When anything makes money, it brings about imitators. One of the best cases of this was Amicus Productions. Back in 1957 and '58, there were two immensely popular British horror films, "Curse of Frankenstein" and "Horror of Dracula. Everyone saw them, and they made a pile of money, leading to Hammer Films becoming a household name. Two men, Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg, formed a partnership in a deliberate plan to rival Hammer's success. Their plan became action, and in 1962, they released their first film. Like Hammer, not all of their movies were horror, but they leaned heavily that way. And they had some real successes like "Tales from The Crypt," "Dr. Who and The Daleks," and "The Land That Time Forgot," which are still well known to this day. Although not as prolific or successful overall as Hammer, Amicus did pretty well for itself for about sixteen years. They made everything from serious drama to ridiculous musicals; we'll look at all of them here. Most of the "Horror Guys Guides" series focuses on only the horror films of a particular actor or studio, but this one will look at everything Amicus produced, as well as a couple that they didn't but with which they still have a connection. There weren't that many connected ones, and they're all noteworthy, so why not? This book takes each Amicus film and closely related non-Amicus films and examines them all individually. We watched every film recently, specifically with the intent of writing this book. Each entry lists the writer, director, principal cast members, run time, alternate titles, if any, and then a full synopsis with spoilers of each story. And we top them off with my commentary and occasional bits of interesting trivia. Some are definitely worth checking out for yourself. Some maybe not so much. The fun will be reading all about them and catching up on the ones that you missed- maybe even the ones you've never heard about at all.
When anything makes money, it brings about imitators. One of the best cases of this was Amicus Productions. Back in 1957 and '58, there were two immensely popular British horror films, "Curse of Frankenstein" and "Horror of Dracula. Everyone saw them, and they made a pile of money, leading to Hammer Films becoming a household name. Two men, Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg, formed a partnership in a deliberate plan to rival Hammer's success. Their plan became action, and in 1962, they released their first film. Like Hammer, not all of their movies were horror, but they leaned heavily that way. And they had some real successes like "Tales from The Crypt," "Dr. Who and The Daleks," and "The Land That Time Forgot," which are still well known to this day. Although not as prolific or successful overall as Hammer, Amicus did pretty well for itself for about sixteen years. They made everything from serious drama to ridiculous musicals; we'll look at all of them here. Most of the "Horror Guys Guides" series focuses on only the horror films of a particular actor or studio, but this one will look at everything Amicus produced, as well as a couple that they didn't but with which they still have a connection. There weren't that many connected ones, and they're all noteworthy, so why not? This book takes each Amicus film and closely related non-Amicus films and examines them all individually. We watched every film recently, specifically with the intent of writing this book. Each entry lists the writer, director, principal cast members, run time, alternate titles, if any, and then a full synopsis with spoilers of each story. And we top them off with my commentary and occasional bits of interesting trivia. Some are definitely worth checking out for yourself. Some maybe not so much. The fun will be reading all about them and catching up on the ones that you missed- maybe even the ones you've never heard about at all.
