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November 17th looks to be one of the quieter home media release days we’ve had in a while, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some great titles headed home this week, either. Hammer fans will undoubtedly want to pick up Mill Creek’s new box sets for Hammer Films: The Ultimate Collection and Inner Sanctum Mysteries this Tuesday, or if you’re looking for more modern horror to entertain you, Relic and Monstrum are headed to both Blu-ray and DVD this week as well.

Other releases for November 17th include Death of Me, 2067, Westworld: Season 3, Alfred Hitchcock: 4-Film Collection, and So Sweet, So Dead.

Hammer Films: The Ultimate Collection

For more than four decades, Hammer Films unique blend of horror, science fiction, thrills and comedy dominated countless drive-ins and movie theaters. Enjoy this massive collection from the darkest corners of the Hammer Imagination!

Featuring 20 Cult-Classics...

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars and filmmakers and not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones they made in between.

Today we celebrate Halloween by discussing the B-Sides of Peter Cushing, one-third of The Unholy Trinity (including Christopher Lee and Vincent Price), star of many Hammer Films and Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars. To tackle a master such as Cushing, we bring in the inestimable Gavin Mevius, talented editor and co-host of the incredible The Mixed Reviews Podcast. We mention their Vincent Price episode from Halloween last year and their more recent episode of Jamie Lee Curtis. Give them a listen!

For this episode, we discuss Violent Playground, Sword of Sherwood Forest, Cash on Demand, and The Masks of Death. Of course, the Universal Monsters movies come up, as do the Hammer Films that Cushing and Lee made legend.

Sword of Sherwood Forest

Blu ray

Twilight Time

1960 / 2.35:1 /80 Min. / Street Date October 16, 2018

Starring Richard Greene, Peter Cushing, Richard Pasco, Nigel Green

Cinematography by Ken Hodges

Directed by Terence Fisher

The prime architect for the gothic horror revival of the 50’s, Hammer Studios began the next decade with a revival of the less-than-fashionable swashbuckler genre by setting their sights on the legend of Robin Hood – but even with an audience-friendly runtime of 80 minutes, the lackadaisical Sword of Sherwood Forest may have the most ardent Hammer fan checking their watch.

Fortunately the action, what there is of it, plays out amid the ultra-green backcountry of Ireland’s County Wicklow and there are some very good bad guys lurking there – in particular Peter Cushing as the slippery Sheriff of Nottingham and Oliver Reed as a surly henchman who merely glowers from the sidelines but electrifies every frame he’s in.

Directed by...

It has been dismissed over the years as cheesy, cheap and laughable but, as has been the case on many occasions, Hammer Films have had the last laugh. They boast a back-catalogue that is to horror movies what The Rolling Stones’ discography is to rock music. Fifty-nine years after the release of their first horror movie proper (The Quatermass Xperiment), Hammer’s films have survived scrutiny and re-evaluation and have now attained National Treasure status. Moreover, in terms of sheer importance, the Hammer films were some of the most influential of the past half-century. The ripple-effect of their imitators cashing in on their success would beget the careers of some of the biggest names in Hollywood today.

And yet since 1984 Hammer has been a dormant entity, existing only in the memory: a pile of ashes, a cape and a signet ring waiting to be reanimated by the crimson, jugular discharge of some poor,...

Cinema is a kind of uber-art form that’s made up of a multitude of other forms of art including writing, directing, acting, drawing, design, photography and fashion. As such, film is, as all cinema aficionados know, a highly collaborative venture.

One of the most consistently fascinating collaborations in cinema is that of the director and actor.

This article will examine some of the great director & actor teams. It’s important to note that this piece is not intended as a film history survey detailing all the generally revered collaborations.

There is a wealth of information and study available on such duos as John Ford & John Wayne, Howard Hawks & John Wayne, Elia Kazan & Marlon Brando, Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune, Alfred Hitchcock & James Stewart, Ingmar Bergman & Max Von Sydow, Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina/Marcello Mastroianni, Billy Wilder & Jack Lemmon, Francis Ford Coppola & Al Pacino, Woody Allen & Diane Keaton, Martin Scorsese & Robert DeNiro...

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

I came rather late to the Adam & Joe appreciation party, but now that I’m here, I’d like to recommend you all pick up a copy of The Adam And Joe DVD (Channel 4, Not Rated, Region 2, DVD-£16.99 Srp), which gives a wonderful overview of all 4 series of low-budget comedy. There’s also a figurative ton of bonus materials. Just get this disc already.

If...