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The shocking true story behind the making of Hammer Films' notorious vampire saga.

So, after the 50s and 60s, the countless Hammer sequels started to lose steam and were losing their edge to Amicus, AIP, Tigon and others. How do we fix that? Add sex appeal. And thanks to the influx of European films, the ratings board was getting a bit more relaxed on what you could show to adults.

This documentary gets into the biography of Sheridan LeFanu a bit, which is useful considering how overlooked he tends to be, or at least overshadowed by Bram Stoker. We find how Val Lewton wanted to turn LeFanu's work into an American colonial film, and how the first serious attempt was the pre-Hammer Italian attempt called "Terror in the Crypt" that is not well known.

There is, of course, discussion of the lesbian themes, and the odd denial from those involved that any such themes exist. How do they not see it when "Twins of Evil" evolved out of "Vampire Virgins", and that happened when those involved stumbled upon the twins in the October 1970 Playboy? The interview with John Hough is priceless, as his work definitely needs to be documented -- and how interesting to learn of the influence of Roman Polanski on "Twins of Evil". Oddly, the twins themselves were not interviewed when they might have some of the best insight.

As I really love documentaries of cinema, showing the behind the scenes many valuable information over the movies, in this case Hammer and his successful Karnstein Trilogy, mainly the last one what was a highlight of the essential doc, many British historians gave their testimonials, also the director Joe Dante, they starting discussing the Sheridan Le Farnu novella Carmilla that was conceived on late nineteen century, a lonely Irish Victorian writer who was coeval of Bram Stocker, Carmilla was developing as short tales, however with a slight lesbian thematic, denied by Le Farnu, bring to the theatre and later to big screen, as Karnstein Trilogy, the doc was focused on last one, Twins Of Evil, how they casting the Maltese Collinson twins and mainly Peter Cushing who lost your beloved wife a previous month, John Hough got his major first director testify as well, how and where made the scenes at Pinewood Studios and nearby forest, fantastic documentary over the priceless trilogy!!!

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First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8

The Flesh and the Fury: X-posing Twins of Evil (2012)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

A who's who of genre experts are brought together to discuss the making of Hammer's TWINS OF EVIL. This documentary from Daniel Griffith is really terrific because unlike so many horror documentaries it doesn't just tell the story of the film but it goes into much more detail. We start off talking about how Hammer took over the horror market and how the studio began to get dried up because they really weren't doing anything new. This leads us to a discussion on the Carmilla story and previous film versions. We then get to Hammer's output during this era when sexuality and nudity was allowed.

Tim Lucas, Joe Dante, Kim Newman, David J. Skal, Ted Newsom, Wayne Kinsey and Christopher Frayling are among the people interviewed as is director John Hough. As you can see, there are some pretty big names here in regards to genre filmmaking so most people are going to be familiar with them. The entire cast really does an excellent job at keeping their interviews entertaining and there's no question that Griffith himself knows how to tell a story. I've now seen a few of his features and there's no question that he has a talent and delivers more than just what you typically see.

I thought the documentary did a fantastic job at giving you the whole view of the studio during this era. There's also a terrific discussion about the sexuality and how Hammer's promotion went overboard with the various stills that were released because the majority of the nudity wasn't in the actual film. We also learn how the British and American censor boards reacted to the film.