Continuing their releases covering the different series of films Hammer did, Peveril Publishing has released their latest volume in this long series, The Hammer’s Karnstein’s Scrapbook and is now available to order!

By the time the ’70s came around, Hammer was upping the amount of gore and nudity in their films, trying to keep hold of their dwindling audiences. Since films like Rosemary’s Baby and Night of the Living Dead, both released1968, had modern settings and monsters, fans were growing tired of the gothic period pieces. Plus, in 1970, The British Board of Film Censors raised the X-Certificate from 16 to 18 in hopes of fighting off this new trend of sexploitation films that were coming out. Hammer took that and amped up their gore and nudity to meet that new standard with their adaptation of Le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla, with what would become The Vampire Lovers (1970), starring the alluring Ingrid Pitt.

Hammer was so sure this film would be successful, that they started pre-production on follow up before the first film was released! The second film was Lust for a Vampire, which was quickly followed up with Twins of Evil, both in 1971.

The Hammer Karnstein Scrapbook is now available to order through Peveril Publishing by clicking HERE. Yes, like most of Peveril’s books, it is a bit pricy, especially for us in the states. With shipping, it will run you close to $75. But, like ALL of Peveril’s books, they are worth every penny. This is a limited-edition hardcover book with only 800 copies being produced, with 360 color pages with over 1700 images, many of them very rare. It also includes annotated pages from screenwriter Tudor Gates’ own copy of his original draft of the script and director Roy Ward Baker’s full annotated script for The Vampire Lovers. It also has the treatments for a follow up film that never fully came to be, The Village of the Vampires / The Vampire Virgins.

If you have any interests in getting a copy, act fast because they do tend to sell out pretty quickly. And you don’t want to be paying eBay prices for these, that is for sure.