Hammer Horror Resurrected Box Set [DVD] [1966]

Rasputin the Mad Monk is a bloodied-up slice of Russian history, hindered somewhat by the need to limit the sets to those that could be recycled from Dracula Prince of Darkness and a legal injunction to refrain from naming names. Christopher Lee makes a fair fist of the lead role, employing his Dracula staring eyes and wringing hands to go with an impressive false beard and using sheer force of will to dominate the Tsar's court, especially the elegantly masochistic lady-in-waiting Barbara Shelley.

Frankenstein Created Woman sends Peter Cushing's Baron back to the drawing board and finds him diverted from his usual brain surgery and corpse-stitching into experimenting with cryogenic suspension and soul transference. Terence Fisher, on his third Hammer Frankenstein, directs the cynical script with cold flair. The side is let down only by Playboy Playmate Susan Denberg's insufficiently devastating lady monster.

The Vengeance of She is the mildest effort in this bunch, a quickie sequel to She in which blonde, bosomy Czech "discovery" Olinka Berova did not turn out to be an international sensation along the lines of previous Hammer babes Ursula Andress and Raquel Welch. The feeble storyline peters out as the heroine is plagued by dreams that suggest she is the reincarnation of the evil ice queen Ayesha but then turns out not to be.

The Plague of the Zombies is a grimmer Hammer, with cartoonish social comment ladled onto the voodoo goings-on. Cornish squire John Carson (even chillier than the usual Christopher Lee) enjoys rampaging around the countryside with his hunting pals abusing comely lasses while his fortune is kept going by the exploited living dead working his tin mine. Andre Morell has the Peter Cushing role as a concerned expert who recognises that there's voodoo in the air, and Jacqueline Pearce--unforgettable in director John Gilling's companion piece, The Reptile--is suitably affecting as the secondary heroine who turns into a seductive zombie and gets her head lopped off.

In Quatermass and the Pit boffin Professor Quatermass (Andrew Keir) unearths an eerie history of insect aliens who have influenced human evolution when workmen extending the London underground discover a five million year old Martian spaceship. This is a rare intelligent science fiction movie with genuine ideas to go along with its creepy moments.

1975's To the Devil a Daughter was the last gasp of Hammer's horror cycle, an attempt to rejig Dennis Wheatley's once-popular Satanist-bashing novel into a post-Exorcist/Omen Devil movie. Fallen priest Christopher Lee tries to get teenage novice Nastassja Kinski pregnant with a monster, while pipe smoking occultist Richard Widmark does his best to foil the dastard. Sloppy, silly and awkwardly structured, with an especially limp climax (the villain is foiled by being bashed with a rock), it does manage some chills along the way, and has an interesting supporting cast of neurotics (especially Denholm Elliott, cowering inside a pentagram). This release presents a fuller version than some video or TV prints, including a strange sequence in which Kinski's womb is invaded by a repulsive demon child. The very young Kinski has a nude scene, but so does Christopher Lee's game stunt double.

On the DVD: Hammer Horror Resurrected box set has no extras at all. But the films are presented in nice, anamorphic transfers which bring out the pretty pastels of the landscape around Bray Studios and the rich red splashes of blood. --Kim Newman

DVD Description
Contains the following six titles:

• Rasputin the Mad Monk
  
• Frankenstein Created Woman
  
• The Vengeance of She
  
• The Plague of Zombies
  
• Quatermass and the Pit
  
• To the Devil a Daughter

• Rasputin the Mad Monk
  Christopher Lee gives a stellar performance as the mad monk, Rasputin in Hammer’s first pseudo-historical epic. After his ejection from the monastery for drunken behaviour, Rasputin decides to try his luck in St. Petersburg. His apparent healing powers soon allow him to gain influence at the court of the Tsar, but with his rise to power come many enemies who wish to see him dead.
  
• Frankenstein Created Woman
  When he captures the soul of a recently executed man, Baron Frankenstein is finally able to give the spark of life to the body of a young woman he is keeping at his castle. With memories of his wrongful execution still intact, the woman embarks on a killing spree to gain revenge on those who falsely accused him. Peter Cushing also stars.
  
• The Vengeance of She
  Carol, a beautiful young girl, is taken over by the spirit of Ayesha, queen of the lost city of Kuma. An eccentric millionaire gives Carol refuge, unaware that she brings the dark shadow of death to everything she touches. Sequel to the Ursula Andress vehicle She.
  
• The Plague of Zombies
  A strange epidemic hits the workers of a small village in Cornwall, much to the consternation of the local doctor, who enlists the help of an eminent professor. Their worst fears are confirmed when the dead are seen to live again as zombies! But who is th master that these nightmares of the undead serve? Hammer’s only foray into the zombie genre is a horror classic.
  
• Quatermass and the Pit
  While digging a new Underground line in London, a construction crew discovers human remains, followed by what they take to be a World War II German bomb. Upon closer examination, the ‘bomb’ contains a dead locust-like creature and appears to be not of this earth! Stars Andrew Keir and Barbara Shelly.
  
• To the Devil a Daughter
  Christopher Lee plays a defrocked, devil-worshipping Catholic priest who convinces a man to sign over the soul of his daughter, Catherine, so that she will become the devil’s representative on Earth on her eighteenth birthday. As that day draws near, the two men become locked in a deadly battle over the possession of the young innocent’s soul. Based on Dennis Wheatley’s powerful best seller.

• DVD & Blu-ray > Classics
• DVD & Blu-ray > Horror

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