HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR
Thirteen Reasons To Die
released 23 OCTOBer 1980 | 15 | Blu-ray
Creator roy skeggs Cast Peter Cushing, denholm elliott, diana dors, suzanne danielle
Hammer Films effectively died in May 1979, when it came under the control of the official receiver. But in the studio’s best tradition, it soon returned from beyond the grave, with a deal struck to use its brand on this ITV series, largely directed by old hands like Alan Gibson, Peter Sasdy and Don Sharp.
Basing production at a former girls’ school in Buckinghamshire had obvious effects: if a foreigner got their idea of England by watching they’d assume it’s almost entirely populated by middle-aged professionals living in old manor houses.
Certain episodes hinge on plot points that were fusty even then – a cursed African idol, a gaslighting scheme – and a few fall flat, but there are more hits than misses among these 13 episodes. Some are so weird they slip into surrealism, like the never-ending nightmare of “Rude Awakening”. Others partake in a gleeful grisliness that’s more hard-edged than anything in Hammer’s heyday, giving us a cannibalistic gathering, a paranoiac taking a drill to his head, and a children’s birthday party drenched in blood. But traditionalists will be satisfied too: “Guardian Of The Abyss” is basically a Dennis Wheatley knock-off with a sprinkling of The Wicker Man, but is done so well it’d be churlish to grouse. With Hammer back in business and anthology series booming, surely this show is ripe for a revival?
Extras A widescreen version of “Guardian Of The Abyss”; raw takes for the opening montage of “Rude Awakening”; commercial break stings; PDFs of publicity material and a few script pages; a gallery. Ian Berriman
Hammer’s mounting an “immersive theatre show”; The Soulless Ones runs at Hoxton Hall, Hackney, until Halloween.