Hammer Films is best known for its legacy as the king of British horror studios. They produced dozens of films with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing scaring the pants off a global audience with their reworking of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy. But the studio made other genres that didn’t focus on the undead. Hammer Films: Icons of Suspense Collection gathers six features that shocked audiences nearly five decades ago. These films built up the tension with monsters of a mortal nature.
The Snorkel (1958 – 90 minutes) reminds us of the dangers of marrying male gold diggers. Peter Van Eyck hooks up with a wealthy woman. While she’s planning the wedding, he’s arranging from her funeral. He comes up with a fail proof scheme to put her in the grave and make everyone think it was a suicide. And it works. The cops buy the evidence. There’s only one person suspicious of him. It’s the dead woman’s young daughter (Mandy Miller). This English version of Nancy Drew pokes around too much. Peter decides it’s time to prove that suicide is hereditary. Stop Me Before I Kill! (1960 – 107 minutes) proves concussions can turn a man kinky. Ronald Lewis takes a nasty head bump on the day he is to wed. When he finally gets to enjoyed married sex with his wife, he fights the urge to strangle her. He goes to a shrink to cure this sinister urge. Things get even weirder since the shrink wants to hook up with the wife.
Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1960 – 81 minutes) is a chilling tale of a Canadian town that doesn’t seem to have an issue with child molestation. Peter Carter has moved his family to a small town to be the school principal. It’s a nice place where an old man enjoys giving little candy to little girls if they strip naked and dance around his house. This what happens to Peter’s daughter and her new friend. The dirty old man in question turns out to own the mill that employs most of the town. Everybody knows the guy has gone a little nutty so they want Carter to just forget about it. He won’t drop the case. Turns out Canadian law at this time really had no problem putting children under the grill. Oscar winning cinematographer Freddie Francis (Glory) brings his mastery of cinemascope black and white to this small film. He truly turns the images of the dirty old man into a Hammer monster that wasn’t lifted from the Universal Horror creatures. There’s a strange vibe that this movie was used to make English audiences think twice about moving to Ottawa for the sake of their children. Cash on Demand (1961 – 88 minutes) gives us the Hammer icon Peter Cushing in the leading role. He’s a mean bank manager that is forced to rob his own bank or his wife and son will be killed. The bank employees get rather cruel with wanting to see their boss suffer for all the pain and grief he’s given them.
These Are the Damned (1963 – 95 minutes) takes a completely unexpected twist. This starts out as a motorcycle gang movie, but turns into a sci-fi tale. MacDonald Carey is a tourist who thinks he’s impressing Shirley Ann Field. Turns out she’s bait for a biker gang run by Oliver Reed (Gladiator). They mug Carey, He gets the advantage when Carey escapes the small town with Field. The bikers come after him. Things get weird when Carey and Field hide out in a coastal cottage. They stumble upon children living in a cliff cave. The kids are like Village of the Damned creepy in their school uniforms and proper manners. Turns out there’s a reason why these youngsters are isolated from the world. This is the long director’s cut. Hammer slashed the film down by more than ten minutes so it could be double billed with Maniac.
Maniac (1963 – 86 minutes) is manic. Donald Houston kills the man who raped his daughter. He’s sent to an insane asylum instead of a prison. The girl’s stepmother sleeps with an American tourist. She hooks him hard to the point that he agrees to help break out Houston. Things get really tangled up as the escape plan proves to not be so simple.
This is a exceptional collection of tense tales from Hammer.
The video for Snorkel and Cash on Demand are 1.66:1 anamorphic. The other four films are 2.35:1 anamorphic. The transfers are clean and sharp. These look better than most modern suspense films. The audio is Dolby Digital 2.0. The levels are right for the mix. You’ll get the tension coming through the speakers. The films have English subtitles in case the English accents are confusing.
Trailers are provided for all six films.
Hammer Films: Icons of Suspense Collection has six exciting films that show that not all the evil things produced by the studio had to go bump in the night. The big thrill is getting to see the uncut version of These Are the Damned. For fans of Hammer’s horror output, it is worthy seeing what other startling cinema was produced by them.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment presents Hammer Films: Icons of Suspense Collection. Starring: Peter Cushing, Oliver Reed and Shirley Anne Field. Boxset Contents: 6 movies on 3 DVDs. Released on DVD: April 6, 2010. Available at Amazon.com.
