Jimmy Sangster
Down Place will forever be associated with the company that turned a quiet English countryside mansion into a film making powerhouse, responsible for countless stomach churning, skin crawling, jump out of your seat horror greats. Hammer re-christened Down Place as Bray Studios. The community that developed amongst the crew was unique, facilitated by the fact that at its height a film was completed every six weeks. Watch as many of the most prominent members of the crew recall their time at Bray in this remarkable five part series.
Mark Gatiss examines the history of the horror film, from classic Hollywood monsters to Hammer's glory days and beyond.
Explore the most legendary horror studio of all time with this fascinating, frightening journey hosted by terror titans Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. England's most successful independent film company, the "fear factory" of Hammer Studios, has a history filled with feuds, censorship battles and streaks of luck both good and bad. Now the legacy of horror returns, featuring interviews with such Hammer legends as Raquel Welch, Veronica Carlson, Caroline Munro, Ingrid Pitt, Jimmy Sangster, Hazel Court, Martine Beswicke, Freddie Francis, Val Guest and Ray Harryhausen. Plus you'll be treated to behind-the-scenes home movies and nonstop shock scenes from over 40 classic films, including Horror of Dracula, Curse of Frankenstein, The Devil Rides Out, Curse of the Werewolf and many more! It's the definitive study of one of the greatest names in horror!
A retrospective of the films of Britain's Hammer Studios, renowned for making stylish horror films in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Included are clips from Hammer productions and interviews with actors, actresses, directors and producers who worked on these films.
Mr. T's first starring made-for-TV movie role has him playing a tough and scowling, but softhearted, nightclub bouncer who finds himself involved with a bunch of kids after being conned into taking over a youth center.
After the death of her rich father, Amy Manning lives happily with her stepmother. But recently she's been seeing a man in black following her, waiting for her in her car, wanting to kill her. The police can't help her. But who is this man in black? Is it the young man she's started dating? Or the psychologist her mother told her to visit? Or is she really insane...?
Computer genius and chess champion Ted Danson is lured into service by secret agent Eleanor Parker and becomes a reluctant hero thanks to a number of exploits with villainous Christopher Lee and his army of lethal blue-eyed blonde women.
A songwriter buys a detective agency as a tax shelter, but stumbles into a real case when a dead body turns up in the suite he and his new bride are staying in.
Mick Jade, a former tennis bum-turned-Las Vegas song-and-dance man, doubles as a private eye with two female dancers, Ebony and Ivory. The trio go undercover to protect a lady scientist from international hit-men as she heads for Washington D.C.
A couple attempts to unravel a sinister plot within the English countryside estate of a dying man who has gathered an eclectic and notable group of house guests.
Dack Rambo and Elyssa Davalos star as sweethearts Andy Stuart and Jessica Gordon. The course of true love is messed up when Satan claims Jessica as his own personal property. Desperately, Andy turns to a pair of priests, Fathers Kemschler and Wheatley, for spiritual guidance, not to mention a bit of brute force in purging poor Jessica of her demons.
A sculptor hires young college girls to take care of his elderly mother and his supposedly insane sister, both of whom live in the old family mansion with him.
It took Peggy Heller a long time to recover from the trauma of a brutal physical assault, suffered in her youth. When she married Robert, he provided her with the love and reassurance she craved for and the two settled down in a pretty house in the grounds of the public school where Robert was a master. But the headmaster of the school is not what he seems and Penny is convinced he means to harm her - is her fear a figment of her tortured imagination or are there forces at work that intend to manipulate her anxieties with fatal consequences?
In 1830, the Karnstein heirs use the blood of an innocent to bring forth the evil that is the beautiful Mircalla - or as she was in 1710, Carmilla. The nearby Finishing School offers rich pickings not only in in the blood of nubile young ladies but also with the headmaster who is desperate to become Mircalla's disciple, and the equally besotted and even more foolish author Richard Lestrange.
On her way home from a stay at a mental institution after a traumatic rape, a woman realizes that someone is deliberately trying to drive her insane.
A demented widow lures unsuspecting children into her mansion in a bizarre "Hansel and Gretel" twist.
Victor Frankenstein, descendant of the infamous scientist, Baron Von Frankenstein, follows in his experimental footsteps. Initially his success involves the resuscitation of a tortoise and progressing onto more ambitious projects, including creating his own monster. The gothic genre is re-worked to create a drama of black humour and farce.
An innocent project transforms into a perilous nightmare when researcher Susan Roberts arrives in France in search of information on a deceased composer. She contacts his widow whose mental deterioration, precipitated by the death of her husband, manifests itself in psychotic dementia. The young woman's arrival triggers an obsessive desire to marry her crippled son to Susan, ensuring by this union that the genius of the father will be passed on to future generations.
A former British Secret Service agent is persuaded to negotiate a spy exchange with Russia, only to find himself drawn into political intrigues.
Spy Killer stars Robert Horton as a secret agent turned private eye. Framed for murder, Horton is released, but only after promising that he'll track down a book containing a list of government agents who are operating covertly in Red China. The reluctant spy discovers that he can't completely trust anyone in this endeavor--not even his former chief
Mrs Taggart always celebrates her anniversary with her grown sons. It’s a tradition practised since the death of her husband and she is determined for it to continue. None of her three sons have dared to cross their ruthless domineering mother but this anniversary they intend to try. With cruel and brutal twists, the family get-together becomes a social nightmare beyond endurance.
British agent Bulldog Drummond is assigned to stop a master criminal who uses beautiful women to do his killings.
Whilst vacationing in the Carpathian Mountain, two couples stumble across the remains of Count Dracula's castle. The Count's trusted servant kills one of the men, suspending the body over the Count's ashes so that the blood drips from the corpse and saturates the blackened remains. The ritual is completed, the Count revived and his attentions focus on the dead man's wife who is to become his partner; devoted to an existence of depravity and evil.
Nanny, a London family's live-in maid, brings morbid 10-year-old Joey back from the psychiatric ward he's been in for two years, since the death of his younger sister. Joey refuses to eat any food Nanny's prepared or take a bath with her in the room. He also demands to sleep in a room with a lock. Joey's parents -- workaholic Bill and neurotic Virgie -- are sure Joey is disturbed, but he may have good reason to be terrified of Nanny.
A pirate ship, fighting in 1588 on the side of the Spanish Armada, suffers damage and must put into a village on the British coast for repairs. The village is small and isolated and the Spanish convince the villagers that the English fleet has been defeated and that they, the Spanish, are now their masters. This results in the villagers' sullen cooperation, but rumors and unrest begin to spread and soon the Spanish pirates find themselves facing a revolt.
A businessman organises a caper to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
A man released from prison falls in love with the blind wife of a cellmate, whom he promised, when inside, to visit. He poses as the real husband, planning to kill him, but finds the wife is not so innocent as he thought.
Simon Ashby is a wealthy psychotic who is is coddled by his aunt in their palatial mansion outside of London. One day, Ashby's long lost brother mysteriously arrives at the house, but events prove that he is an impostor, sent by Keith Kossett, son of the attorney for the family estate, who has been dipping into the family trust fund.
A group of ruthless pirates attack a 17th Century Huguenot settlement on the Isle of Devon in search of treasure and will stop at nothing to obtain it.
This Western is set in the Mexican valley of Sonora not that far south of the state of Arizona. It's just after the American Civil War, and a former Confederate officer, Mike Summers (Don Taylor) has taken refuge in a small town in the valley. He has married and is hoping to live in peace the rest of his life. Instead, he and his wife and the rest of the town are suffering the depredations of a brutal gunman, Danny Pose (Alex Nicol), and his gang of outlaws. Summers holds off picking up a gun because of his personal vow of non-violence. But the situation deteriorates and a new ally comes into the picture, Steve Fallon (Richard Basehart), a wandering gunslinger who may not be able to handle the bad guys alone.
Years after fleeing his ancestral home with his mother, Jason returns home to claim his birthright, only to find his way blocked by his evil cousin Thomas. In order to reclaim his title, Jason must do battle with his cousin, who calls upon the members of the deadly Hellfire Club to stop him.
In 1910, Hong Kong, under the rule of the British Empire, is a prosperous and bustling city, but, hidden in the shadows of its many narrow streets, the hideous members of the Red Dragon gang, a branch of the evil Chinese secret society of the Tongs, lurk and murder those who oppose to their tyranny, which thrives on vice, crime and the fear of the weakest.
A wheelchair-bound young girl returns to her father's estate after ten years, and although she's told he's away, she keeps seeing his dead body on the estate.
A young teacher on her way to a position in Transylvania helps a young man escape the shackles his mother has put on him. In so doing she innocently unleashes the horrors of the undead once again on the populace, including those at her school for ladies. Luckily for some, Dr. Van Helsing is already on his way.
A police inspector (Donald Sinden) tracks down Russian anarchist Peter the Painter (Peter Wyngarde) and his gang in circa-1911 London.
A serial killer is murdering women in the Whitechapel district of London. An American policeman is brought in to help Scotland Yard solve the case.
Dr. Bonner plans to live forever through periodic gland transplants from younger, healthier human victims. Bonner looks about 40; he's really 104 years old. But people are starting to get suspicious, and he may not make 200.
One by one the archaeologists who discover the 4,000-year-old tomb of Princess Ananka are brutally murdered. Kharis, high priest in Egypt 40 centuries ago, has been brought to life by the power of the ancient gods and his sole purpose is to destroy those responsible for the desecration of the sacred tomb. But Isobel, wife of one of the explorers, resembles the beautiful princess, forcing the speechless and tormented monster to defy commands and abduct Isobel to an unknown fate.
An American investigator for the U.N., a German scientist and a British reporter join forces to investigate a series of disappearances and mutilation-deaths confined to a Swiss Alp and involving a thick, mobile cloud, a telepathic girl, an animate dead man, and tentacled, cyclopean beings from another planet.
A man and wife are terrorized by Mad Scientist Dr. Callistratus who was executed but has returned to life with a heart transplant. Along with his crippled assistant Carl, the 'anemic' Mad Scientist, believed to be a vampire, conducts blood deficiency research on the inmates of a prison hospital for the criminally insane to sustain his return to life.
After Jonathan Harker attacks Dracula at his castle (apparently somewhere in Germany), the vampire travels to a nearby city, where he preys on the family of Harker's fiancée. The only one who may be able to protect them is Dr. van Helsing, Harker's friend and fellow-student of vampires, who is determined to destroy Dracula, whatever the cost.
While resisting pressure from his upper-class wife to take a higher-paying job in London, a Montreal physician prepares to carry out brain surgery on a Latin American president. They don't suspect that a trio of assassins is also waiting, for their chance to carry out a political assassination on the operating table.
Jacques Duval devises a fiendishly clever method of murdering his wife. Doping her up with sleeping tablets, Duval places his wife in a sealed room, then opens all the gas jets. While the police identify the body, Duval remains hidden in the room, breathing through a snorkel, then makes his escape when the authorities leave. Only one flaw in this perfect crime: Duval's stepdaughter (Mandy Miller) is the suspicious type.
Baron Frankenstein, working under the protective pseudonym Dr. Victor Stein, together with his assistant Dr. Kleve, transplants a dwarf's brain into another body and unleashes a deranged being.
Baron Victor Frankenstein has discovered life's secret and unleashed a blood-curdling chain of events resulting from his creation: a cursed creature with a horrid face — and a tendency to kill.
When a fissure explosively opens in an English mud flat during a military exercise there, injuring one soldier and killing another, an American research scientist at a nearby nuclear plant joins with a British investigator to discover why the victims were radioactively burned and why, shortly thereafter, a series of radiation-related incidents are occurring in an ever-growing straight line away from the fissure.
In love with a man who wants to marry her after he returns from a trip to sea, chorus girl Angela Booth tries to quit her seamy job and become a model citizen. When her employer refuses to dissolve her contract, though, they quarrel and she accidentally hits him. He presses charges, claiming she hit him deliberately, and she is convicted and sent to prison. As her fiance is at sea and out of contact, she is terrified he will think she has jilted him when she does not keep a New Year's date. A kindly old convict, Gran', notorious as a prison-breaker, agrees to engineer an escape for Angela...
The test launch for the first inter-planetary research station goes wrong when the satellite station is inadvertently set up instead of returning to earth. Two people attached to the secret project are missing, presumed murdered, and all suspicions fall on the cuckold husband, the scientist responsible for the lack of fuel aboard the rocket. The theory is he murdered his wife and her lover, depositing the bodies on the errant rocket. Desperate to prove his innocence he volunteers for the next mission to link up with the satellite and clear his name.
In 1904 London, neighbors begin to suspect that a very strange man calling himself Dr. Fell may indeed be the famous Jack the Ripper.
