Witchfinder General to screen as part of the BFI Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film season

In a career-highlight performance, Vincent Price plays corrupt real-life inquisitor Matthew Hopkins who journeys across 17th-century East Anglia extracting confessions of witchcraft using cruel torture and public burnings. This censor-shocking period piece is regarded as director Michael Reeves' masterpiece and one of the most stylish of witch-trial horrors spawned in the late-1960s.

Screening as part of the BFI Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film season at the BFI Southbank in London, the 1968 film, which also stars Ian Ogilvy, Hilary Dwyer and Nicky Henson, will be introduced (9 December only) by Peter Hutchings, author of The A to Z of Horror Cinema, who explores what motivates film-makers to turn Britain's usually idyllic countryside into haunting landscapes as seen in the likes of The Wicker Man and Reeves' Witchfinder General.

SCREENS AT THE BFI SOUTHBANK

December 9 at 9pm	Buy
December 15 at 6.30pm	Buy
December 29 at 4.10pm	Buy

House of 1000 Dolls gets a UK DVD release

The dolls in this 1967 Spain/German AIP exploitation story about modern-day white slavery are a group of lingerie-clad beauties – 12 or so, not 1000 – being held captive in a Tangiers mansion. Vincent Price and Martha Hyer use their magic act as cover for the abductions, which they do on behalf of the mysterious King of Hearts. George Nader (best known for starring in the cult turkey Robot Monster, and being Rock Hudson’s one-time lover) plays a vacationing detective whose investigation into a friend’s murder leads him to the dollhouse...

ABOUT THE FILM
Hammer veteran Terence Fisher was originally slated to direct the film. The first script treatment was entitled Sax Rohmer’s House of Dolls, and would be set in Victorian London, but filmed in Ireland. Illness, however, forced Fisher to drop out, and the production was put on hold until it was transferred to Madrid, Spain and future Brookside director Jeremy Summers was brought in to film a revised version of the script (penned by producer Harry Alan Towers under his pseudonym, Peter Welbeck).

PEEVED PRICE
By the mid-1960s, Price was in despair over the roles offered to him under his globe-trotting AIP contract, and House of 1000 Dolls only added insult to injury following the catastrophic failure of the Mario Bava-lensed Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (shot in Italy) and the disastrous War Gods ofthe Deep (shot in England).

PRICE AT THE PRADO
Given that Price’s role was merely a supporting one meant the actor and could indulge in his well-known passion for art by visiting Madrid’s famed Prado. And while Price was away from the set, nudie scenes were filmed for an X-rated version of the film.

Click here to hear Vincent giving a guided tour of the Prado in 1960.

 

RELEASE DATES
The film was released in West Germany on 7 December 1967 as Das Haus der Tausend Freuden and in Spain on 3 June 1968 as La Casa de las Mil Munecas. In the US, it premiered on 8 November 1967 before coming out on 13 March 1968 on a double-bill with Maryjane, a sensational expose of high school marijuana addicts, starring Fabian and Diane McBain. 

Click here to view to US pressbook.

THE NEW DVD RELEASE

I have always had a soft spot for this tawdry tale, and even though Price plays a supporting character, he carries it off with usual aplomb. It also has that naughty but nice erotic look about it, especially the dolls in their lingerie and high heel mules, that makes it more like a Carry On than a seedy sex film. The Mediumrare Entertainment release contains a fine print of the film (I can say goodbye to my HBO Home Video VHS copy finally), but only has a black and white gallery of photos (mainly Maria Rohm) as an extra. 


Released on DVD 28 January 2013

Great British Horror unveil their ghoulish new Tee based on The Monster Club

The folks over at Great British Horror: The Art of Fear have unveiled four new designs, one of which is based on artist John Bolton's painting for 1981's The Monster Club, featuring the geneaology chart that appeared in the horror anthology starring Vincent Price.


You can purchase the tee direct from the GBH website.