Mill Creek Entertainment Adds Six Title Hammer Films DVD Collection To It's Apr. 5 Release Calendar

Mill Creek Entertainment has expanded its April collectible product offerings with word this week that a double-disc DVD selection titled Hammer Films Collection, Volume Two has been added to its release calendar for delivery to retail on Apr. 5.

Priced at just $14.98 are six vault treasures from the venerable Hammer Films library, including a couple of hard to find films that will have collectors and film buffs snatching this DVD set up come Apr. 5 for those alone.

This “six-pack” of Hammer Films kicks off with director Terence Fisher’s 1958 gem, The Revenge of Frankenstein, a sequel to The Curse of Frankenstein and once again starring Peter Cushing — only this time as “Doctor Victor Stein.”  

He escaped his fate and has changed his identity and has morphed into a successful physician who graciously donates his time and skills to the local hospital … and therein lies the problem.   He is recognized, blackmailed into returning to his old experimental ways and, yes, disaster once again follows.   Terence Fisher and scriptwriter Jimmy Sangster had a gift for delivering Frankenstein and Dracula movies during this period that were lush in their production values and deliciously wicked in their storytelling.   

 It didn’t hurt to have Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee on hand as the stars of these films either; classics, one and all!!

Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (aka: Never Take Candy from a Stranger) is a 1960 film directed by Cyril Frankel that was an adaptation of Roger Garis’ stage play, “The Pony Cart.”   Two young girls come face to face with a rich pedophile, whose predilections are covered up by officials … an offbeat and unexpected film from Hammer.   Well worth a look … a different sort of “horror” tale.

Director Michael Carreras joined the Hammer Films brethren by teaming with scripter Jimmy Sangster for the 1963 film release of Maniac.  He would go on to do The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, Prehistoric Women and The Lost Continent.

Here, American drifter Jeff Farrell (played by Kerwin Mathews — The 7th Voyage of Sinbad) gets seduced by a daughter (Liliane Brousse) and then by her mother (Nadia Gray) into helping them free a deranged killer from prison.  All is not as it seems!  Run, Jeff, run!!

Another Jimmy Sangster screenplay takes the form of The Snorkle, a 1958 murder mystery directed by Guy Green (Oscar-winner from his cinematography work on Great Expectations) and starring Mandy Miller as Candy, the only one who is convinced that a “family friend” by the name of Paul Decker (Peter van Eyck) is responsible for the murder of not only her mother, but her father as well.   Will she be the next to go?

Die! Die! My Darling is a nifty 1965 film, directed by Silvio Narizzano (who would do Georgy Girl the following year) and starring Stefanie Powers as Patricia, a sweet young woman who is just trying to do the right thing by visiting Mrs. Trefoile (Tallulah Bankhead), but soon becomes her prisoner as she must repent or die … or both!

And lastly, the Hammer Films Collection, Volume Two contains director Don Chaffey’s 1971 film release of Creatures the World Forgot … it stars Bond Girl Julie Ege as a cave woman.   A guilty pleasure if there ever was one!