Norman J. Warren's later Horror Planet (aka Inseminoid) is also great fun. A slasher film on a harsh planet. Think Jason meets Alien.
Although Ten Years of Terror concentrates on British indie horror, it covers all British horror films of the 1970s, Hammer and Amicus included. If the reader is still in doubt as to the fecundity of that period, perhaps it will help to recall these films, all covered in the book: Countess Dracula, The House That Dripped Blood, Scream and Scream Again, The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, A Clockwork Orange, The Devils, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Hands of the Ripper, Straw Dogs, Twins of Evil, Asylum, Captain Kronos--Vampire Hunter, The Creeping Flesh, Dracula AD 1972, Frenzy,Horror Express, Psychomania, Tales From the Crypt, Horror Hospital, Theatre of Blood, The Wicker Man, Craze, House of Whipcord, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Vampyres, The Omen, Satan's Slave, Holocaust 2000, Schizo, The Uncanny, The Legacy, Alien, Saturn 3.
And over 100 more. Only a few entries are non-horror (e.g. Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs). And mere inclusion does not mean the editors love the film. They disdain The Uncanny - a film I much enjoy. (I've a soft spot for horror anthologies, and for Donald Pleasance, and for Samantha Eggar.)
Speaking of which, the trade paperback cover of Ten Years of Terror features the skull from Amicus's Tales From the Crypt. Enthralled by its TV commercials, I spent years waiting to be old enough to see it. For those who came of age post-DC, pre-HBO, the Amicus version will always be the "true" Tales From the Crypt. (Curiously, the hardback's dust jacket features Ingrid Pitt instead.)
Ten Years of Terror is a treasure trove, and I'm sure many horror fans will spend hours drooling over the book, recalling films they'd perhaps momentarily forgotten. Others will thrill with the first blush of discovering a rare gem.
Ten Years of Terror is destined to be the definitive text of independent 1970s British horror cinema.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - Thomas M. Sipos
Okay, but I now see that I failed to italicize two film titles (The Exorcist and Last House on the Left in one of the block quotes.
3 - -E
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