The Tigon Collection

Anchor Bay UK

Coffin Shaped 6 DVD Set

Region 2 PAL

The Haunted House Of Horror

The Body Stealers

The Beast In The Cellar

The Virgin Witch

Blood On Satan's Claw

Witchfinder General

Tigon was a British film production company which existed from the mid-60s to the mid-70s. While they produced a wide range of films, most could be classified within the exploitation genre with a special interest in horror. In contract to the other major horror studios of the day, Hammer and Amicus, Tigon tended to give its film-makers a lot of leeway when it came to artistic freedom, the approach being that as long as the film made money then they could produce whatever what wanted. The result is a wide and diverse range of films, many of which are truly strange and bizarre, some of which are superb, many of which are just plain schlock.

Tigon represents part of the great age of British horror film and it is great to see such a superb collection made available by Anchor Bay. This is a Region 2 Pal release and comes in a lovely coffin shaped box with a nice colour insert with background information on Tigon and the films.

Witchfinder General (1968) is considered the most classic horror film of the Tigon range and is truly impressive. Directed by Michael Reeves, it’s the story of Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price), a repulsive and extreme Witchfinder wandering East Anglia during the Civil War. While justified his torture of the innocent it is clear that his true motivation is profit and sexual pleasure. This is a powerful film with a strong message, confronting violence and solid character development.

The DVD also includes a documentary about Michael Reeves, trailers, film notes, a quirky music video and galleries.

The Beast in the Cellar (1971) is a quirky and melancholy experience. A pair of elderly rather neurotic sisters harbor a terrible secret. Locals are being murdered in a brutal manner and the killer, which the police first think is a leopard, is only after members of the military. The dialogue is rather intense and the whole film has a suffocating and neurotic mood, however, it is very well acted and is worth the experience.

Blood on Satan’s Claw dates from 1970. The devil appears in a 17th century village, leading the local disenchanted teenagers down a path of rape, torture and murder. This is quite a moody film, intense, powerful and quite evocatively filmed.

The Haunted House of Horror (1969), is about a bunch of wild teens in swinging London. They go to an abandoned house one night to party, where one of them is brutally murdered. Instead of telling the fuzz, they dump the body and try to find the killer themselves. This is perhaps the weakest of all the films in the collection, the acting is fairly mediocre and the script is unconvincing, but I still enjoyed.

The Body Stealers (1969) while included in this horror collection is actually more of a sci-fi adventure. During an exercise at a military base in the South of England testing a newly designed parachute, a strange sound is heard by the skydivers and they are seen to disappear. The event is witnessed by the inventor of the parachute, Jim Radford, and some army personnel led by General Armstrong. The General has the area sealed off and orders an investigation into the bizarre event. Later at a public air show, a group of display parachutists are overcome with the same sound and enveloped in a blazing red light before also disappearing. After uncovering links between the two events, Hindsmith finds that there have been five other similar events, resulting in the disappearance of a total of eleven highly trained military personnel. This leads to an investigation into alien life…

The Body Stealers is a moderately engaging Sci Fi tale, not especially memorable but worth a watch. The acting and story line is pretty B grade here and so just enjoy it for what it is and don’t expect too much.

Virgin Witch is a very fun experience. It is a real exploitation classic. Lots of nudity, lesbians, witchcraft and sex. Tigon did their homework and hence, at least, there is a level of accuracy within the ritual and basic “Wicca” presented in the film, even if filtered through a rather sensationalist lens. Virgin Witch is really more of a soft porn pot boiler but is a very enjoyable romp.

The quality of Tigon’s films varied wildly, some of their films were classics, some were terribly bad. This collection is pretty good, but I would have liked to see some of the more renowned Tigon releases in this set. The quality of the DVDs vary, the picture quality is reasonable but could have done with some further restoration. The sound is excellent with DTS on all films, don’t get too excited the DTS track has been nicely remixed but won’t shake the floorboards, but still it is nice to have.

Most of the discs include extras such as commentaries, galleries etc and so this is a good value package, nicely presented and worth owning.