Castle Vanian Halloween Special: TV Thursday: Hammer House of Horror: Witching Time

There are going to be a lot of people unfamiliar with HammerHouse of Horror. Do you want to give a quick intro?

Hammer House of Horror started after the last Hammer film which was… I think, The Lady Vanishes (1979.) They didn’t make another movie for thirty years, but they made one really great series with about thirteen episodes.

There was another series, I think, Hammer House ofMystery and Suspense, but I don’t remember ever seeing that on television. That also ran for just one season.

It’s a shame they only ever did one season of Hammer House of Horror because the stories were absolutely superb. Funnily enough, the only episode I really didn’t like as a kid was the one with Peter Cushing in it (“The Silent Scream.”) I think it was just a bit above my head at the time, with Nazi experimentation and all.

There were some really good, really nasty stories. That’s what you want, right You want something that’s really going to terrify you. Don’t watch horror if you don’t want to be afraid.

Okay, so tell everyone a little about “Witching Time.”

“Witching Time” was the pilot of the series and it set the tone. It’s about a woman, Lucinda (Patricia Quinn,) who’s going to be burned at the stake in the 1600s but casts a spell and ends up in the 1980s. Everything is new to her – she thinks electricity is magic – but she still has her powers. She’s not after revenge, exactly, but she intends to keep her power and to get her home back.

And to have a bit of fun.

Oh, yeah. I wouldn’t use the word “rule,” but she wants what she wants, and she’ll do whatever it takes to get it, starting with the guy who owns the farm. She doesn’t care what she has to do to get it – or who she has to do it to.

You get that laugh all the way through, Patricia Quinn’s raucous, dirty laugh. She’s taunting them, toying with them because she can. She’s enjoying herself.

Of all the witch movies I’ve seen, I still think “Witching Time” was better than them all. You could have made this into a full movie, and it would have been great.

You’ve also got Ian McCulloch and Lennard Pearce as the Rector in it too, which was nice. It took me a few minutes to realize the rector was Granddad from Only Fools and Horses.

You actually don’t see Patricia Quinn in it much. She pops up from time to time but for the most part, it’s just the couple. You can always hear her though, laughing, so you know she’s there.

What did you like about this episode?

I was a tween boy when I watched it the first time and there were boobs in it so… you know.

I was a bit of a ghoul as a kid too. I love vampires and zombies and werewolves and all of that. If a witch really could travel in time, that would be amazing. She isn’t all white witch and crap, either, just herself. It must have been horrific at the time, being a woman, always having to worry about someone coming after you for what you have or what you do. Right or wrong, maybe she deserved the chance to live a little.

Patricia Quinn makes an amazing witch. That’s not a question.

I’ve seen her in a few things in now. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the one everyone recognizes her from but the first thing I remember seeing Patricia Quinn in is “Witching Time.”

Any last thoughts?

If you want something visual… just kidding. If you have an hour to kill, watch an episode of Hammer House of Horror. Any episode is worth the watch. They really went out with a bang. “Witching Time” is a superb start, and it only gets better. By the time you get to “Children of the Full Moon” and “The House that Bled to Death,” it really cranks it up a notch.

It’s disappointing that they never made “Witching Time” into a film. They could have explained how Lucinda travelled through time and why she was convicted.

I’d watch that.

Same. It’s such a shame that teens these days will never get the chance to watch things like this, even though they’re brilliant. They come from a time when there were three television channels. Kids today, they’re so inundated with options, so oversaturated that they’ll never even get around to things like Hammer House of Horror and they’re really missing out.

Thinking about it, any of these episodes would have made an excellent movie, but you didn’t have to go to the cinema for it, it was right there in your living room. Those thirteen stories… they’re not all winners but what I don’t like, someone else will love. It’s more like an anthology than a series because each story stands alone.