The seventh episode of Hammer Studio's and
ITC's 1980 television series '
Hammer House of Horror' sees a newly released convict with the action movie name of Chuck Spillers (
Brian Cox) taking a job with the man who had visited him in prison, Martin Blueck (
Peter Cushing). The job entails helping him look after the wild big cats in his basement zoo that he's using in his experiments to create a prison with no bars. Unfortunately, temptation soon proves too much for Spillers and Blueck's true nature and plans are revealed.
Cushing, in his last role for Hammer, is, of course, as brilliant as ever and plays both aspects of Blueck's nature - the facade of banality that conceals the psychopathy underneath - to perfection whilst Cox is perfectly cast opposite him as the incorrigible and fairly hapless jailbird and as an actor of note in his own right able to hold his own aganst the Hammer legend in full flight. Being more of a psychological thriller than the outright horror that either the venerable studio or the lead actor is famed for it's great fun to see, even at this late stage, their take on something different and as such it's always been one of my favourite episodes from the series.
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