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November 17th looks to be one of the quieter home media release days we’ve had in a while, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some great titles headed home this week, either. Hammer fans will undoubtedly want to pick up Mill Creek’s new box sets for Hammer Films: The Ultimate Collection and Inner Sanctum Mysteries this Tuesday, or if you’re looking for more modern horror to entertain you, Relic and Monstrum are headed to both Blu-ray and DVD this week as well.

Other releases for November 17th include Death of Me, 2067, Westworld: Season 3, Alfred Hitchcock: 4-Film Collection, and So Sweet, So Dead.

Hammer Films: The Ultimate Collection

For more than four decades, Hammer Films unique blend of horror, science fiction, thrills and comedy dominated countless drive-ins and movie theaters. Enjoy this massive collection from the darkest corners of the Hammer Imagination!

Featuring 20 Cult-Classics...

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By Darren Allison

In 1965, maverick British producer and writer Harry Alan Towers (The Bloody Judge) scored a hit with The Face of Fu Manchu, a thrilling revival of Sax Rohmer’s super-villain imperiously portrayed by Christopher Lee. Powerhouse/Indicator have lovingly brought together all five films in the series and in the process produced a rather spectacular collection.

Christopher Lee was of course no stranger to playing maniacal, Asian characters. He had already played Chung King, leader of the Red Dragon Tong's in Hammer’s movie The Terror of the Tongs (1961) directed by Anthony Bushell. Tall, dark and menacing in his stature, Lee was perfect casting for novelist Sax Rohmer’s notorious Chinese criminal mastermind. Produced by Harry Alan Towers and Oliver A. Unger, The Face of Fu Manchu was a British / West German co-production. Behind the camera was Australian-born British film director Don Sharp,...

Indicator delivers another in their long line of fan-friendly box sets with Hammer Volume Five – Death and Deceit (a subhead that could be applied to the majority of the studio’s output). This latest release would be for Hammer completists only were it not for the extras that shine a bright light on a few overlooked artists and their work.

Hammer Volume Five – Death and Deceit

Blu ray – Region B Only

Powerhouse Films/Indicator

1961, 1962, 1963, 1965 / 1.85:1, 2.35:1 / 75, 87, 83 and 81 min.

Starring Richard Basehart, Christopher Lee, Lionel Jeffries, Oliver Reed

Cinematography by Arthur Grant, Jack Asher, Reg Wyer

Directed by Michael Carreras, John Gilling

Michael Carreras’s Visa to Canton was a Cold War thriller photographed in Technicolor but released to U.S. theaters in black and white. To add insult to injury it was given a new and even more prosaic title: Passport to China – a fate this unassuming little Cold War thriller didn’t deserve.

Powerhouse Indicator continues its series of exotic attractions from the house of Hammer — productions that found new ways to shock audiences than tradition-breaking gore and violence. Two are war pictures with sharply contrasting themes, and the second pair constitute a popular-cinema referendum on racist colonial attitudes.

Hammer Volume 3 Blood and Terror

Blu-ray

The Camp on Blood Island, Yesterday’s Enemy, The Stranglers of Bombay, The Terror of the Tongs

Powerhouse Indicator

1958-1960 / Color / B&W / 1:85, 2:35 widescreen / / Street Date July 30, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £44.99

Directed by Val Guest, Terence Fisher, Anthony Bushell

It’s true — unless one is a full-on Hammer true believer that considers The Brigand of Kandahar and Creatures the World Forgot to be timeless classics, delving into the lesser-known Hammer films can be a case of diminishing returns. But when the company got truly creative, either with a radical screenplay or a committed director — Terence Fisher,...

“Kali bids us to Kill! Kill!” A full review of Indicator’s Hammer Volume 3 Blood and Terror collection will follow, but CineSavant jumps the gun to highlight Terence Fisher’s 1959 mass murder shocker. It adds up to more than exploitative and racist cheap thrills: it’s one of the key films to describe the roots of contemporary terrorism. David Zelag Goodman’s screenplay lets Hammer for once say something relevant about the Colonial past, even if it’s a case of mixed signals — and sex.

The Stranglers of Bombay

Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1959 / B&W / 2:35 Strangloscope (Megascope) / 81 min. / The Strangler of Bengal / available as part of the Hammer Volume 3 Blood and Terror disc collection with The Camp On Blood Island, Yesterday’s Enemy, and The Terror of the Tongs, at Powerhouse Films UK / Street Date July 30, 2018 / £44.99 (the set)

Starring: Guy Rolfe, Allan Cuthbertson, Marie Devereaux, Andrew Cruickshank, George Pastell, Marne Maitland,...

Yvonne Monlaur: Cult horror movie actress & Bond Girl contender was featured in the 1960 British classics 'Circus of Horrors' & 'The Brides of Dracula.' Actress Yvonne Monlaur dead at 77: Best remembered for cult horror classics 'Circus of Horrors' & 'The Brides of Dracula' Actress Yvonne Monlaur, best known for her roles in the 1960 British cult horror classics Circus of Horrors and The Brides of Dracula, died of cardiac arrest on April 18 in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Monlaur was 77. According to various online sources, she was born Yvonne Thérèse Marie Camille Bédat de Monlaur in the southwestern town of Pau, in France's Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, on Dec. 15, 1939. Her father was poet and librettist Pierre Bédat de Monlaur; her mother was a Russian ballet dancer. The young Yvonne was trained in ballet and while still a teenager became a model for Elle magazine. She was “discovered” by newspaper publisher-turned-director André Hunebelle,...

“Hunger makes men mad.”

The Good Earth (1937) screen this Friday through Sunday (May 13th-15th) at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 E. Lockwood, Webster Groves, Mo 63119). The film begins each evening at 8:00.

They just don’t cast enough Caucasian actresses in yellow-face drag anymore! Katherine Hepburn in Dragon Seed, Myrna Loy in The Mask Of Fu Manchu, and (my favorite) French Hammer starlet Yvonne Monlaur in The Terror Of The Tongs all proved that a little scotch tape behind the eyes is all it takes to change one’s ethnicity! German-born actress Luise Rainer won her second consecutive Oscar (her first was for The Great Ziegfeld) in 1937 for playing O-Lan in The Good Earth opposite Paul Muni as her husband Wang Lung. Producer Irving Thalberg had originally planned on casting Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong as O-Lan but once Muni was hired, he knew the Hays Office would not...

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...

The unstoppable philistine known as Death claims another Trailers From Hell patron saint.

Horror legend Jimmy Sangster has died, which should — in your exploration of genre classics (or just watching through the numerous trailers for films that feature his name) — mean something to you. If it doesn’t, Tim Lucas has an all-encompassing reminder of why it should:

After his first screenwriting credit (Joseph Losey’s A Man On The Beach, 1955), Sangster’s list of screenplay credentials form an impressive overview of Britain’s contribution to fantastic cinema over four decades:

X – The Unknown (1956), Blood Of The Vampire (1958), The Mummy (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Hellfire Club (1959), Jack The Ripper (1960), The Terror Of The Tongs (1960), Taste Of Fear (aka Scream Of Fear, 1961), The Pirates Of Blood River (1961), Maniac (1963), Paranoiac (1963), Hysteria (1964), The Devil-ship Pirates (1964), The Nanny (1965, his personal favorite), the Bulldog Drummond adventure Deadlier Than The Male (1967), The Anniversary...

We are saddened to hear of the passing of Jimmy Sangster today, at the age of 83. While Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing may be the first names Hammer Horror fans think of, Sangster was just as influential when it came to the success of Hammer’s films in the 50′s and 60′s.

Having written The Mummy, Horror of Dracula, and The Curse of Frankenstein, Jimmy Sangster was one of the men responsible for the creating some of Hammer’s most beloved films and horror franchises. After the success of those films, Sangster worked consistently with Hammer as a writer on dozens of films in the 60′s, including Dracula: Prince of Darkness. In the 70′s, Sangster tried his hand at directing and took on The Horror of Frankenstein and Lust For a Vampire.

Jimmy Sangster was married to his longtime wife and actress Mary Peach and they lived together in London.