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Stars: Frankie Avalon, Richard O’Sullivan, George Sewell, Jill Haworth, Dennis Price, Mark Wynter, Gina Warwick, Carol Dilworth, Robin Stewart | Written by Michael Armstrong, Gerry Levey | Directed by Michael Armstrong

Tigon’s The Haunted House of Horror (aka Horror House) is a peculiar blend of 1960s camp, teenage angst, and Gothic horror that struggles to find its footing but still manages to intrigue. Directed by Michael Armstrong and starring Frankie Avalon, Richard O’Sullivan, and George Sewell, the film ambitiously sets out to combine youthful rebellion with the chills of a classic haunted house tale.

The story begins with a group of swinging London friends who, in search of thrills, decide to spend a night in an abandoned mansion rumoured to be haunted. What starts as playful banter quickly turns deadly when one of their number is brutally murdered. The group’s paranoia grows as they attempt to solve the mystery,...

Haven’t yet seen all the best old-school vintage naval combat epics? This color & ‘scope thriller has a terrific cast of Brit stars and up-n-comers, can boast excellent visuals and is historically accurate. Alec Guinness captains a ship during the Napoleonic Wars, and finds his duty complicated by a psychopathic top officer (Dirk Bogarde) who usurps authority and sees the crew as fresh meat for his sadistic ideas about discipline. All the tech and art credits are top-tier, plus we get nice supporting perfs from the likes of Anthony Quayle, Nigel Stock, Maurice Denham, Victor Maddern, Tom Bell, and Murray Melvin.

Damn the Defiant!

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 136

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date June 29, 2022 / H.M.S. Defiant / Available from Viavision / Australian 34.95 / and Amazon US / 34.95

Starring: Alec Guinness, Dirk Bogarde, Maurice Denham, Nigel Stock, Richard Carpenter, Peter Gill, David Robinson, Robin Stewart, Ray Brooks, Peter Greenspan, Anthony Quayle, Tom Bell,...

By the early 70s, England’s Hammer Film was going downhill with their horror film series which started back in 1958 with “Dracula” starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. On the other hand, Shaw Brothers Studio was riding high on their kung fu boom and for their last “Dracula” film series, Hammer decided to join forces with Shaw Brothers to film in Hong Kong and thereby introducing martial arts components into the horror genre.

on Amazon

Nonetheless, the story starts off in Transylvania in 1908 with a Chinese High Priest Kah (Chan Shen) who’s seeking the help of Count Dracula to regenerate his golden vampires back in China to their former glory. He arrives at Dracula’s castle, casually strolls into the crypt and kneels in front of a lone coffin marked with the letter “D”. Awaken from his slumber, the Prince of Darkness who somehow understands Mandarin,...

By the early ‘70s, Hammer films was wheezing and sputtering just to stay alive. Their attempts to stay current with the changing tides of horror were often misbegotten and misdirected (Dracula A.D. 1972, anyone?) as the plots continued to recycle shopworn ideas when audiences were ready for more modern concerns, such as hulking maniacs with chainsaws. In essence, time was passing Hammer by, and they were willing to try anything. Hence we arrive at The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974), a delightful elixir of Dracula and…Kung Fu. This was the last gasp for Hammer’s beloved franchise, and it’s a very worthy burial.

Aka 7 Brothers Versus Dracula, 7 Brothers and a Sister Meet Dracula, 7 Golden Vampires, and Enter The Dracula (no, but who screwed up that marketing?), Legend was a co-production between Hammer and Shaw Brothers, the immortal Chinese martial arts film studio that would crank out 10, sometimes 15 films a year of kinetic,...

By Tim Greaves

Between the early 1950s and mid 1980s the Children's Film Foundation was a non-profit making establishment behind dozens of films aimed at a young audience, most of them screening as programme constituents at Saturday morning 'Picture Shows'. I didn't catch many of these during my own childhood. But I do recall a couple of particularly enjoyable ones that I did get to see in the early 1970s: Cry Wolf (1969) and All at Sea (1970), both of which are conspicuously absent from the half dozen or so collections issued on DVD to date. Many of the Cff’s films had a run-time of around an hour, although there were also a number of serials in their catalogue. Masters of Venus was one such production. Comprising eight 15-minute instalments, it arrives on DVD in the UK in a restored release from BFI.

On the day prior to mankind's first mission to Venus,...

We know this is pretty late notice, but you West Coasters still have time to make it to the Grindhouse Film Festival at the New Beverly Cinema this Tuesday, April 10th, at 7:30 pm. Look at this unique lineup they've got for you.

Check out the Grindhouse Film Festival on Facebook and follow the Grindhouse Film Festival on Twitter (@GrindhouseFest) for current and future updates. Read on for the info on the latest show.

From the Press Release

The Grindhouse Film Festival returns to the New Beverly Cinema on Tuesday, April 10th, with two period films that'll first thrill you and then confuse you. First up is The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula (the American theatrical version of the Roy Ward Baker/Chang Cheh Dracula and Kung Fu classic The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires). Whether you prefer your vampires to be of the well-dressed Transylvanian type or the hopping Chinese-style,...

Pacific Banana (Original Release Date: 5 February 1981)

This week marks the first instance of me reviewing a movie discovered as a direct result of writing this column. I anticipate future cases where I will find newly discovered movies so disagreeable I will be made to wish I had never lighted on the idea of reviewing these suckers, but this isn’t one of those cases. Pacific Banana is a treat. It flies thick through a fog of continuity errors, the casts’ collective stab at acting is lamentable, the plot contrivances begin stacking tall from the outset, and the plot is threadbare, but its charm and good-naturedness make it hard not to developsome affection for it.

Part of this charm is in its casually smarmy approach. If I were cataloging it for a special interests video store, I would categorize it a “milquetoast sex romp,” and I would put it on the same shelf as Porky’s,...

For those familiar with Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula, the character of Dr Van Helsing is a strange, almost unintelligible, elderly eccentric who practically speaks Double-Dutch! After reading the book one wonders how someone as formidable as Count Dracula could ever be defeated by this rather odd and seemingly ineffectual little Dutchman.

In cinematic terms, the character is unactable on screen. Peter Cushing remains the definitive Van Helsing because he’s (thankfully) furthest from the book. His Van Helsing was portrayed as an intelligent and resourceful action hero; the prototype for Hugh Jackman’s later interpretation.

With the exception of Cushing, Jackman and Edward Van Sloan (who played the part in the thirties), the other movie Van Helsings have been pretty dire, and the better the actor, the worse he is in the role. Let’s have a look at the ten really bad ones.

An established horror name with great screen presence,...