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Eight Freshly Restored Hammer Horror Titles Coming to Blu-ray Beginning in October

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In 1957, Hammer’s first ever horror film in color was released: The Curse of Frankenstein. Its huge success spawned many more Hammer Horror films and the studio’s domination of the horror genre, which was to last for a decade and a half.

Celebrating 60 years of Hammer, Studiocanal is set to unleash two different waves of newly-restored classic Hammer titles in the UK, beginning October 30.

From the gothic horrors Scars of DraculaBlood From The Mummy’s TombDr Jekyll & Sister HydeHorror Of Frankenstein and psychological chillers Fear In The NightStraight On Till Morning and Demons Of The Mind to Hammer’s last horror film of the 20th century, To The Devil A Daughter, the eight films are selected from the glory years of the iconic house of horror.

Studiocanal will release the newly restored films as Doubleplay editions on October 30, 2017 [Blood From The Mommy’s Tomb, Demons Of The Mind, Fear In The Night, Scars of Dracula] and on January 29, 2018 [Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Straight On ‘Til Morning, To The Devil A Daughter, The Horror Of Frankenstein].

  • BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB 

Directed by Seth Holt | Starring Andrew Keir, Valerie Leon | UK | 1971 | 89 mins
Adapted from Bram Stoker’s mystical thriller The Jewel of the Seven Stars, this supernatural shocker is one of Hammer’s most enduring classics. A British expedition team in Egypt discovers the ancient sealed tomb of the evil Queen Tera but when one of the archaeologists steals a mysterious ring from the corpse’s severed hand, he unleashes a relentless curse upon his beautiful daughter. Is the voluptuous young woman now a reincarnation of the diabolical sorceress or has the curse of the mummy returned to reveal its horrific revenge? Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb was plagued by the sudden deaths of director Seth Holt and the wife of original star Peter Cushing, leading to rumours of a real-life curse. Michael Carreras completed the movie that made a Scream Queen of Valerie Leon as the Mummy who, in a titillating twist, forgoes the usual rotting-bandages and is instead resurrected sporting a negligée.

Extras: New featurette – The Pharaoh’s Curse: Inside Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb plus more tbc

  • DEMONS OF THE MIND 

Directed by Peter Sykes | Starring Robert Hardy, Shane Briant, Patrick Magee | UK | 1972 | 89 mins
In 19th century Bavaria, deranged Baron Zorn (Hardy) keeps his children Emil (Briant) and Elizabeth locked up because he thinks they are possessed by tainted hereditary madness. It’s up to discredited psychiatrist Professor Falkenberg (Magee) to unravel the dark family secrets involving incest, traumatic suicide and proxy fantasies in this satisfying and unusual late-period masterpiece.

Extras: New featurette – Blood Will Have Blood: Inside Demons of the Mind plus more tbc

  • FEAR IN THE NIGHT

Directed by Jimmy Sangster | Starring Judy Geeson, Joan Collins, Ralph Bates, Peter Cushing | UK | 1976 | 94 mins
A damaged young girl (Geeson), recovering from a recent nervous breakdown, is about to move with her new husband (Briant) to a secluded boarding school in the country but, the night before they are due to leave, she is attacked by a one-armed man with a prosthetic hand. With no evidence remaining, her kindly old neighbour and the local doctor conclude that she may have imagined the attack and the intruder altogether. The terror follows her and at the school she is attacked again but again her story is met by doubt, this time from her kind and loving new husband. She continues to be terrorised by the mysterious one-armed man, but nobody believes her.

Extras: New featurette – End of Term: Inside Fear in the Night plus more tbc

  • SCARS OF DRACULA

Directed by Roy Ward Baker | Starring Christopher Lee, Dennis Waterman, Jenny Hanley, Patrick Troughton | UK | 1970 | 96 mins)
Count Dracula (Lee) is brought back from the dead when blood from a bat falls on his mouldering ashes and once again spreads his evil from his mountaintop castle. When a young man, Paul, disappears one night, his brother Simon (Waterman) and his girlfriend (Hanley) trace him to the area, discovering a terrified populace. Thrown out of the local inn, they make their way, like Paul before them, towards the sinister castle and its undead host.

Extras: New featurette – Blood Rites: Inside Scars of Draculaplus more tbc

  • DR JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE 

Directed by Roy Ward Baker | Starring Ralph Bates, Martine Beswick | UK | 1971 | 97 mins
In Victorian London, Professor Jekyll (Bates), an earnest scientist, obsessively works day and night haunted by the fear that one lifetime will not be enough to complete his research. Side-tracked from his objective he becomes consumed with developing an immortality serum. Once convinced his findings are complete, he consumes the potion only to discover that he is to become two as he turns into half Jekyll and half Hyde. Desperate to cover up his newfound identity he calls her his sister, but things take a turn for the worse when he realises that he needs female hormones if he is to maintain his existence. Before long he is battling with his alter ego Mrs Hyde (Beswick), as a number of young girls begin to go missing in the streets of London…

Extras: New featurette – Ladykiller: Inside Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde plus more tbc

  • TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER 

Directed by Peter Sykes | Starring Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, Denholm Elliott, Nastassja Kinski | UK | 1976 | 95 mins
In 1970s London John Verney (Widmark), a renowned occult writer, is approached by Henry Beddows (Elliot) to help rescue his daughter Catherine (Kinski) from a Satanic cult. Catherine is a nun with the Children of the Lord, a mysterious heretical order based in Bavaria and founded by the excommunicated Roman Catholic priest (Lee). When Catherine arrives from Germany, Verney sneaks her away from her bodyguard and takes her to his apartment. The order, however, are determined to get Catherine back and use all the powers of black magic at their disposal in the ensuing battle between the forces of light and darkness

Extras: New featurette – Dark Arts: Inside To the Devil a Daughter plus more tbc

  • STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING 

Directed by Peter Collinson | Starring Rita Tushingham, Shane Briant, James Bolam | UK | 1972 | 96 mins)
Brenda (Tushingham), an innocent young girl, leaves her hometown of Liverpool for London in search of love. By chance she meets Clive (Briant). Attractive, debonair and rich he seems to be the handsome Prince Charming she’s been looking for, but Clive is actually a deeply disturbed young man and his psychotic tendencies soon manifest themselves and destroy Brenda’s dreams of a fairy-tale life.

Extras: New featurette – title TBC plus more tbc

  • THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN 

Directed by Jimmy Sangster | Starring Ralph Bates, Kate O’Mara | UK | 1970 | 95 mins)
Young Victor Frankenstein (Bates) returns from medical school with a depraved taste for beautiful women and fiendish experiments. But when the doctor runs out of fresh body parts for his ‘research’ he turns to murder to complete his gruesome new creation. Now his monster has unleashed its own ghastly killing spree and the true horror of Frankenstein has only just begun…

Extras: New featurette – Gallows Humour: Inside Horror of Frankenstein plus more

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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Gateway Horror Classic ‘The Gate’ Returns to Life With Blu-ray SteelBook in May

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One of my personal favorite horror movies of all time, 1987’s gateway horror classic The Gate is opening back up on May 14 with a brand new Blu-ray SteelBook release from Lionsgate!

The new release will feature fresh SteelBook artwork from Vance Kelly, seen below.

Special Features, all of which were previously released, include…

  • Audio Commentaries
    • Director Tibor Takacs, Writer Michael Nankin, and Special Effects Designer & Supervisor Randall William Cook
    • Special Effects Designer & Supervisor Randall William Cook, Special Make-Up Effects Artist Craig Reardon, Special Effects Artist Frank Carere, and Matte Photographer Bill Taylor
  • Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview
  • Featurettes:
    • The Gate: Unlocked
    • Minion Maker
    • From Hell It Came
    • The Workman Speaks!
    • Made in Canada
    • From Hell: The Creatures & Demons of The Gate
    • The Gatekeepers
    • Vintage Featurette: Making of The Gate
  • Teaser Trailer
  • Theatrical Trailer
  • TV Spot
  • Storyboard Gallery
  • Behind-the-Scenes Still Gallery

When best friends Glen (Stephen Dorff) and Terry (Louis Tripp) stumble across a mysterious crystalline rock in Glen’s backyard, they quickly dig up the newly sodden lawn searching for more precious stones. Instead, they unearth The Gate — an underground chamber of terrifying demonic evil. The teenagers soon understand what evil they’ve released as they are overcome with an assortment of horrific experiences. With fiendish followers invading suburbia, it’s now up to the kids to discover the secret that can lock The Gate forever . . . if it’s not too late.

If you’ve never seen The Gate, it’s now streaming on Prime Video and Tubi.

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