Something Weird on TV: Hammer House of Horror Part Two – That Sort of Horror

As with Beasts, I had already watched at least some of Hammer House of Horror once, years ago. Prior to sitting down with it for this column, however, I had never revisited it, and most of the episodes felt entirely unfamiliar, to the extent that there are a few I am positive I have never previously seen. Not so with “The House That Bled to Death.”

While I had forgotten certain particulars, I remembered this episode probably more vividly than any of the others, and my recollection is that it is one of the best that the series has to offer. This is thanks in no small part to its genuinely horrific denouement during a child’s birthday party, and its legitimately surprising twist.

Even before those two things, however, “The House That Bled to Death” manages to conjure some actual unease thanks to deft directorial choices by Tom Clegg (piles of TV stuff and a second, subsequent episode of Hammer House of Horror, which we’ll get to shortly). Perhaps more surprising is that this is pretty much the only screenplay attributed to David Lloyd, because it’s a corker!

“Charlie Boy,” on the other hand, is probably the worst episode that the series has tossed our way thus far. Helmed by Robert Young (Vampire Circus), it concerns an absolutely goony looking African fetish doll that exacts a nasty price once it’s been used (somewhat accidentally) to kill.

While the statue – which, I must reiterate, is just completely goofy – is the ostensible star of the show, fans of Doctor Who will recognize Angela Bruce, the actress who plays Brigadier Winifred Bambera in several installments of that long-running series.

Perhaps no other episode of Hammer House of Horror can match the star power – at least where horror hounds are concerned – of “The Silent Scream.” The big draw here is Peter Cushing in one of his last roles, and his very last one for Hammer. He plays Martin Blueck, an elderly pet store owner who is secretly also a Nazi who formerly worked at a concentration camp and is obsessed with continuing his old hobbies.

The target of his machinations, however, is none other than a young Brian Cox, still six years out from playing Hannibal Lecter (there spelled Lecktor, according to IMDb) in Manhunter. The episode is helmed by Alan Gibson, who had previously directed Hammer’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula and Dracula A. D. 1972 and will be back later in the series for “Two Faces of Evil,” which I’m told is one of the best episodes of the bunch.

There’s a lot going on in Hammer House of Horror but one thing there’s a real dearth of is monsters, making “Children of the Full Moon” one of the only episodes of the series to deal with them. In this case, it’s werewolves, as a husband and wife get stranded in the woods and take shelter at a house where a surrogate mother cares for several young werewolves – at least, so the husband becomes convinced.

“Children of the Full Moon” is once again directed by Tom Clegg, who previously took charge of “The House That Bled to Death,” and its stars include old Hollywood actress Diane Dors as the lady taking care of the young werewolves.

Sadly, for all that this is one of the few Hammer House of Horror episodes to deal with monsters, it has precious few glimpses of the actual werewolves themselves and the ones we do get are of the “people with yak fur glued to their faces” variety.

Like all the episodes of Hammer House of Horror, “The Carpathian Eagle” begins with a cold open. In this case, that involves a guy picking up a hitchhiking hippie and taking her back to his harem-esque swingin’ sex pad. It’s a whole lot less swingin’ than the one that will show up later in the episode, however, which could have come straight out of Austin Powers and features breast-shaped wall lights and giant feet at the end of the bed. As I said on social media immediately after watching, “Nothing else that has happened so far in Hammer House of Horror is as scary as this guy’s bedroom.

“The Carpathian Eagle” involves a weirdly complicated backstory about a Carpathian countess who apparently murdered more than 107 people, including her husband who had his heart torn out by an eagle, hence giving us the episode’s unusual moniker. It seems that the prolific countess has a modern-day copycat who is taking men to bed and then cutting out their hearts. Who could it be? The answer is intensely obvious, but the episode has a few interesting bits on the way to getting there – weird bedrooms notwithstanding.

Among these is that the killer’s last victim is played by none other than an early-career Pierce Brosnan, though you’d be forgiven for not recognizing him, as he’s still a decade-and-a-half out from playing James Bond in Goldeneye.

That’s it for tonight and that’s almost it for Hammer House of Horror. Next time, we’ll be finishing out the series with what I’m told are some of its better episodes, so be prepared for Satanism shockers, human sacrifice, and visits from beyond the grave!