The ‘Hammer Presents’ label strikes again! This time it’s with a UK blu-ray release of one of director Sidney J Furie’s early movies, one that boasts a great title, some lovely locations, and Hazel Court.
People are disappearing in the small Cornish village of Porthcarron (actually the small Cornish village of Zennor). Could the recent arrival of local GP Dr Blood’s son Peter (Kieron Moore) have anything to do with it? We don’t have to wait long to find out, but we do have to wait rather longer (almost the entire film, in fact) to see the zombie promised by the posters.
Was this the first colour zombie picture? That’s one of the many things discussed by Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons in their accompanying commentary track which, chatty, convivial and fact-packed, is worth the price of the disc on its own. The zombie himself (Paul Stockman) is brought back to ‘life’ in a climactic surgery sequence that involves a transplant with a rather floppy-looking heart, but medical accuracy is hardly the point of this or we wouldn’t have Dr Blood performing open heart surgery on people while they look at him.
As mentioned on the commentary, there’s not really enough here for a 90 minute feature, with the most shocking thing being that the Cornish weather stays nice for almost the entirety of filming. Hazel Court plays the zombie’s (still-living) wife and helps to up the acting quality in a film that also boasts genre favourite Kenneth J Warren. Nathan Juran supplies the script, Buxton Orr the music, and Furie manages a number of nice setups, all making the film worth watching if you’re a fan of the above.
Hammer’s disc gives us the film in two aspect ratios - 1.66:1 and 1.85:1. They are listed as ‘UK and US versions’ but apart from the screen shape there’s no identifiable difference. Apart from the commentary you also get a trailer and an image gallery which is worth perusing for its wealth of publicity material for a film that’s not that well known.
Sidney J Furie’s DR BLOOD’S COFFIN is out on Blu-ray on the Hammer Presents label on Monday 4th May 2026
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