13 September (1980-09-13)– 6 December 1980 (1980-12-06)
Hammer House of Horror is a British horror anthologytelevision series produced in Britain in 1980. Created by Hammer Films in association with Cinema Arts International and ITC Entertainment, it consists of 13 hour-long episodes, originally aired on ITV.
Each self-contained episode features a different kind of horror. These vary from witches, werewolves and ghosts to devil-worship and voodoo, but also include non-supernatural horror themes such as cannibalism, confinement and serial killers. In 2003 Channel 4 placed Hammer House of Horror at No. 50 in its "100 Scariest Moments" show. The clip shown was the children's party scene in "The House That Bled to Death".[1]
Episodes were directed by Alan Gibson, Peter Sasdy and Tom Clegg, among others, and the story editor was Anthony Read. Hammer regular Peter Cushing appears in his final Hammer production in episode 7, titled "The Silent Scream".
A 17th-century witch uses her craft to transport herself to the 20th century. She brings spine-chilling terror to the present-day occupants of the old farmhouse in which she lived. She puts her mark on the man now living in the farmhouse, while his wife tries to save him. Cast:Jon Finch, Patricia Quinn, Prunella Gee, Ian McCulloch, Lennard Pearce, Margaret Anderson
After buying it for a good price, a couple and their young daughter move into a house that was the scene of a macabre murder. A series of terrifying events eventually force them to flee for their lives, but all is not as it seems. Cast:Nicholas Ball, Rachel Davies, Brian Croucher, Patricia Maynard, Milton Johns
An elderly pet shop owner, who was a former Nazi concentration camp guard, is intent on continuing experiments on human victims. His plan is to create prisons with no bars, for which he captures a former prison inmate and his wife. Cast:Peter Cushing, Brian Cox, Elaine Donnelly
A psychologically fragile woman accidentally kills an intruder who is about to hurt her. Her boyfriend buries the body in the woods, but she continues to see the man in various places; this leads her to seek help from a psychic. Worse is to follow as she becomes the victim of a macabre plot. Cast:Kathryn Leigh Scott, Gareth Thomas, Simon MacCorkindale, Mia Nadasi, Stanley Lebor
A worker in a hospital mortuary becomes convinced that a conspiracy of evil has chosen him as the devil's disciple. Those around him remain sceptical, believing that his rantings are a sign of insanity rather than a desperate cry for help from an innocent soul marked for Satan. Cast:Peter McEnery, Emrys James, Georgina Hale, Peter Birrel, Conrad Phillips
Home release
The series was released on DVD in the UK (region 2) in October 2002 by ITV Studios. It was released as a four-disc set featuring all 13 episodes, and includes stills galleries and cast biographies as extras. The episodes are in a different order on the DVD.
A re-mastered version was released in the US (region 1) on 11 September 2012 by Synapse Films. It was released as a five-disc set, and features an animated stills gallery, episode introductions from film historian Shane M. Dallman, and featurettes including Grave Recollections: A Visit With Kathryn Leigh Scott and Hammer Housekeeping: A Visit With Mia Nadasi.[2]
Having completed a high-definition restoration of the series, the UK's Network imprint released Hammer House of Horror for the first time on HD Blu-ray (Region B locked) in October 2017.[3]
