Calling all fans of horror maestro Mario Bava..

Collectors' items don't come more collectable than this!
      VideoWatchdog editor Tim Lucas's massive (32 years in production) labour of love on the famed Italian giallo director is now available EXCLUSIVELY in the UK through Hemlock Books. Weighing in at an incredible 12lbs, and totalling 1128 full-colour art-paper pages, MARIO BAVA: All the Colours of the Dark offers a unique and minutely-detailed insight into the moody, surrealist world of one of European cinema's leading genre exponents and pioneer of Italian horror. In addition to helping out with effects work and cinematography on peplum such as Hercules Unchained and The Giant of Marathon, and on the horror films of other directors (such as Riccardo Freda's I vampiri and Caltiki, The Immortal Monster), Bava rocketed to horror stardom in his own right in the early 1960s with a number of movies which carried his indelible stamp of garish colour-design, macabre imagery and fetishistic themes; films like La maschera del demonio (better known as Black Sunday in the US, and banned in Britain until 1969), Blood and Black Lace, Black Sabbath and Planet of the Vampires all helped to make the name of Mario Bava instantly recognisable to a generation of horror fans.
      Lucas's awesome tribute to the man (the book is the thickness of two telephone directories!), compiled with the help of dozens of Bava's colleagues, friends and family members, charts his life, career and films in such loving detail that not a single, dark stone has been left unturned. It has to be said that the price for all this minutiae is just a staggering - £199.95 - but MARIO BAVA: All the Colours of the Dark is in many ways priceless, and is sure to command a much higher figure than its present retail in the years to come, as the most sought-after pièce de resistance of any horror collection.
      Check it out in the new Collectibles page in the Hemlock Shop - and see the trailer to Blood and Black Lace while you're there. More rare and sought-after horror and fantasy items will be featuring in Hemlock Collectibles in the months to come. So keep watching..    

Another American Werewolf in London..

Those of you who don't get out much (because you're too busy reading all the horror mags you've bought from Hemlock Books!) should make a special effort to head to your local multiplex and catch Universal's The Wolfman. Despite a change of director, numerous rewrites and reshoots, and a fifteen month delay in the film reaching theatres, director Joe Johnston's remake of the George Waggner classic is a treat for fans of Gothic horror.
      The 1941 original gave wartime audiences something more fantastic to think about than the daily hostilities and made a horror star out of Creighton Tull Chaney (otherwise known as Lon Jr), but Universal's remake has stayed faithful to the first film and thankfully sidelined CGI in favour of some eye-popping transformation scenes by the great Rick Baker, FX artist on An American Werewolf in London among many other fright favourites. Of course, much CGI comes into play in the climax as the wolfman cuts loose on the streets of Victorian London, a la Jack the Ripper - whose nemesis DI Abberline (Hugo Weaving) is also the cop on the trail of the beast here. But the regulation dose of digital trickery detracts little from the portentous Gothic atmosphere of the piece, and Sir Anthony Hopkins lends his usual actorly gravitas to the tale as the father of the wolf man, played with brooding solemnity by Benicio del Toro. After the success of its Mummy franchise, Universal has been looking to update more of the horrors from its back catalogue, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon has also been much-touted for the remake treatment, along with a new version of Frankenstein. But fans of classic horror will at least have The Wolfman for now, and they can take heart in the fact that despite all the delays and changes of personnel behind the scenes during a troubled production, this latest Universal horror offering is a vast improvement on Van Helsing! For those interested in reading more about the original Lon Chaney film that inspired it, the Hemlock Shop has copies of the fascinating autobiography of Curt Siodmak, creator of The Wolf Man and the screenwriter who penned its famous verse: 'Even a man who is pure in heart/And says his prayers by night/May become a wolf/When the wolfbane blooms/And the moon is full and bright..'         

REMEMBER: The House That Hammer Built #24 is now available - Special FINAL Collectors Edition.. Buy your copy TODAY from the Hemlock Shop!

And while you're about it, check out acclaimed fantasy journalist M J Simpson's new monthly Blog on all things film horror, mystery and macabre-related. This month's Blog asks 'Where have all the fanzines gone?' but Mike will be turning his keyboard over to the service of Hemlock every four weeks, to offer up a unique take on happenings in the world of horror fandom. Click the 'Blog' link on any Hemlock page..
 

NEW OUT NOW from Hemlock Books..
HITCHCOCK'S BLONDE!
..SPECIAL ONLINE OFFER PRICE: £15.25 (plus p&p)

The second title on the Hemlock Books imprint is now on sale.
       Hitchcock's Blonde is a study of the obsessive relationship between 'Hitch' and actress Grace Kelly by John Hamilton, author of the highly-acclaimed Beasts in the Cellar: The Exploitation Career of Tony Tenser. Together, Kelly and Hitch made three celebrated movies, and Grace Kelly's influence on Alfred Hitchcock was as profound as it was disturbing. His obsession with the actress shaped not only his films but his relationships with the opposite sex for the rest of his life. For the first time in print, their work together is examined in detail, their relationship with each other is explored in depth, and Hitchcock's darkest fantasies are revealed.
       Hitchcock's Blonde lifts the lid on the classic films that Kelly made with Hitch - as well as those he embarked upon in a vain attempt to lure her back to the screen after her marriage to Prince Rainier and retirement from acting in 1956: Vertigo and Marnie. Illustrated with rare stills throughout, it is a book that sheds new light on one of the golden age of Hollywood's most successful and intriguing partnerships.


..Also available from Hemlock Books: Mind Warp!

MIND WARP! The Fantastic True Story of Roger Corman's New World Pictures is the first fully-illustrated history of the seminal exploitation studio that was founded by legendary producer-director Roger Corman in 1969. Here for the first time is the full (and often hilarious) story behind the making of such low-budget schlock classics as Humanoids from the Deep, Piranha, Rabid, Battle Beyond the Stars, Galaxy of Terror, Death Race 2000, Android, Eat My Dust, Rock 'n' Roll High School, Starcrash and dozens more..

      Whether it was allocating a few thousand dollars to the production of drive-in staples like The Student Nurses or The Velvet Vampire, buying the US distribution rights to foreign masterpieces like Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers or Werner Hertzog's Fitzcarraldo, or simply mentoring the careers of ingenue directors like James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante and Ron Howard, Roger Corman - through New World Pictures - changed the face of American cinema in the last quarter of the twentieth century.  Corman was the single most influential producer-director of his generation, and his legacy is a back-catalogue filled with some of the most famous exploitation films of their day. And they're all here - examined and analysed in astute and uproarious detail by former UCLA graduate and one-time contributor to Filmfax, Fangoria and SFX, Christopher Koetting.

      Fully illustrated with rare stills throughout, MIND WARP! is 280 pages of fun-packed, fast and furious low-budget action with the one true maverick of the American screen. This definitive biography of Roger Corman's New World - the self-styled 'best of the cheap acts' - is also available to customers of Hemlock Books at the special online offer price of £15.25 - that's 15% OFF the recommended retail (£17.95). Order your copy NOW in the Hemlock Books section of the Hemlock Shop! Or buy it from Foyles, The Cinema Store or Amazon.

      Exclusive to Hemlock Books: a limited number of copies signed by the author for only £17.95 ea..

     

      Following early in 2010 will be The Hammer Vampire, a real labour of love for Little Shoppe of Horrors staff writer Bruce Hallenbeck and the most in-depth study published to date on the influence of Hammer's Gothic horrors on the portrayal of the vampire in horror cinema..

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