Crucible of Horror (1970)

        Hammer continues their series of ‘Hammer Presents’ releases, showcasing British horror movies of the period that weren’t actually made by Hammer themselves, with this decidedly peculiar entry from 1970.

CRUCIBLE OF HORROR (US title) aka THE CORPSE (UK title) aka THE VELVET HOUSE (shooting title and the one it went out under in its public domain form on budget release DVD in the US) is the story of the Eastwood family. Father Walter (Michael Gough) is domineering and controlling and is backed up by his son Rupert (Simon Gough). Subjected to Walter’s tyranny are his wife Edith (Yvonne Mitchell from another recent Hammer release, DEMONS OF THE MIND) and daughter Jane (Sharon Gurney who would also appear in Gary Sherman’s DEATH LINE).

Eventually Walter’s abuse reaches such a degree that Edith and Jane decide to kill him. Or at least they think they've killed him, because then his body disappears only for it to turn up in a crate they then have to dispose of. But that’s not the end of the story by any means.

Viewed as a piece of early 1970s BritHorror CRUCIBLE OF HORROR is a rather strange, stilted (at least in its first act) piece that ultimately makes little sense. Viewed through a more arthouse, EuroHorror lens, it comes across more as a slice of endearingly perverse lurid eccentricity. The script is vaguely Pinteresque, if Harold Pinter’s obsessions had included bicycle seat fetishism, incest, flogging, and the ‘compulsory conscription of all young ladies between 18 and 20 into domestic service’.

The direction (by Viktor Ritelis) is a bit rough in places, with some of the performances reminiscent of characters in Spike Milligan’s ‘Q’ sketches. If you’re at all familiar with them then you too may expect at several points a voice over to announce “Come in Film No.7 your time is up” and for everyone to face the screen and ask “What are we going to do now?” It's all very much in the MUMSY, SONNY, NANNY AND GIRLY genre of ‘Mad British Families Doing Mad Things Because They’re Mad’ and let’s face it, there aren’t enough of those.

Hammer’s new 2K restoration Blu-ray transfer offers a brighter, crisper image than the Region A Shout Factory disc from 2018 but the extras are different so collectors may want to hold onto their Shout disc anyway. UK and US versions of the film are present on the disc but there’s very little difference between the two other than the title card. Extras on Hammer’s disc consist of an erudite commentary track from BFI Flipside boys William Fowler and Vic Pratt who do a fine job of providing analysis of what we’re seeing on screen as well as providing background info. The film’s Pinteresque style is dealt with in greater depth by Jonathan Rigby in an excellent 32 minute piece in which he picks choice scenes and lines of dialogue to illustrate his point, comparing the entire piece to a three act play. You also get a trailer and image gallery.

CRUCIBLE OF HORROR is out on Blu-ray from Hammer on Monday 20th April 2026

Mantrap 4K (1953)

Another of Hammer’s early (ie pre-Hammer horror) B movie crime thrillers is being given the double disc (UHD and Blu-ray) 4K treatment complete with a slew of extras, both on disc and on paper. 

This time it’s Terence Fisher’s MANTRAP, an adaptation of the Elleston Trevor novel Queen in Danger. Over opening titles (in the UK version, anyway) we see Kieron Moore’s Mervyn Speight escaping from prison. He’s in for a murder he didn’t commit, and now he’s seeking the real killer. Meanwhile his wife Thelma (Lois Maxwell) has hooked up with new man Victor (Bill Travers) and is busy with her job as beauty editor at a major newspaper. Added to the mix is lawyer Hugo (Paul Henreid) who is recruited to find Speight before the police do in the hope of proving his innocence, all of which culminates in an almost Agatha Christie-style climax of assembling all the suspects at a party so the real killer can be identified.

MANTRAP is absolutely reasonable B movie stuff, by which I mean it’s not as good as some of the other B features we now have on 4K like THE MAN IN BLACK or STOLEN FACE but it’s still a pretty good time and the climax means the title is a better play on words that you initially might think. Hammer’s 4K transfer is crisp and the film includes a number of familiar faces to fans of British movies of the period, including the charming Kay Kendall as Henreid’s wife-to-be and a blink and you’ll miss her appearance from Barbara Shelley.

As with all these releases the true money’s worth is in the extras. You get two versions of the film - UK and US with different commentaries on both. The UK’s MANTRAP features noir experts James Harrison and Sergio Angelini whereas the US MAN IN HIDING has Toby Roam and Heath Holland. I don’t agree with the latter that MAN IN HIDING is a better title because it lacks the double meaning of the UK one. Their commentary also seems to suggest they are actually watching the UK version (where we see Moore breaking out of prison) rather than the US version where the titles open over a still image of the A4 to London. A textless version of this image is also provided as an extra and I can’t help but wonder if this was supposed to be a textless version of Moore’s escape as just over a minute of a still shot of a main road is going to be a contender for the least interesting extra to grace any disc this year.

Other extras include an excellent introduction to film noir in general and British film noir in particular, with Wayne Kinsey, Imogen Sara Smith and Sergio Angelini discussing the subject for 32 minutes. There’s also an excellent piece on author ‘Elleston Trevor’ (watch the piece to find out the reason for the quotation marks) with authors Martin Edwards, Mike Ripley and Barry Forshaw (25 minutes). Jonathan Croall gives us a 25 minute piece on his father, the actor John Stuart, while a freezing-looking Wayne Kinsey and Robin Bailes (also freezing) track down the locations for the film (30 minutes). There’s also a 23 minute archival interview with camera operator Len Harris as well as just over a minute of behind the scenes footage which is a brief but unmissable extra. Finally you get a book with new writing on the film from Wayne Kinsey, Pamela Hutchinson and others plus the usual luxury packaging to keep it all in. Another essential purchase for anyone interested in British cinema of the period.

Terence Fisher’s MANTRAP is out in 4K from Hammer in a limited edition two disc UHD and Blu-ray set on Monday 13th April 2026

Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb 4K (1971)

One of Hammer’s more ambitious films that, like its contemporaries DEMONS OF THE MIND and HANDS OF THE RIPPER (both 1971), tried to do something a little different with what were by then well-worn themes, is getting a dual format 4K UHD and Blu-ray release from Studio Canal.

Valerie Leon is Margaret, daughter to Andrew Keir's Professor Fuchs, an egyptologist of distinctly dodgy inclination, who seems to have half a rebuilt tomb in the basement of his ordinary-looking suburban house, a whole load of Egyptian artefacts, and a number of colleagues who want nothing more to do with him after some escapade abroad many years ago, which culminated in their breaking into the tomb of Queen Tera (Leon again). Tera, by all accounts, was a pretty naughty piece of work (well, she was definitely pretty, and sadly we don't get to find out how naughty she was capable of being). What's far more worrying is that the professor seems to have some poorly researched and badly thought out plan that involves the life of his daughter and the supplanting of her existence by said evil queen on the occasion of her next birthday. 

Good old Hammer. Only at the height of their powers could they take a minor Bram Stoker novel, fill it with slashed throats, a crawling severed hand and a sexy leading lady, and just by accident produce an original and satisfying spin on the mummy theme that still works fifty five years on.

With a title that means nothing other than that James Carreras had learned to copy Tony Tenser's approach to titling films by reaching into a box of cards labelled with 'horror' words until the right combination came up, a director who died before filming finished, a star who left once filming had started, and a script by a writer who was both banned from the set and notorious for screenplays that were a bit difficult to make any sense of sometimes, it's a wonder that BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB is any good at all. What's more surprising than that is that it's actually well worth watching, and is easily the best (along with the 1959 THE MUMMY) of the films Hammer made that had a connection to ancient Egypt. It's rare that the fourth movie in any horror film cycle has anything to commend it, but following in the wake of CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB and THE MUMMY'S SHROUD this is surprisingly original, well directed, and being shot in what looks like the depths of winter only serves to heighten the creepy atmosphere that pervades the movie right up to that classic final shot.

The acting is fine throughout, with the usual collection of British character actors and eccentrics (Aubrey Morris take a bow you loveable weirdo, you) and Valerie Leon, having been used as decorative set dressing in a number of Carry Ons, getting the role that she was born to play. Hammer didn't always get their casting right but she is uncannily perfect for the roles of both Tera and Margaret. 

And uncanny is the work that best sums up BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB. This is Hammer unwittingly doing cosmic horror. Immense forces we cannot comprehend are being manoeuvred into position from an ordinary suburban house by people who have no real idea what they are setting in motion. It’s a setting and story worthy not just of Lovecraft but of more modern horror writers like Ramsey Campbell and, had Hammer lasted more than a few more years, represents a fascinating and potentially brilliant direction the company could have taken.

Studio Canal’s dual format set, like its other 4K Hammer releases, gives us some new material as well as consolidating archival extras from other releases. New to this disc is an interview with star Valerie Leon (9 minutes) and a talking head piece from Kim Newman (19 minutes). Archival extras consist of a Steve Haberman commentary, the making of featurette from Studio Canal’s previous Blu-ray release (18 minutes), and interviews with Leon & Wicking (10 minutes), sound recordist Tony Dawe (6 minutes) and camera operator Neil Binney (5 minutes). As well as behind the scenes and lobby card galleries and trailers you also get a 64 page book featuring new essays (including one by David Huckvale) and two posters.

BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB is out on 4K in a dual format UHD / Blu-ray release from Studio Canal on Monday 6th April 2026

Demons of the Mind 4K (1971)

        Getting a 4K UHD / Blu-ray release from Studio Canal, and a film that rarely finds itself on people’s lists of Top Ten Hammer films, DEMONS OF THE MIND is one of those curious, slightly overambitious projects Hammer made at a time when it seemed as if any producer with a completed script could get backing from the company. Its reach may well exceed its grasp, but that doesn’t stop DEMONS OF THE MIND from being one of Hammer’s more interesting films.

In his castle deep in the Hammerland countryside lives the Baron Zorn (Robert Hardy) with his two adult children Emil (Shane Briant) and Elizabeth (Gillian Hills). The Baron’s wife, a woman of peasant stock (or so we are told) committed suicide when the children were much younger. A strain of madness runs in the Zorn family and the Baron is terrified that it will be passed on to his children. Of further concern to him is the amorous interest they have begun to show in each other, with the result that he keeps them locked in their bedrooms and has Elizabeth bled regularly to keep her subdued. In an attempt to cure the family’s madness the Baron recruits the services of discredited charlatan psychiatrist Dr Falkenberg (Patrick Magee) who has some rather exotic theories about how best to treat insanity. 

While all this is going the local village is being terrorised by a killer who murders village girls and scatters rose petals over their bodies. A mad wandering priest (Michael Hordern) is convinced the girls’ disappearing is the work of the devil, and that the devil is currently resident at Zorn’s castle. Falkenberg solves the mystery of the killer as a mob of angry villagers descends on the estate looking for revenge.

The above plot summary makes DEMONS OF THE MIND seems less like a Hammer Film and more like something from the crazier side of EuroHorror. Indeed, one almost gets the feeling that if someone like Sergio Martino had been recruited to make a Hammer-style gothic, this is what he might have come up with. As it is Peter Sykes acquits himself admirably in the director’s chair and the flair evident in Sykes’ style is one of the reasons the film feels more progressive than much of Hammer’s output of the period.

What makes and breaks DEMONS OF THE MIND, however, is its script. Christopher Wicking does a splendid job of trying to do something a little bit different from Hammer’s usual gothic formula. There are some nice touches to the Baron’s backstory, especially the mention of bloodlust and ritual sacrifice of his ancestors that suggests that the Zorn psychological malady may at some time in the past have been thought to be vampirism or lyncanthropy, and the touches of cod psychiatry are neat and effective. Unfortunately it is also Wicking’s oblique narrative style that lets the film down, rendering much of what is going on confusing, a problem that plagued some of the other film projects he was involved with at that time. 

The second problem with the film is one of the performances. Both Shane Briant and Gillian Hills are very good in their portrayals of the tortured children and Patrick Magee towers over everyone with a skilful, layered performance as Dr Falkenberg, the quack who might be a genius (we never really get to decide which). Unfortunately Robert Hardy as Baron Zorn overbalances everything with a scenery-chewing eye-rolling performance that really needed reining in and quite possibly locking away in a box until it had calmed down. Hammer heroes are always pretty colourless specimens and Paul Jones puts in a likeable enough performance as the forgettable and ineffectual Carl the Medical Student.

Most of all, DEMONS OF THE MIND remains fascinating because of how everything turns out. It has to be one of the bleakest films Hammer ever made, with no happy ending for anyone as almost all the leads end up dead or insane by the end of the picture. In this respect it’s a little bit like Michael Reeves’ WITCHFINDER GENERAL, and Harry Robinson’s lush bittersweet music does much the same job as the Greensleeves-style portions of Paul Ferris’ score did for the Reeves picture.

Studio Canal’s 4K release has a new interview with actress Virginia Wetherell (14 minutes) and does a fine job of consolidating extras from previous releases. There are two commentary tracks, one from Steve Haberman and the other with Sykes, Wicking and Wetherell moderated by Jonathan Sothcott. There's also the making of featurette from the previous Studio Canal Blu-ray release (16 minutes), & an interview with camera operator Neil Binney (4 minutes). As well as behind the scenes and lobby card galleries you get a 64 page booklet featuring new writing on the film. 

Peter Sykes’ DEMONS OF THE MIND is on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Studio Canal on Monday 6th April 2026

The Day of the Locust (1975)

The film MIDNIGHT COWBOY director John Schlesinger made just before MARATHON MAN is getting a Blu-ray release from Arrow. Adapted by Waldo Salt (who also wrote the screenplays for MIDNIGHT COWBOY and SERPICO) from Nathanael West’s novel, it’s a film that lifts up the rock that is tinseltown to dispassionately examine the squirming creatures it finds beneath.

Hollywood, 1937 or thereabouts. Tod Hackett (William Atherton) gets a job at Paramount Pictures as a production illustrator. He gets on well with studio executive Claude Estee (Richard Dysart) and is soon moving up in the world, producing drawings for a production about the battle of Waterloo.

Meanwhile in his private life Tod is quickly becoming besotted with Faye (Karen Black) an extra who is happy to string Tod along while also entertaining the attentions of a number of other men including cowboy Earle (Bo Hopkins). Faye’s father Harry (Burgess Meredith) sells cleaning solvent door to door having failed to make the big time. Faye eventually moves in with bewildered accountant Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland), but she soon leaves him, his resultant emotional trauma coinciding with the premiere of a new Cecil B DeMille movie leading to a climax of spectacularly grim and nightmarish proportions.

THE DAY OF THE LOCUST runs 144 minutes and in that time we meet hardly a single character who has any redeeming features. Instead they are all self-obsessed, unpleasant, lacking in empathy or morals and frequently just plain bizarre. The film has been likened to David Lynch’s later MULHOLLAND DRIVE and it’s easy to believe Lynch was influenced by many of the elements of this when he made his classic, from the place where Tod lives to the presence of a mysterious cowboy and the apparitions of strange screaming figures. Even so, the climax still comes out of left field and is not to be spoilt if you’ve never seen this. As well as the above, interesting faces amongst the cast include a very young Jackie Earle Haley as a disturbing child, and William Castle as the director of the Waterloo epic. The location used for his 1959 HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL puts in an appearance as well. 

Arrow’s Blu-ray features a 2K remaster from the original negative, with mono, lossless 5.1 and stereo 2.0 audio options. In 2004 the BBFC cuts scenes of cockfighting for the DVD release and it looks as if these have not been restored (which is of course unsurprising). 

Extras on the disc include a commentary track moderated by the late Lee Gambin that features an assembly of cast and crew members including costume designer Ann Roth, actors Grainger Hines and Pepe Serna, and title designer Dan Perri. Gambin returns for a visual essay on the film (25 minutes) and there’s another visual essay from costume and film historian Elissa Rose (18 minutes) which also features comments from costume designer Ann Roth, while critic Glenn Kenny provides an appreciation of the film (25 minutes). You also get behind the scenes galleries, radio spots, a reversible sleeve and a booklet featuring new writing on the film. 

John Schlesinger’s THE DAY OF THE LOCUST is out on Blu-ray from Arrow on Monday 6th April 2026

The Good Boy (2026)

“Top Notch Thriller ” 

Jeremy Thomas and Jerzy Skolimowski, both individuals with track records for making quality cinema, have their names at the front of this British-Polish co-production (once you have got past a staggering 13 logos) which is currently playing in selected UK cinemas from Signature Releasing. 

        If you're reading this in the US the film has been retitled HEEL to avoid understandable confusion with Shudder’s recent dog-starring ghost story movie. Indeed, the onscreen title on UK prints is GOOD BOY so presumably the ‘THE’ has been added here to try and help differentiate it as well. Whatever the title, it’s an excellent piece of cinema and well worth catching if you can.

Tommy (Anson Boon who played John Lydon in Danny Boyle’s PISTOL) is a monstrously awful 19 year old who spends his days bullying and stealing, and his nights living it up in a coke-fuelled haze. During one especially massive bender he’s kidnapped and wakes to find himself chained up in a cellar belonging to Christopher (Stephen Graham) and his wife Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough) who, it turns out, live in a remote country house with their son Jonathan (Kit Rakusen). 

It’s clear that Kathryn has undergone some previous trauma and there’s talk of a ‘Charlie’ who isn’t in the house any more. It’s never made clear who Charlie was, or indeed if Jonathan is their actual son or someone else they’ve kidnapped. Meanwhile Christopher takes the lead in ‘rehabilitating’ Tommy using various methods including playing the boy TikTok videos, Ludovico treatment-style, of his past crimes. Will the attempts at reforming Tommy work or will he escape and carry out the violent threats he keeps screaming at Christopher and his family?

THE GOOD BOY has a strong 1970s vibe, reminiscent of everything from Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE to Eloy De La Iglesia’s MURDER IN A  BLUE WORLD with a touch of Pete Walker’s HOUSE OF WHIPCORD for good measure. However as the film continues (and Tommy’s rehabilitation develops) fans of UK TV may also be reminded of the 2006 series LIFE ON MARS. 

        Even if you’ve not seen any of the above be assured that THE GOOD BOY is a fine thriller that will keep you guessing. As to the ending - I won’t say if it’s nihilistic or uplifting, because that’s for you to find out, and, like all the best EuroHorrors from back in the day, perhaps chat about in the car on the way home. Highly recommended and with excellent performances from all the leads. Here’s the trailer:

THE GOOD BOY is out in UK and Irish cinemas now from Signature Entertainment