Product 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 Hammers 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?
Hammers 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 devils 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 innocents soul. Based on Dennis Wheatleys powerful best
seller.
.co.uk Review
-------------
This Hammer Horror Resurrected box set collects Hammer movies
from the mid-1960s (plus a stray 1975 title), an era when Hammer
was making sequels or even sequels to sequels and occasionally
cobbling together films with a lack of care that would not have
passed muster in the 1950s. Nevertheless, all of these films have
elements that remain pleasing and a good half of the titles
represented are in the front-rank of the Hammer canon.
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-st 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 p 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