Introducing… Hammer Presents.

If you’re a fan of British horror movies, Christmas has come early! Hammer Presents is a brand new range that will build on the success of the ongoing Limited Collector's Edition releases, unlocking even more horror classics and hidden gems. With its ambitious remit and reach, it will ensure Hammer continues to deliver the very best and most sought after titles alongside outstanding support material. We caught up with Hammer’s Steve Rogers to get all the info on this exciting development.

Hammer News: Hammer Presents sounds enormously exciting! What can you tell us about the project?

Steve Rogers: ‘What’ is easy – ‘why’ takes a little bit longer. The Hammer Presents Collection is an ongoing series of British horror releases that are similar in style and substance to the Hammer horror films everyone loves – they will run alongside and complement our range of Limited Collector's Editions.

HN: Okay. Amazing. Genuinely did not see that coming! And the ‘why’?

SR: A significant amount of the feedback we've had on our range of Hammer UHD/Blu-ray releases this year was of the, ‘Oh, if only other British horror films could get the same treatment’ variety, so we started investigating how that could be achieved and what it would look like – Hammer Presents is the end result.

Doing this also allows us to directly address a situation which has been ongoing for decades now. Every fan will recognise it: you're having a conversation with someone about Hammer and they mention a British horror film and insist it's a Hammer film when it's not. We've all been there, and arguments often ensue, but the truth of it is that general viewers perceive all British horror films of a certain vintage to be Hammer films, whether they were or not. These people see Hammer as the home of British horror and so, in our 91st year, we're embracing that with Hammer Presents.

Hilary Dwyer (also known as Hilary Heath) with Patrick Mower in Cry of the Banshee.

HN: Ha! And not a moment too soon! Can you expand on the topic of what kind of titles this will encompass? I get the type of film you’re talking about, but will they be titles from any era? And are we talking British horror only?

SR: Yes, the plan is for Hammer Presents to focus solely on British horrors, but there's no era-specificity. There are lots of good, scary films from the '30s to the '70s and beyond, after all.

HN: Fantastic! I have to ask, though — will this impact on the Limited Collector’s Edition range?

SR: No, we're still aiming to keep the Hammers on a monthly schedule. Hammer Presents will be ‘almost-monthly’ – we won't be scheduling them for the months where we're releasing a Hammer horror. And because of the restrictions we have to work under with these licensed titles, though they will all be new and highly collectable world class restorations created by our restoration partner Silver Salt (who work on all the Hammer 4Ks), they will not have the full spread of additional content that the Hammers feature and not all of them will be on UHD, so the price will be lower.

HN: My bank account thanks you! And for context, can you reveal what we can expect from the first Hammer Presents release?

SR: The first title will be the AIP-UK horror Cry of the Banshee – Vincent Price engaging full scenery-chewing mode in a hard-edged folk horror from 1970.

Vincent Price as the villainous Lord Edward Whitman in Cry of the Banshee.

HN: Didn’t Terry Gilliam design the opening titles for that one?

SR: He certainly did – and very idiosyncratic they are, too. The original version created by director Gordon Hessler has them in full but, when Hessler submitted the film to AIP, they re-edited it and cut up the titles for its theatrical release. Both versions of the film have been restored from the negs and are included in this set.

HN: Will this release have any supporting material?

SR: Yes, it's got some legacy special features and a new commentary and featurette – and it will be available as separate UHD and Blu-ray releases.

HN: Cool. Are there any other ‘definites’ for Hammer Presents that you can announce yet?

Michael Gough in Crucible of Horror.

SR: Well, I can tell you that the second one will be a Blu-ray-only release of the incredibly strange and unsettling Crucible of Horror (known in the UK as The Corpse). Michael Gough gives a seriously unnerving performance as a sadist whose put-upon family reach the end of their tether – with violent consequences. The ending is quite mad and we've included a new commentary and featurette with this one also.

HN: This must have taken a lot of planning. How did the project come about, and would you say it’s been a labour of love? By that I mean, it sounds like something the team at Hammer is genuinely excited by.

SR: We're very excited with this new range and it has certainly taken a lot of planning as we're breaking new ground. Obviously, Hammer has never done anything like this before, but then Hammer hadn't released its own films on its own label before the beginning of the year, either. By creating the Hammer Presents home entertainment range it allows us to demonstrate to the fans and collectors that we’re listening to and acting on their feedback, as well as allowing us to restore and re-present some great British horror content for people to enjoy. You never know, all of those people who'd been told for decades how wrong they were because they thought that Hammer was the home of British horror may well end up being right in some way after all.

Stephan Chase as Sean Whitman in Cry of the Banshee.

HN: Final question – for now… When can we expect to see the first Hammer Presents title released?

SR: It's currently looking like early 2026, but we'll be making it available for pre-order on our website before then, so make sure you've subscribed to our mailing list to be the first for updates.

HN: This all sounds very exciting – 2026 is obviously going to be a big year for fans of Hammer and British horror!

SR: It certainly is. And Hammer Presents is only the beginning.

Big thanks to Steve for sharing his time and knowledge. As always, we’ll bring you all the latest news as it breaks, and you can stay completely up-to-date with Hammer by subscribing to the mailing list mentioned above, right here.