neighboring friend believing the young boy, can Joey reveal the truth?
Features:- Commentary with director Jimmy Sangster
3.Dracula Prince of Darkness 1966
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059127/
First Sequel to the Hammer Studios version of the Dracula Legend teaming
Christopher Lee as the Count and his arch enemy Peter Cushing as the
famous Vampire hunter Van Helsing. In this installment the count is
brought back from the dead after his destruction in the original film.
Dracula proceeds to pick up where he left off by terrorizing the people
visiting his castle where ultimately good and evil again clash.
Features:
- 57 min doc: The Many Faces of Christopher Lee
4.The Plague of Zombies 1966
Young workers are dying because of a mysterious epidemic in a little
village in Cornwall. Doctor Thompson is helpless and asks professor
James Forbes for help. The professor and his daughter Sylvia travel to
Thomson. Dead people are seen near an old, unused mine. Professor Forbes presumes that black magic is involved, he doesn't know that someone is using a magic voodoo-ritual, turning the dead into mindless zombies.
Features:
- Trailers
5.Raspution the Mad Monk 1966
Thrown out of his monastery for licentious and drunken behaviour,
Rasputin travels to St Petersburg to try his luck. Through a dalliance
with one of the czarina's ladies in waiting he soon gains influence at
court with his powers of healing, and hypnotism. But he also makes
enemies who wish to see him dead.
Features:
- Trailer
Book 2:
When his brother Charles Spalding mysteriously dies, Harry Spalding and
his wife Valerie decide to move, to an inherited cottage, in a small
village in the country. They are coldly received by the locals, with the
exception of the bartender and owner of a pub Tom Bailey, who welcome
them. His weird neighbor Dr. Franklyn, who lives with his beautiful
daughter Anna, tries to persuade them to sell the house and leave the
place, but the couple decides to stay. Harry and Valerie find that the
locals are being killed by some snake and they feel threatened. When
Anna asks for help and they trespass Dr. Franklyn's house, they find the
horrible truth hidden in the place.
Features:
- None
After being threatened by witchcraft in Africa, Gwen Mayfield has a
nervous breakdown and returns to England. She is invited to teach in a
private school, owned by the wealthy Alan Bax and his sister Stephanie
Bax, in the village of Heddaby. She
witnesses weird events with locals, soon she realizes that the place is
indeed a coven and her student Linda Rigg is being prepared for a
sacrifice.
Features:
- Trailer
8.One Million Years B.C 1966
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060782/
Features:
9.The Viking Queen 1967
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062443/
Caveman Tumak is banished from his savage tribe. He finds a brief home
among a group of gentle seacoast dwelling cave people, until he is
banished from them as well. Missing him, one of their women, Loana
leaves with him, deciding to face the harsh prehistoric world with its
monsters and volcano's, as a couple.
- Interview with Raquel Welch
- Interview with Ray Harryhausen
9.The Viking Queen 1967
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062443/
To honour her father's dying wish, Queen Salina shares the rule of Icena
with Justinian, a fair and just Roman. This displeases the bloodthirsty
Druids on one side, and the more hard-line Romans on the other. As
Salina and Justinian fall in love, their enemies start to plot, and blood
soon stains the green hills of Britain.
Features:
- Trailer
10.Frankenstein Created Woman 1967
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061683/
Baron Frankenstein has acquired the dead body of a young maiden,
Christina, and all it lacks is the spark of life. He captures the soul
of a recently executed young man and installs it in the young woman.
With the memories from the young man still intact, she starts to kill
the people whose false accusations led to the young man's execution.
Features:
- Trailer
Book 3:
11.Quatermass and the Pit 1967
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062168/
12.The Vengeance of She 1968
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063765/
13.The Devil Rides Out 1968
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062885/
14.Prehistoric Woman (Slave Girls) 1967
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062150/
Features:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062168/
While digging a new subway line in London, a construction crew discovers
first: a skeleton, then what they think is an old World War II German
missile. Upon closer examination the "missile" appears to be not of this
earth! This movie examines the age old question of how we came to be on
this planet. It is surprisingly scary.
Features:- Trailer
12.The Vengeance of She 1968
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063765/
A beautiful young European girl, Carol, is taken over by the spirit of
mysterious Ayesha, queen of the lost city of Kuma. Carol is taken to
Kuma to succeed the almost-immortal Ayesha as empress of Kuma.
Features:- Trailer
13.The Devil Rides Out 1968
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062885/
The Duc de Richeleau and his friend Rex discover their young charge
Simon has fallen in with the powers of Darkness, and is about to be
baptized into the service of evil. The Duc is fortunately versed in such
matters and finds himself locked in a duel with the deadly Mocata,
disciple of the left-hand path.
Features:- Trailer
14.Prehistoric Woman (Slave Girls) 1967
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062150/
Jungle guide David Marchand is kidnapped by a tribe of natives who want
to sacrifice him to their white rhino god. Just as he's about to be
killed, however, he is thrown backwards in time to a kingdom of brunette
women and their blond slaves. David rejects the advances of Queen Kari
and sides with the blonde's, which leads to him being imprisoned in the
dungeon. Can David find some way of returning to his own time? And if he
does, what will be awaiting him when he returns?
Features:
- Trailer
15.Scars of Dracula 1970
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067713/
A young man, Paul Carlson, is on a trip and spends the night on count
Dracula's castle. Needless to say, he is murdered. When some time has
passed, the young man's brother Simon comes to the small town where all
the traces ends to look for him.
Features:
- Commentary with Roy Ward Baker & Christopher Lee
- Stills Gallery
- Trailer
Book 4:
16.The Horror of Frankenstein 1970
Features:
Academically gifted but arrogant, and amoral. Victor Frankenstein will
stop at nothing, not even patricide, to achieve his goal of recreating
human life. When his handiwork turns out to have homicidal tendencies, he
is happy to use this to his own ends, rather than realize he has gone
too far.
Features:
- Commentary with director Jimmy Sangster
- Interview with Veronica Carlson
- Poster & Stills Gallery
17.Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb 1971
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068290/
Features:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068290/
An archaeological expedition brings back the coffin of an Egyptian queen,
known for her magic powers to London. Her spirit takes on the shape of a
young girl and strange things starts to happen.
Features:
- Interviews with Valerie Leon & Christopher Wicking
- Stills Gallery
- Radio Spots
Shy Brenda Thompson writes naive children's stories to amuse herself.
Stifled and desperate for a man of her own, she leaves Liverpool,
telling her mom she's pregnant, and gets a job in a boutique in London.
She moves in with the promiscuous but good-hearted Caroline but the mod
set shuns her for her plain looks. Then she kidnaps a strange young
man's dog, so as to perhaps get to know him while returning it. The
young man turns out to be Peter, a psychopath with a predilection for
killing beautiful things.
Features:
- Commentary with Rita Tushingham
- Trailer
19.Fear In the Night 1972
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068577/
A young woman recovering from a nervous breakdown moves with her husband
to a boys' school, but finds herself being terrorized by a mysterious
one-armed man - and nobody believes her.
Features:
- Commentary with Jimmy Sangster
- Trailer
20.Demons of the Mind 1972
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066982/
Baron Zorn keeps his teenage children locked up and drugged, fearing
that his insane wife passed along a congenital curse to them before her
own suicidal death. A wandering Priest
dedicates himself to root out the evil, but isn't taken seriously.
Arriving at the castle are two more interested parties: Mountebank
scientist-huckster Falkenberg stands to make a small fortune if his
strange apparatus can cure the children of their inherited evil.
Features:
- Commentary with director Peter Sykes, writer Christopher Wicking and co-star Virginia Weatherall
- Trailer
21.To the Devil a Daughter 1976
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075334/
An excommunicated priest sets up a satanic cult that only looks Catholic
on the outside. He convinces a man to sign over his daughter's soul so
that she will become the devil's representative on earth on her
eighteenth birthday, but as that day nears, the man seeks the help of an
American occult novelist to save his daughter, both physically and
spiritually.
Features:
- Feature doc: To The Devil...The Death of Hammer
- Interview with Eddie Powell
- Trailer
Technical Aspects:
- Format: Box set, Colour, PAL
- Language English
- Region: Region 2
- Number of discs: 21
- Classification: 18
- Studio: Optimum
- DVD Release Date: 30 Oct 2006
- Run Time: 1973 minutes
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