Wednesday 10 August 2016

463 Hammer House of Horror


First  viewed : 20  September  1980

This  series  of  hour  long  chillers  from  the  famous  film  studios  pepped  up  the  Saturday  night  schedule  during  the  autumn  of  1980. Not  all  of  them  had  supernatural  elements ; in  some  the  horror  came  from  the  human  capacity  for  evil.

I  didn't  get  to  see  them  all  but  the  ones  I  did  featured  a  degree  of  titillation  and  no guarantee  of  a  happy  ending . The  one  I  remember   most  fondly, The  Carpathian  Eagle   ticked  both  those  boxes  and  featured  Suzanne  Danielle in  varying  states  of  undress  as  a novelist-cum-serial  killer  despatching  lechers  ( including  a  young  Pierce  Brosnan ) with  a curved  blade.

The  other  ones  I  caught  were :


  • The  Thirteenth  Reunion  A  health  farm  is  found  to  be  a  front  for  cannibalism
  • The  Silent  Scream  Peter  Cushing, an  ex-Nazi, torments  ex-con  Brian  Cox  and  his  wife  Elaine  Donnelly. They  think  they've  turned  the  tables  on  him  but  when  they  get  home  they  find  he's  turned  their  house  into  an  electrified  prison  with  no  way  out. That's  the  one  that  spooked  me  the  most.
  • Children  of  the  Moon  Christopher  Cazenove  and  his  wife  stumble  on  a  family  of  werewolf  children  being  nannied  by  Diana  Dors. She  apparently  had  a  really  nasty  side  to  her  personality  and  you  can  believe  that  from  her  performance  in  this.
  • Guardian  of  the  Abyss Ray  Lonnen  gets  into  real  trouble  when  he  tries  to  help  a  young  woman  escape  from  a  Satanist  coven.
  • Visitor  From  the  Grave  An  interesting  twist   on  the  old  "drive  the  heiress  insane"  plot  line  where  the  conspirators  get  a  taste  of  their  own  medicine.
Thirteen  episodes  were  made  and  producer  Roy  Skeggs  said  that  a  second  series  was  in  the pipeline  but  Lew  Grade 's  ITC  Entertainment  who  were  part-funding  it  had  to  pull  the  plug because  of  the  losses  suffered  by   the  film  turkey   Raise  The  Titanic . 





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