David Vining's Blog

The Mummy franchise is one of the worst horror franchises. There’s the first Brendan Fraser movie, the Abbott and Costello send up, a thousand feet of crap, and then the rest, so when Hammer decides it can take a swing at it, I’m open to it. The franchise is far from sacred to me, mostly seen by myself as a series of lost opportunities and terrible monsters mixed in with overcomplicated lore, so a fresh take from the overly prim but primed for mayhem boys at Hammer feels appropriate. Terence...

Bruh.

This sudden uptick of WWII movies from Hammer was unexpected, but it’s honestly something of a delight. The Steel Bayonet didn’t quite come together, but The Camp on Blood Island, Ten Seconds to Hell and now Yesterday’s Enemy are hard-edged, focused pieces about violence in the hearts of men in (and immediately after) wartime that seem to come from a very genuine place within people like Val Guest, who directed this. Controversial at the time for having its main, British character commit a w...

The Man Who Could Cheat Death had elements of Jekyll and Hyde, but The Ugly Duckling is a straight, semi-comedic sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s original short novel. And it doesn’t have a great sense of comedy, making most of its runtime surprisingly inert. Without mystery, drama, or much in the way of comedy, the film by Lance Comfort ends up feeling just kind of wane.

Henry (Bernard Bresslaw) is the youngest Jekyll sibling, descended from the Dr. Jekyll who made his famous formula, ...

The director of this film, Robert Aldrich, (who co-wrote the screenplay with Teddi Sherman) all but disowned the final cut. Hammer producers cut out half an hour from the final cut without his input, and he ended up saying that the reduced cut simply made no sense. Well…all I can say that is…this movie could be better? Because it’s…really good. Like, this is weirdly strong post-war and suspense filled drama that feels just too…serious for Hammer Film. I’m not complaining at all, because this...

Violence, bruh.

Whiskey, bruh.

Heart, bruh.

Like, subscribe, cult, bruh.

Hammer is going to go to the Jekyll and Hyde well a bunch soon, and this isn’t a direct adaptation of the material, but it shares a lot of the bones. A doctor in the 19th century with a secret formula that has something to do with him turning into an unthinking monster? The details are all different, but it’s obvious that Stephenson’s story was percolating in the halls of Hammer’s production offices. Terence Fisher takes a script by Jimmy Sangster and gives it a certain dreamy style, fumbles...

Now, this is more of what I was expecting from Hammer horror, at least before they went full titillation (which I’m assured is to come). Spooky atmosphere, very English, and just a dab of what could be called gore from a quaint 50s point of view. It has its stable of actors, most prominent leads, and even a connection to British literature. And, it’s a pretty good time at the movies. That’s what’s really important.

Sherlock Holmes (Peter Cushing) is approached by Dr. Richard Mortimer (Fra...

Epics, bruh.

Small relationship dramas, bruh.

Madness, bruh.

Like, subscribe, cult, bruh.

Is it a surprise that a sequel to a cheap 1950s comedy is both a retread and a lesser example of the same material? No, not it is not. It’s a slight disappointment, though. I found the first entry in the small franchise to be a small delight, but really this effort to extend things by Val Gust is really just a repeat of the structure of the first film without the same sense of reckless abandon (in limited, British form) that was the first film’s finale. It’s a more sedate version of the same...