By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Anglophiles will have a field day with these upcoming disc releases.
Severin Films has announced June 30 street dates for the seven-disc set SANGSTER DIRECTS HAMMER and the worldwide disc premiere of the documentary CHILDREN OF THE WICKER MAN. The SANGSTER package features the North American UHD premieres of Hammer stalwart Jimmy Sangster’s THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN (pictured above), LUST FOR A VAMPIRE and FEAR IN THE NIGHT, scanned in 4K from the original camera negatives and presented in the original aspect ratios. The box also contains the all-new 312-page book HORROR! LUST! FEAR! SANGSTER, designed by Stephen Thrower and featuring essays by Ramsey Campbell, David Gregory, Chris Alexander, Kat Ellinger and David Flint, plus archival interviews with Kate O’Mara, Tudor Gates and Mike Raven, comic adaptations, copious color photos and much more.
Each movie is included on both UHD and Blu-ray; the 18-plus hours of special features are:
Disc 1: THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN UHD
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Producer/Co-Writer/Director Jimmy Sangster, Moderated By Hammer Historian Marcus Hearn
- Audio Commentary With Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas
- Trailer
Disc 2: THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN Blu-ray
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Producer/Co-Writer/Director Jimmy Sangster, Moderated By Hammer Historian Marcus Hearn
- Audio Commentary With Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas
- Frankenstein, Dracula And Me – Archival Interview With Actress Veronica Carlson
- Reunion Panel At 1997 Festival Of Fantastic Films Manchester With Director Jimmy Sangster, Actor Dave Prowse And Actress Veronica Carlson, Moderated By Wayne Kinsey
- Younger Frankenstein – Interview With 2nd Assistant Director Nicholas Granby, Camera Operator Neil Binney, Production Runner Philip Campbell And Co-Writer Jeremy Burnham
- One Frankenstein After Another: 125 Years of Cinematic Adaptations – Illustrated Audio Essay By Gillian Wallace Horvat
- The Life And Work Of Mary Shelley – Interview With Dr. Emma Liggins, Co-Director Of The Manchester Centre For Gothic Studies
- The Unhallowed Arts: The Creation Myth Of Mary Shelley – Interview With Gothic Scholar Dr. Colin-Azariah Kribbs
- Vintage Behind-The-Scenes From Hammer Films
- Alternate TV Opening Credits
- Trailer
- SCARS OF DRACULA/THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN Double Feature Trailer
- SCARS OF DRACULA/THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN Double Feature TV Spot
Disc 3: LUST FOR A VAMPIRE UHD
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Director Jimmy Sangster And Actress Suzanna Leigh, Moderated By Hammer Historian Marcus Hearn
- Audio Commentary With David Flint, Author Of TEN YEARS OF TERROR: BRITISH HORROR FILMS OF THE 1970s
- Trailer
Disc 4: LUST FOR A VAMPIRE Blu-ray
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Director Jimmy Sangster And Actress Suzanna Leigh, Moderated By Hammer Historian Marcus Hearn
- Audio Commentary With David Flint, Author Of TEN YEARS OF TERROR: BRITISH HORROR FILMS OF THE 1970s
- Illustrated Archival Audio Interview With Actress Yutte Stensgaard By Michael Augustine-Reed With Accompanying Career-Spanning Still Gallery
- Live, Love, Lust – Interview With Actress Judy Matheson
- Gothic Girl – Interview With Actress Kirsten Lindholm
- Hammer Times – Interview With Actor Christopher Neame
- A Bit Of Fun – Interview With Actress Erica Beale
- Lust Mel – Interview With Actress Mel Churcher
- Running Blood – Interview With Production Runner Philip Campbell
- Gates Of Karnstein Castle – Archival Interview With Screenwriter Tudor Gates
- The Invisible Prince: The Life & Legacy Of J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Interview With Dr. William Hughes, Gothic Scholar & Co-Editor Of OPEN GRAVES, OPEN MINDS: REPRESENTATIONS OF VAMPIRES AND THE UNDEAD FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO THE PRESENT DAY
- Strange Love – Carmen Maria Machado, Author Of QUEER REFLECTIONS OF HORROR, Reframes The Sapphic Vampire
- School Of The Heaving Bosom: Education, Eroticism And LUST FOR A VAMPIRE – Video Essay By Dr. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- Alternate Version Of Lesbian Scene
- Trailer
Disc 5: FEAR IN THE NIGHT UHD
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Producer/Co-Writer/Director Jimmy Sangster, Moderated By Hammer Historian Marcus Hearn
- Audio Commentary With David Flint, Author Of TEN YEARS OF TERROR: BRITISH HORROR FILMS OF THE 1970s And Mayhem Film Festival’s Chris Cooke
- Peter Cushing Discusses Hammer In Archival Audio Interview With Denis Meikle, Author Of A HISTORY OF HORRORS: THE RISE & FALL OF THE HOUSE OF HAMMER
- Trailer
Disc 6: FEAR IN THE NIGHT Blu-ray
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Producer/Co-Writer/Director Jimmy Sangster, Moderated By Hammer Historian Marcus Hearn
- Audio Commentary With David Flint, Author Of TEN YEARS OF TERROR: BRITISH HORROR FILMS OF THE 1970s And Mayhem Film Festival’s Chris Cooke
- Peter Cushing Discusses Hammer In Archival Audio Interview With Denis Meikle, Author Of A HISTORY OF HORRORS: THE RISE & FALL OF THE HOUSE OF HAMMER
- The Gaslighter’s Playbook: Real And Imagined Horrors In FEAR IN THE NIGHT – Video Essay By Dr. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- Fun In The Day – Interviews With Camera Operator Neil Binney And Production Runner Philip Campbell
- Trailer
Disc 7: Bonus Blu-ray
- HAMMER AND BEYOND: THE JIMMY SANGSTER LEGACY – 2026 Documentary By Hammer Historian Marcus Hearn
- The Man From Bristol: Ralph Bates Remembered – Interviews With Actress/Wife Virginia Wetherell And Composer/Son Will Bates, Narrated By LUST FOR A VAMPIRE Co-Star Judy Matheson
- Joan Collins: Queen Of The Horror Films – Interviews With HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN Author Kier-La Janisse And Telefilm Historian Amanda Reyes
- Hammer In The U.S.A. – Film Historian C. Courtney Joyner On The Studio’s Stateside Distribution
- Hammer Scribe – Archival Interview With Director Jimmy Sangster
- Sapphic Blood Suckers: A Cinematic History Of The Lesbian Vampire Trope With Annie Rose Malamet, Film Scholar And Host Of Girls, Guts, Giallo
- I Coined “The Karnstein Trilogy” – Interview With David Pirie, Author Of A HERITAGE OF HORROR
Retail price is $189.95, but the set can be pre-ordered at the Severin webstore for $135. In addition, Severin and Encyclopocalypse Publications have reprinted William Hughes original LUST FOR A VAMPIRE novelization, which is available on its own and as part of a Sangster Celebration bundle.
CHILDREN OF THE WICKER MAN was created by art historian Dominic Hardy and his half-brother, filmmaker Justin Hardy (A FEAST AT MIDNIGHT) as a tribute to their father Robin’s folk-horror classic. According to the PR, “Through stacks of decades-old correspondence, a pilgrimage to the original locations and new interviews with friends, family and the movie’s surviving personnel, Robin’s sons uncover the personal costs of the film’s chaotic production, their father’s war with the studio British Lion, his bitter falling-out with friend, business partner and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer, the financial and sexual improprieties that tore families apart and their own lifelong traumas as CHILDREN OF THE WICKER MAN. The Blu-ray contains the following bonus features:
- Audio Interview With Co-Directors Justin Hardy, Dominic Hardy And Chris Nunn, Moderated By David Gregory, Director Of THE WICKER MAN ENIGMA
- Q&A With Co-Directors Justin Hardy, Dominic Hardy And Chris Nunn And Producer Alison Palmer
- Making-Of Featurette
- Trailer
Retail price is $24.95, and the webstore has it up for pre-order at just $15. A new hardcover book also called CHILDREN OF THE WICKER MAN, by Dominic and Justin Hardy, is also available on its own and as part of The Wicker Basket bundle.
