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British Cult Cinema:
THE HAMMER THRILLER

By Bruce G Hallenbeck
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British Cult Cinema: <br/>THE HAMMER THRILLER

 

Thriller films have been popular since the invention of the medium. Hammer Film Productions, originally formed in 1934, are known for their series of Gothic horror films such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958) and many others, but they also produced an equal number - if not more - of psychological thrillers, ‘women in peril’ movies and film noir. Even during their Gothic period, Hammer produced its share of so-called ‘mini-Hitchcocks,’ inspired by the success of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Their mystery and macabre suspense films continued well into the 1970s.

In The Hammer Thriller, author Bruce G Hallenbeck explores Hammer’s non-Gothic thrillers in depth, from their earliest attempts at the genre such as Death in High Heels (1947) to their more recent suspense films such as The Resident (2011) and The Lodge (2019). Included are details about the making of the films, the personalities behind them and their impact on the culture. Although Hammer’s Gothic horror films have been covered - dare we say it? - to death, far less has been written about their thrillers, and Hallenbeck, who has researched these films at great length, attempts to correct that oversight with this book.

214 pages, 8pp in colour!


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Hammer Films: The Whole Story
(Hardback)

Hammer Films: The Whole Story

 

From the Blue Halls of the silent screen to the more famous Bray Studios, the history of Hammer was as rich and varied as that of the post-1957 period for which it is best known. Here, for the first time, is the whole story of the company - from its origins in the vision and twenty-year distribution experience of Spanish émigré and exhibitor Enrique Carreras, the compact between he and theatre impresario William Hinds to form Exclusive Films, the return to active production under the banner of Hammer after the war - abandoned in the downturn of the 1930s - and early attempts to break into the lucrative American market, to the informal tie-in with the British Broadcasting Corporation which eventually brought about the science fiction sensation of The Quatermass Xperiment and gave ‘X’-certificate audiences their first taste of ‘Hammer Horror’. HAMMER FILMS: The Whole Story is the complete 115-year history of  Hammer to date - the most thorough and comprehensive biography of the most colourful company in the annals of British film. This is Hammer in the round - not simply the ‘horrors’ but the entirety of the Hammer story.

HAMMER FILMS: THE WHOLE STORY IS A NEWLY ENLARGED AND EXTENSIVELY UPDATED REVISION OF A HISTORY OF HORRORS.

Bumper 440 pages, fully illustrated, 8 pages in colour.


Hemlock Price: £32.95
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MR MURDER: (Paperback)
The Life and Times of Tod Slaughter

MR MURDER: (Paperback)

 

TOD SLAUGHTER is the ‘missing link’ between the villains of melodrama of the Victorian popular theatre and the Gothic guignol of Hammer Horror. Slaughter’s Squire Corder, Sweeney Todd, Sir Percival Glyde and more were the gloating, grotesque forerunners of aristocratic Hammer villains such as Baron Frankenstein or Sir Hugo Baskerville. Now the full-length, definitive biography of Britain’s FIRST horror star is available in paperback exclusively at Hemlock Books.

Paperback, 280 pages, 8pp in colour, fully illustrated.


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DRACULA AD 1931:
Bela, Browning and the Birth of the American Horror Film

DRACULA AD 1931:

 

Author Matthew Coniam takes a fresh look at this most familiar of horror films with the aim of bringing it back to Undead life and to counter the accusations of staginess and anti-climax that have dogged it for 90 years. Through a detailed study of the film that makes much use of original research, he offers a new way of seeing Dracula that restores the urgency and excitement with which it was embraced by its original audiences.

182 pages, fully illustrated, 8 pages in colour.


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ROCK 'N' ROLL MONSTERS:
The American International Story

ROCK

 

In the early 1950s, the traditional American film industry was facing a crisis due to one thing: television. Two men from totally different backgrounds pooled their talents and tapped into the burgeoning ‘teenage’ market, and American International Pictures was born. Over the next 25 years, ‘AIP’ would turn out genre films of every kind, from sci-fi and horror to ‘beach party’ and Blaxploitation. Some of its titles have since become legendary - I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Horrors of the Black Museum, The Wild Angels - but the company also produced prestige pictures like Wuthering Heights and box-office bonanzas such as Love at First Bite and The Amityville Horror.
    Rock ‘n’ Roll Monsters is the story of how AIP went from a cornball purveyor of drive-in double-features filled with monsters and mayhem to a major force in films whose ‘fast and furious’ business model was copied and eventually adopted by the Hollywood mainstream...

Paperback, 298pp, fully illustrated throughout, 8 pages in colour!

 


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British Cult Cinema:<br/>THE HAMMER VAMPIRE

British Cult Cinema:
THE HAMMER VAMPIRE

Bruce G Hallenbeck

 

THE HAMMER VAMPIRE is an in-depth examination of how a tiny film studio on the banks of the Thames changed a genre forever. Hammer may not have invented the vampire film, but its technicians and actors certainly perfected it. The screen vampire as we know and love it today, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Twilight and True Blood, would not have existed in its present form but for a series of sixteen Gothic horror films produced by Hammer between 1958 and 1974. Hammer's greatest contribution to the vampire film may have been in its evolution of the female of the species the seductive vampire woman, who ultimately proved to be far more deadly than the male...

Foreword by Jimmy Sangster. 248pp plus 8pp in colour. Fully illustrated throughout with rare stills.

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British Cult Cinema:<br/>THE HAMMER FRANKENSTEIN

British Cult Cinema:
THE HAMMER FRANKENSTEIN

Bruce G Hallenbeck

 

In 1957, Hammer released The Curse of Frankenstein and changed the face of horror cinema forever. Hammer Horror was born, and the film made international stars of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. In the years that followed, the company made six more Frankenstein films and a television pilot, all but two of them starring Cushing as the callous and amoral Baron Frankenstein–a very different character to that created by Mary Shelley in her 1818 novel. Author Bruce Hallenbeck explores in detail the many cinematic experiments of the baron who, along the way, made ‘Creatures’ of Lee, Don Megowan, Michael Gwynn, wrestler Kiwi Kingston, Susan Denberg, Freddie Jones and David Prowse in a series unique in the annals of British horror.  

    240pp plus 8pp in colour. Fully illustrated throughout.

 

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British Cult Cinema:<br/>HAMMER FANTASY & SCI-FI

British Cult Cinema:
HAMMER FANTASY & SCI-FI

 

The name of Hammer has long been synonymous with horror, but the legendary British film company was also responsible for some of the best fantasy and science fiction films made in the UK. From the terrors of The Quatermass Xperiment through the prehistoric menace of One Million Years BC to the prophetic satire of Moon Zero Two, Hammer put every bit as much style and creativity (and more money) into its fantasy features as it did into its Gothic horrors. In Hammer Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Bruce G Hallenbeck explores the history of Hammer s many ventures into science-fantasy, setting them in the context of the genre as a whole and providing the reader with a wealth of intriguing background detail, as well as dozens of rare photos from private collections.Foreword by Martine Beswick. Cover by Mark Maddox.

268pp plus 8pp in colour. Fully illustrated throughout.

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X-CERT

X-CERT

The British Independent Horror Film: 1951-1970

 

Forget Hammer. Forget Amicus or Tigon. The 1950s and ’60s were the era of the ‘X’-certificate, when the emergent British horror film was equally represented by the work of a number of independent producers who between them created some of the most memorable thrillers of the period. This was the time when madmen stalked the Circus of Horrors, Jack the Ripper rubbed shoulders with Peeping Tom, and cinemagoers were invited to walk the Corridors of Blood, enter the Theatre of Death and set foot on the Island of Terror... In X-CERT, the ‘Adults Only’ horror films that inspired the nightmares of a generation are examined in detail for the very first time through exclusive interviews, contemporary censorship reports and rare glimpses behind the scenes--complete with over 200 stills!

244pp plus 8pp in colour. Fully illustrated throughout.

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X-CERT2

X-CERT2

The British Independent Horror Film: 1971-1983

X-CERT2 is the sequel to X-CERT, which told the story of Britain’s independent horror film producers from 1951-1970.
     In X-CERT2, the low budget horrors of the period 1971-1983, when the age-limit for the X certificate was raised to 18, are examined in all their gruesome detail for the very first time through exclusive interviews, contemporary censorship reports and rare glimpses behind the scenes of some of British horror’s most infamous shockers. The definitive companion-piece to X-CERT—complete with more than 200 stills, 8 pages of them in colour!

296pp plus 8pp in colour.

Fully illustrated throughout.

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MERCHANT OF MENACE:

MERCHANT OF MENACE:

The Life & Films of Vincent Price

In 1953, Vincent Price adopted the mantle of the macabre which had been left vacant by Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff to play a deranged sculptor in House of Wax. As a result, he became the face of film fright for a generation of moviegoers. For more than twenty years afterwards, Price embodied the spirit of the Hollywood horror film in almost 60 features, from House on Haunted Hill and House of Usher in the 1950s to Witchfinder General and The Abominable Dr Phibes in the 1960s and ’70s.
      Merchant of Menace is a celebration of this legendary actor’s remarkable life and work; it covers the entirety of Vincent Price’s film career with a wealth of fascinating detail and explains why, to many fans of the genre during the 1960s, Vincent Leonard Price was the horror film.  

     This new Hemlock edition of Denis Meikle’s acclaimed biography of Vincent Price has been completely revised and expanded and now contains well over 300 illustrations!

    390pp, 8pp in colour, fully illustrated.

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British Cult Cinema:<br/>THE AMICUS ANTHOLOGY

British Cult Cinema:
THE AMICUS ANTHOLOGY

Bruce G Hallenbeck

In 1965, the newly-formed Amicus Productions of filmmaking duo Max J Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky burst onto the British fantasy scene with Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, an anthology film featuring five tales of suspense and the supernatural. The success of Dr Terror encouraged the partners to produce more of the same and in the years that followed, Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood, Tales From the Crypt and others forever associated the name of Amicus with the anthology horror film.

The Amicus Anthology is an in-depth look at a body of films which were unique in the annals of fantasy cinema and featured not only the talents of horror icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee but those of dozens of the most famous names on the British screen in the 1960s and ’70s.

240pp plus 8pp in colour.

Fully illustrated throughout.

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RETRO SCREAMS

RETRO SCREAMS

Terror in the New Millennium

 

In Retro Screams, Christopher Koetting casts his eye over the biggest horror remakes of the past decade, and the iconic films that inspired them. By comparing each of them in turn, he examines whether this fad for ‘re-imagining’ the screen’s greatest terror triumphs is a worthy sub-genre in its own right...or simply evidence of the modern horror film’s lack of imagination...

392pp plus 8pp in colour. Fully illustrated throughout.

 

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FRIGHT FILMS

FRIGHT FILMS

The World's Scariest Ever Movies
David Tappenden

 

80 Movies to Watch with Your Eyes Shut! From Psycho to Paranormal Activity and everything between they're all here: Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Jaws, Halloween, Alien, The Evil Dead, The Thing, Hellraiser, Scream, Ring, The Blair Witch Project, Wolf Creek, Saw, The Descent, Eden Lake and more plus some that you might not have heard of but which scared the pants off those who did encounter them! Do NOT read this book alone!!

Large format with over 300 rare stills. 260pp. Fully illustrated throughout.

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HITCHCOCK'S BLONDE

HITCHCOCK'S BLONDE

The REAL Story Behind a Macabre and Secret Obsession.. John Hamilton

 

He was the most celebrated director of his generation, but his murder mysteries and thrillers hid the secrets of his own sexual repression. She was the most beautiful female star of her day, known on-screen for her glacial aloofness and off-screen for her sexual appetites. Together, they made three celebrated movies and Grace Kelly’s influence on Alfred Hitchcock was as profound as it was disturbing.. 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..

250pp plus 8pp in colour. Fully illustrated throughout.

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Limited edition signed by the author: £19.95 Add to Basket
MIND WARP!

MIND WARP!

The Fantastic True Story of Roger Corman's New World Pictures Christopher T Koetting

 

The year is 1969. After making his hugely-successful series of Poe movies with Vincent Price, producer-director Roger Corman set up shop as New World Pictures. For the next thirteen years, Corman was the driving force behind some of the best-known fantasy and exploitation films of the 1970s and early '80s - while his company kicked off the careers of directors like James Cameron, Jonathan Demme and Ron Howard. Mind Warp chronicles the amazing history of Corman’s ‘New World’ – the films, the facts and the fantastic feats of budget ingenuity! The ultimate guide to drive-in thrills and chills at their best.

280pp plus 8pp in colour. Fully illustrated throughout.

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Limited edition signed by the author.. £19.95 Add to Basket
URBAN TERRORS

URBAN TERRORS

New British Horror Cinema
1997-2008

 

Urban Terrors is the first book to fully examine the British horror film revival, documenting and analysing the more than 100 movies that were commercially released between 1997 and 2008. It reveals how the changes in technology have enabled more people to make films, how changes in distribution - from VHS to DVD to VOD - are enabling more people to watch them, and how the mainstream media has failed to spot and comment upon this largely-undocumented phenomenon. And it examines how these new kinds of horror films have dealt with issues like disenfranchised youth, class division and social exclusion...

294pp plus 8pp in colour. Fully illustrated throughout.

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Indie Horrors

Indie Horrors

By Barry Atkinson

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Boris Karloff

Boris Karloff

(Midnight Marquee Actors Series)

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Bela Lugosi

Bela Lugosi

(Midnight Marquee Actors Series)

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