Never Stop Digging

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I know I may sound like a broken record here, but you never know when something you write hits the right person at the right time. Plus, when it is something you really believe in, you want to keep saying it! Hammer recently announced they will be releasing a 4K release of their 1953 film Four-Sided Triangle, which is a science fiction tale, but has strong shades of the Frankenstein message, of just because we can do this . . . should we? Directed by Terence Fisher, the film is about two scientists develop a machine that can duplicate anything. Including a person. This was released on DVD age ago by Anchor Bay but now will be coming to us with a nice new 4K release.

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Peveril’s Hammer Scrapbook Available

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Peveril Publishing has released their sixth volume in their Scrapbook series, and it is now available to order! This volume deals with the four Mummy movies that Hammer produced: The Mummy (1959), The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), The Mummy’s Shroud (1966), and Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971).

Like all of their scrapbooks, it contains rare images, FOH stills, lobby cards, posters, press material, letters, set designs, call sheets, censor notes and documents, makeup designs and so much more. It also includes a 100-page day-by-day production diary of the making of Hammer’s Blood from Mummy’s Tomb film, using daily progress reports, parts of actress Valerie Leon’s annotated script, and a ton of images and rare photos and images, all within the 368 full color pages, and limited to only 800 signed copies.

The books are priced at £40, which is just under $50, but then will cost you another $20 to get it shipped over here to the US. So yeah, it is pricy, but when you look at all the other scrapbook volumes they’ve put out and see all of those have sold out. These are limited editions and when they are gone, they are gone, and then become collector items, or just really nice volumes for your Hammer Library!

For all the information, just click HERE.

Mystery Photo 2-10

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Our photo from last week was from Satsuo Yamamoto’s 1968 ghost story Botan-dôrô aka The Bride from Hades, also known as Peony Lantern. It was recently released on the Daiei Gothic box set, which I would highly recommend picking up. Only got two correct answers sent in on this one, Hoby Abernathy and Erik Martin. Great job, guys! Definitely not a title seen by a lot, but we’ll worth checking out.

This week’s photo might be a little easier. Maybe. But give it a look and see if you can recognize what film it is from. Just remember to send your guess to me in an email, to jon@kitleyskrypt.com. Good Luck!

Anthony Dileo Jr. – Rest in Peace

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Another lost for fans of George Romero’s Dead films. Anthony Dileo, who played Miguel Salazar in Day of the Dead (1985), the stress-ridden private who isn’t handling the zombie invasion too well, has passed away. I had the honor of meeting him at a couple of cons over the years and he was always so excited to meet fans of the film. While it is great to have been a fan for so long, it is also getting harder to hear of all the passings of the great talent from films that I grew up watching over the years. The only glimmer of positivity in that is that they will constantly be remembered, each and every time one of their films are played.

Dileo had a small role in Romero’s 1981 film Knightriders and would have small roles in a couple of other Romero projects, such as Monkey Shines (1988), Two Evil Eyes (1990), and even as an uncredited zombie in Tom Savini’s Night of the Living Dead (1990).

Our thoughts go out to his friends and family during this very difficult time. Gone, but never forgotten.

DtH Episode 89: Fright Rags with Ben Scrivens

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In the horror community, the easiest way to show you are a fan is by what you wear. The horror T-shirt has been a staple in the fandom for what seems like forever. But it wasn’t always like that. To say that fans have it easy today is a slight understatement. Not only in terms of their availability, but of the selection that is out there! It is an easy way to show the public that you are a card-carrying horror fan, whether you’re wearing a Texas Chain Saw T-shirt, Cannibal Holocaust, or even a Night of the Living Dead shirt, it gives others that immediate notation that this person likes horror films.

Fright Rags, who is one of the bigger horror T-shirt companies, has been around for over 2 decades, so we decided to ask owner/operator Ben Scrivens on the show to not only talk about the ins and outs of running a T-shirt company, and some of the difficulties in doing just that, but also to talk about our love of horror films.

Movies mentioned in this episode:

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Movie Review: Alice, Sweet Alice

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(1976)
Directed by Alfred Sole
Starring Paula E. Sheppard, Linda Miller, Rudolph Willrich, Brooke Shields, Mildred Clinton, Niles McMaster, Alphonso DeNoble, Jane Lowry

This film is one that everyone seems to know or remember, especially seeing the VHS tape, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to come up in a lot of conversations, especially when you are discussing the slasher genre. Keep in mind, this film came out two years after Bob Clark’s Black Christmas, but two years before John Carpenter’s Halloween. And yet, when talking about the slasher genre, and this film most certainly is a slasher film, it seems not to come up in those discussions. You have a mysterious, masked killer on the loose, dispatching their victims in a variety of ways, from stabbing, choking, to even throwing them out a window! And the blood flow is pretty excessive in some of these crimes.

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Mystery Photo 2-3

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Before I forget and get it wrong, last week’s photo was from the highly underrated 1972 TV-Movie The Stone Tape, directed by Peter Sasdy and starring Michael Bryant and Jane Asher. It was written by Nigel Kneale, who is no stranger to British teleplays, writing a ton of original and effective sci-fi and horror work that was brought to life for the viewers at home. Once again, he gives us a slow-paced but highly creepy story here. Kudos to Hoby Abernathy, Bob Hartman, Dada Debaser, Chris Dyer, Troy Howarth, Erik Martin, Michael Pniewski, and William Wilson for sending in the correct answers. If you haven’t seen this one, do yourself a favor and seek it out.

For this week’s photo, we have another classic and creepy tale. But take a look below to see if you recognize it. Just remember to send your answer to me in an email, to jon@kitleyskrypt.com. And Good Luck!

Royalty at HorrorHound Weekend

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While the horror conventions are filled with guests from the latest horror films out there, such as the Terrifier films, who have been making the rounds for almost the last decade, we also see names from the Child’s Play movies, Re-Animator (which is making its 40-year anniversary), guests from the Hellraiser films, and many more. We even get some big names like Robert Englund still making the rounds. But when it comes to the decades even before all of them, going back 60 years, there aren’t too many of them left that made the impact that Barbara Steele did.

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Updating Hammer Books

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As a collector of horror reference books, and one that has been doing it for the better part of 40 years, there are a few books that get republished or updated over the years. Sometimes they are greatly expanded from those initial releases, while other times just maybe an extra chapter or just a few pages. Some publishers like to slap on a new title, add a new intro, and hope that readers that already own the original volume don’t recognize that it’s the same book. But that doesn’t happen too often, or at least not that I’ve caught! When these “revised”, “expanded” and/or “updated” versions come out, it would irritate me because since I already have the original release, do I really need to re-buy it just for a few extra pages? Okay, I usually do anyway, but that is beside the point.

But as I get wiser in my old age (insert joke here), I have realized that not all fans have been buying and collecting these volumes as long as I have. And some of them may be out of print or just too expensive to buy now. That means when these new editions come up, these fans have a chance to possibly add them to their collection for the first time. And if you’re a fan of Hammer Films, then here’s your chance to get two different titles.

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Horst Janson – Rest in Peace

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This might not be a name you’ll recognize right away, but if you’re a Hammer fan, then you know him better as Captain Kronos, from the 1974 film Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter. It was announced today that Horst had passed away at the age of 89. While he’s really only known in the horror genre due to his one entry with Hammer, he definitely made a big enough impact for us horror fans. It’s just a damn shame that series didn’t take off because that would have been amazing to see Horst continue that character in several more films. But that doesn’t mean Horst didn’t work much, with 168 appearances in film and television in a career that spanned over six decades, even appearing several times on the German version of Sesame Street!

But even with that one entry in our genre, we know that Horst will live on as one of our favorite vampire hunters, and each time we bust out that title to watch again, we will remember Horst and the fine work he did in it. Gone, but he will live on! Our thoughts go out to his friends and family during this difficult time.