Who doesn't love DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS? The first Amicus portmanteau film, it was followed by a series of similarly styled movies that, on the whole, were better than it, but you have to start somewhere. Anyway, after the guest appearance of the film's poster in Edgar Wright's LAST NIGHT IN SOHO Fabulous Films are giving the film a new Blu-ray release.
Peter Cushing! Christopher Lee! Roy Castle and...er...Alan Freeman! If nothing else DR TERROR is an interesting time capsule of things past (including attitudes). So, nearly sixty years later, are the five stories the film tells still worth a look? Well, the Werewolf episode is still fun and the most atmospheric, Creeping Vine was always a bit silly but now it comes across as ludicrous, Voodoo has those 'attitudes of times past' but does have some fun Tubby Hayes jazz and it's based on an uncredited Cornell Woolrich story so it's still of interest, Disembodied Hand has some great interplay between Lee and Michael Gough (with monkey) and the Vampire story has Jennifer Jayne and an ending that's rather fun.
Then there's Freddie Francis directing and doing his best to use the widescreen format to depict a cramped railway carriage (he doesn't do too badly) and a music score by Elisabeth Lutyens - twelve tone Lizzie herself (as she was apparently known) that's refreshingly different from a lot of horror movie music scores of the time.
DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS has been released on disc in the UK a few times, and unfortunately if you're a DR TERROR obsessive you need all the releases, including the new Fabulous Films one. The significant ones are the original Anchor Bay DVD release which boasted two commentary tracks, one from Freddie Francis and Jonathan Sothcott and the other from Alan Bryce. The 2015 Odeon Blu-ray dropped the Bryce commentary, added a new making of (House of Cards by Jake West) but had transfer issues and a repressed disc had to be issued.
The latest Fabulous Film release keeps the West documentary, as well as the trailer and Stephen Jones image gallery, but has no commentary tracks. What it does have is nearly an hour of new interviews courtesy of Derek Pykett, namely Ann Bell (21 minutes), Jeremy Kemp (8 minutes) and Kenny Lynch (24 minutes). The disc also comes with a booklet and a double-sided poster of Graham Humphreys artwork
DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS gets its latest Blu-ray release from Fabulous Films on Monday 5th December 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment