It’s a testament to the strength of the England’s famed Hammer Studios that, while the shock/fear factor of the studio’s “graphic violence” has definitely faded over the decades, three of the four films in this package of lesser known offerings still provide plenty of old fashioned horror/thriller fun. It’s just a shame the box art is so ugly. 1960’s “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll” eschews Hammer’s usual decapitations and hand-removals in favor of lots of implied sexuality and heavy use of the B-word in a silly but entertaining twist on the Robert Louis Stevenson tale. Here, the nutty professor…I mean repressed, cuckolded doctor (Paul Massie) becomes a suave, better looking (and suddenly beardless) version of himself who decides to do the obvious – go out and get laid, and also do something about his no good wife (hot Dawn Addams) and her ultra-suave louse of a lover (Christopher Lee, often hilarious in one of his best roles).
The Terrence Fisher-directed “The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb” from 1964 is exactly what it sounds like and even more amusing, despite the absence of Lee, who played the mumster the first time around. Also directed by Fisher that year, “The Gorgon” is the only a stinker of the set, a leaden blend of 19th century horror and ancient Greek mythology that even Hammer stalwarts Lee and Peter Cushing cannot save. 1961’s “Scream of Fear” might have a lousy name, but it’s a more than fitting finale. A modern day black and white thriller featuring strong performances from Susan Strasberg, Ann Todd, and Christopher Lee (who else?) as an untrustworthy French medic, it starts out as a truly creepy spin on “Gaslight,” but turns out to be a nasty, clever treat from the team of writer-producer Jimmy Sangster and director Seth Holt (“The Nanny”). Modern day gorehounds can have their torture porn, I’ll take Hammer.
