Hammer House of Horror is a British horror anthology television series made in 1980. Created by Hammer Films in association with Cinema Arts International and ITC Entertainment, it consists of 13 hour-long episodes, originally broadcast on ITV.
Each self-contained episode features a different kind of horror. These vary from witches, werewolves and ghosts to devil-worship and voodoo, but also include non-supernatural horror themes such as cannibalism, confinement and serial killers. In 2003 Channel 4 placed Hammer House of Horror at No. 50 in its "100 Scariest Moments" show. The clip shown was the children's party scene in "The House That Bled to Death".
Episodes were directed by Alan Gibson, Peter Sasdy and Tom Clegg, among others, and the story editor was Anthony Read. Hammer regular Peter Cushing appears in his final Hammer production in episode 7, titled "The Silent Scream".
List of episodes
Plot summaries
1) Witching Time
Film music composer David Winter (Jon Finch) lives with his actress wife Mary (Prunella Gee) in a secluded farmhouse. David is upset because he knows Mary is having an affair with someone; unbeknownst to him this is his own psychiatrist, Dr Charles (Ian McCulloch). One night during a storm, when Mary is away, a young woman named Lucinda Jessop (Patricia Quinn) appears in the farmhouse stable. She tells David she is a witch from the 17th century and has used her powers to travel in time to the 20th century in order to escape from witch hunters who wanted to burn her at the stake at the very same farmhouse. David doesn't believe her and locks her in one of the bedrooms of the house. He calls Dr Charles who visits David but, when Lucinda has miraculously vanished from the locked room, he thinks David is simply hallucinating. After Charles leaves, Lucinda reappears and seduces David using witchcraft.
Mary initially doesn't believe David's claims either but is soon convinced that Lucinda is real when the latter begins to harass the couple repeatedly with witchcraft. She visits the local Rector (Lennard Pearce), who investigates and finds that there was a local witch named Lucinda Jessop who escaped being burnt at the stake in the year 1652 by Puritans who used to capture and execute witches by drowning or burning them. Mary then asks Dr Charles to help, but he refuses and Mary ends her affair with him. As Mary is returning home on horseback, Lucinda attacks her and she is hospitalised for several days.
Mary returns home determined to fight the witch and rescue David. She finds a voodoo doll, which Lucinda made to cause her pain. Under Lucinda's spell, and being told that his wife is unfaithful, David locks Mary in the cellar as he prepares a pyre, convinced that it is Mary who should be burnt at the stake. Mary escapes and locks David in the stable for safety, but Lucinda reappears. The two women fight, which causes the stable to catch fire. Mary tries using the voodoo doll against Lucinda by recasting it in her image, but fails. Mary throws water on Lucinda, which weakens her, as witches are afraid of water. She then drowns Lucinda in a trough. With Lucinda's spell now broken, David and Mary are reunited. David picks up the voodoo doll and throws it into the fire; Lucinda's screams are heard.
2) The Thirteenth Reunion
Magazine journalist Ruth Cairns (Julia Foster) is assigned by her editor (Dinah Sheridan) to cover an unconventional weight-loss programme at the Chesterton clinic. She enrols and there befriends Ben Faraday (Warren Clarke), also trying to lose weight, who is paradoxically advised by the program coach Mr Willis (James Cosmo) to binge eat and take certain pills. Strangely, the participants are also asked whether they ever had a Salmonella infection. Later that night, after taking his prescribed pill, Ben hallucinates while driving and dies in an accident. Ruth learns of this and is soon approached by Andrew (Gerard Kelly), who works at a local firm of funeral directors. He says Ben's body was brought there and that accidents similar to this one have occurred in the recent past, and he thinks his employers are in some way connected with them.