Series: Horror

The Maniac directed by Michael Carreras

Up until recently, I had been aware of only two films with the title Maniac: the 1934 camp classic directed by Dwain Esper and the repugnant 1980 picture with Joe Spinell as a deranged mannequin lover. The existence of the British The Maniac, a 1963 product from the great Hammer Studios, thus came as a nice surprise for me.

Part of the Hammer “Icons of Suspense” six-film box set, the picture shares a DVD with the studio’s 1958 film The Snorkel,

The Haunting of Julia directed by Richard Loncraine

You’ve got to feel a little sorry for the characters that Los Angeles-born actress Mia Farrow portrayed in her three big horror outings of the late 1960s to mid-‘70s. Her Rosemary Woodhouse, in the 1968 classic Rosemary’s Baby – surely one of the classiest fright fests of that great decade – was not only set up by her husband and later knocked up by Old Scratch himself, but was later the unwitting deliverer of the son of Satan. In 1971’s See No Evil,

The Snorkel directed by Guy Green

A little-known picture sporting an amusing title, The Snorkel yet reveals itself to be an excellent suspenser; a genuine sleeper that may be finding some latter-day acclaim thanks to the great-looking print in the Hammer “Icons of Suspense” DVD box set. Released in 1958 by Hammer Studios, shortly after the famed British filmmaking independent began its reign of the Gothic horror niche with that year’s The Curse of Frankenstein, the picture is a tale of murder and suspense without being an actual mystery.