The HEMLOCK TOOLBAR is here!



Now you can keep instantly up-to-date with new arrivals in the Hemlock Shop! Just download and install the HEMLOCK TOOLBAR - it's FREE, safe and secure - and you'll be informed automatically by ticker-tape whenever new magazines or books arrive in stock and are available to purchase. But that's not all. The HEMLOCK TOOLBAR comes with its own Search engine powered by Google and activated directly from the TOOLBAR, a link to the Hemlock website (as well as links to the News, Blog and Shop pages by themselves) and entry to the Hemlock 'Lounge' - where you can make contact with other customers and/or direct questions to Hemlock Books, or ask for information on any aspect of Film Horror, Mystery and the Macabre. (Just type your comment or question into the panel at the bottom of the Lounge window and hit ENTER.)
      Why not try it and see!
      The TOOLBAR also gives you access to hundreds of Apps, so you can add, delete and customise its components to suit your own tastes and requirements. But most important of all - through its unique RSS news feed, you will be among the first to know when the latest issues of your favourite magazines hit the Hemlock stockroom. No more sending of email queries or continuously checking the website; Hemlock's newsfeed will let you know the moment that copies arrive - instantaneously on your desktop. Then just click on the link in the RSS, and you're taken straight to the item in store!
      How easy is that?


YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE TOOLBAR FROM THE LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HOME PAGE..

      The HEMLOCK TOOLBAR.. better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stake!
 

WANT TO SEE SOMETHING REALLY SCARY?

GHOST STORIES - the latest supernatural theatrical phenomenon to follow in the phantom footsteps of The Woman in Black - opens at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's St Martin's Lane in July, after a tremendous sell-out season at the Lyric, Hammersmith. More of an interactive event than a traditional stage show, GHOST STORIES - 'a live horror film,' as a member of its terrified audience has described it - is written by The League of Gentlemen's master of the macabre, Jeremy Dyson, and Andy Nyman, a self-confessed paranormal freak and co-creator and director of Derren Brown’s television and stage shows; Nyman was also the star of Dead Set and Severance. GHOST STORIES is a truly terrifying experience, unlike anything else in West End theatreland, but don't take our word for it - here's what the critics had to say: ‘I had to sleep with the lights on. A top night out’ - Metro; ‘Brilliantly Scary’ - Daily Express; ‘A pant-wetter of a night. It’s terrifying!’ - Daily Mail.

Want a taste of the terror in store? - Are you brave enough to watch..?


WARNING: Please be advised that Ghost Stories contains moments of extreme shock and tension. The show is unsuitable for anyone under the age of 16. We strongly advise those of a nervous disposition to think very seriously before attending.

..More LSoH Back Issue Reprints!

Issues #13, #14, #15 and #16 have now been added to the list of high quality digital reprints of previously out-of-print back issues of Dick Klemensen's Little Shoppe of Horrors. Unlike some of the earlier issues, which were produced originally using paste-up techniques and which suffer a slight loss of quality when reprinted as a result, these latest issues were all created from computer PDF files and so the quality of the new reprints exactly matches that of the original magazines - or even improves upon it! Issue #13 deals with Hammer's 'gothic trilogy', being Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Taste the Blood of Dracula and Scars of Dracula; 14 goes behind the scenes of The Brides of Dracula; 15 does the same for The Curse of the Werewolf; 16 features extensive coverage of Hammer's 'Karnstein trilogy' - The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil. The remaining out-of-print back issues will be republished digitally in July. LSoH Back Issue Reprints are ONLY available from Hemlock Books in the UK and retail from £7.95 to £10.95 each (plus p&P). Buy them in the Hemlock Shop under Little Shoppe of Horrors/Reprints..

From Beyond the Grave..


If you've given any thought to purchasing Peter Cushing's autobiography Past Forgetting (available in the Hemlock Shop for £15.95), why not listen to it instead in the velvet tones of the very man who wrote it! Cushing was Britain’s best-loved horror star, famous for his roles as Frankenstein, Van Helsing and Sherlock Holmes for Hammer Films, and in Past Forgetting: Memoirs of the Hammer Years, he vividly recalls those days, as well as many other highlights of a long career playing opposite theatrical greats such as Laurence Olivier and Morecambe and Wise!

      Originally issued in 1988, Peter Cushing’s own reading of Past Forgetting: Memoirs of the Hammer Years has long been out of circulation. Now for the first time on a double-audio CD comes the definitive collector's edition of this personal memento of the 'Golden Age' of British horror. The CD also includes a bonus documentary featuring the reminiscences of some of those who had the pleasure of working with Cushing, plus sleeve-notes by Mark Gatiss.

      Play it on your laptop, in the car - or even on your stereo while reading another book! You'll find it in the Collectibles section of the Hemlock Shop at the Special Offer price of £12.75 (plus p&p).


NEW OUT THIS MONTH..

New out for June are the first of the high-quality digital reprints of previously out-of-print back issues of Little Shoppe of Horrors. Issues 1 through 12 are available now and will be listed in the Hemlock Shop this week; the other issues will be following shortly. These restored digital reprints are 10"x8" in size (slightly smaller than the magazines themselves) and perfect-bound, which means that they have  a 'spine' like a book instead of being saddle-stitched (stapled) as per the originals*. A high-gloss laminated cover adds to their collectibility!
      LSoH digital reprints are available exclusively through Hemlock Books in the UK, and prices range from only £7.95 for issues #1 to #9 (excluding #4) and £10.95 for all others issues (including #4).
      Also new out this month is the second of Cinema Retro's 'Movie Classic' special editions, which is a full-colour, 80-page Tribute to Sergio Leone's three iconic 'Dollar' westerns of the 1960s: A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Yes, the Man with No Name is back, in an exciting issue filled with exhaustive detail on the making of the trilogy and cram-packed with previously unseen photos.. Order your copy now while stocks last!
      Rue Morgue #101 is already out, but coming later in the month will be the 'crossover' issue #250 of the relaunched Famous Monsters of Filmland, as well as the long-awaited issue #27 of Monsters from the Vault. And while you're about it, why not sample Dennis Druktennis's Scary Monsters - a retro fanzine in the style of the old Horror Monsters from the 1960s. All of the above can be found in the Little Shoppe of Horrors and New Fanzines sections of the Hemlock Shop.

*Due to the nature of the digital printing technology used in the creation of these reprints, photographic reproduction in some of the early issues is not on a par with that in the original magazines. Later issues (from 13 on) have been produced from PDF files, which give a greater fidelity to the original. Anyone to whom the picture quality is of paramount importance should purchase a CD-PDF of the issue concerned, rather than the digital reprint. (CD-PDFs of all issues are still available to order.)


Changes to the Hemlock Shop

Regular visitors to the site will notice that the links on the main Shop page have now been re-ordered to incorporate some changes. The Fanzines page has been split in two: 'New Out Now' and 'Back Issues'. This is to accommodate the increase in the number of titles that Hemlock is carrying and to make items easier to access. When everything is sorted, the 'New Out Now' page will contain only the current issue of each magazine plus the issue immediately preceding it - two in all; the 'Back Issues' page will contain all other issues of each title that Hemlock holds in stock. Anyone wishing to purchase an issue of a magazine older than the two most recent should use the 'Back Issues' link to check if that particular issue is still in stock. If not, it can still be requested as a special order via the 'Contact' link. This change does not apply to fanzines (like Little Shoppe of Horrors) that have their own dedicated page.
      The other change is the addition of a new category:
     Famous Monsters of Filmland!
      ..Yes - the legend is back!
     From June, Hemlock Books will be carrying the new, revamped, full-colour FM - starting with retro issue #250, and following with the brand new, bigger and completely reborn FM #251 in July..
     Keep checking in for further details...    

Everything you always wanted to know about the vampires of Hammer Films..
(But were afraid you'd never read!)

Bruce Hallenbeck's The Hammer Vampire, the latest title from Hemlock Books, is NOW IN STOCK.
      Profusely illustrated with more than 200 rare photographs (8 pages of which are in full colour), The Hammer Vampire goes behind the scenes of sixteen of Hammer's classic Gothic horrors to delve deeply into the birth and evolution of the modern vampire film..
     
In its small studio complex at Bray, near Windsor in Buckinghamshire, Hammer single-handedly reinvented the vampire film in 1958. To most moviegoers, Count Dracula was still represented on screen in the quaint pre-war form of one-time Hungarian matinee idol Bela Lugosi, but Hammer not only reconfigured him in the more youthful patrician guise of Britain's own Christopher Lee, but endowed him with fangs, sex-appeal and a ferocious blood-lust! Technicolor gore was added to the mix, along with a more blatant treatment of the sexual element in the original Bram Stoker story, and the vampire was suddenly reborn as a female fantasy-figure - a dream of rape - a 'demon lover'..
     
      Over the next decade, variations on the theme produced a blonde, handsome Baron Meinster (David Peel in The Brides of Dracula), a saturnine Doctor Ravna (Noel Willman in The Kiss of the Vampire) and, later, the Sapphic seductiveness of J Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla' and her entourage (Ingrid Pitt and others in The Vampire Lovers and its sequels) - the female of the species ultimately proving that they were far more deadly than the male.
     
      In chapters such as 'The Vampire as Antichrist' and 'Sin, Sex and Sadism', Hallenbeck - a long-time contributor to Dick Klemensen's Hammer fanzine Little Shoppe of Horrors and author of the recent Comedy Horror Films from McFarland - explores the phenomenon in minute detail, taking the reader on a nostalgic tour of Bray during the making of some of Hammer's most iconic films while at the same time examining the history and meaning behind them. Whether dealing with the production problems at the time or issues of censorship after the fact, The Hammer Vampire will make fascinating reading for all fans of the greatest horror film studio in the history of British cinema.
     
      The Hammer Vampire is the first in Hemlock's new 'British Cult Cinema' series, and Bruce is already hard at work on a follow-up dealing with Hammer's science fiction films, from Spaceways and Quatermass to its seven 'Frankensteins' and Moon Zero Two. More titles are in the planning, including one on British horror films from studios other than those of Hammer, Tigon or Amicus!
(Scars of Dracula, 1970)

      The Hammer Vampire is now on sale in the Hemlock Shop at the Special Offer price of £15.25. Don't delay - demand is expected to be strong!

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..


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..   

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..'         



Also available from Hemlock Books..
HITCHCOCK'S BLONDE!
     
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.
      Buy it in the Hemlock Shop or from Foyles, BFI Bookstore, The Cinema Store or Amazon.
..SPECIAL ONLINE OFFER PRICE: £15.25 (plus p&p)


..and 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, BFI Bookstore, The Cinema Store or Amazon.


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

     

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