blu rays dvd News | It's hi-def Hammertime! Hammer Films to bring over 30 classic horror flicks to Blu-ray!

Let's get right to the juicy throat vein of this story; Britain's premier horror studio Hammer Films is currently restoring more than 30 films from their prolific library with plans to bring them to Blu-ray for the first time. Feel free to check out their official press release over here.

Now it's time to get into some of the details!

For those of you unfamiliar with Hammer Films the British studio was founded back in 1934 but it really took off in the 60's and 70's when they were pumping out horror genre hits with spectacular talent like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. They are best known for their films like 1966's Dracula Prince of Darkness, Quatermass and the Pit, Curse of Frankenstein, The Plague of the Zombies, The Reptile, and director Terrance Fischer's 1958 Gothic masterpiece Dracula. With over 30 undisclosed titles planned for Blu-ray I expect many more of their lesser known flicks like The Devil Rides Out, Rasputin the Mad Monk, The Mummy's Shroud and Dracula A.D. 1972 will find new fans as well.

Not only have they pledged to bring a few dozen of their movies to Blu-ray they also promise that each Hammer film will get a fully-restored HD picture and audio, re-inserted lost footage, tons of new special features as well as some from the vaults and the extras are being overseen by historian Marcus Hearn, the dude behind the definitive Hammer Films book.

As for when we'll see the Blu-rays over here that has yet to be determined. While a couple of the Hammer restored flicks have already recieved a Blu-ray release across the pond and while there is no official North American release dates available yet. But Hammer is in talks with some major players like Warner Bros, Fox, Paramount and Studiocanal to help with the restoration process so I'm confident that many, if not all, of the restored Hammer Blu-rays will be available to us in the near future.

To stay on top of all the latest Hammer restoration news they have set up an official blog, which you can check out here, and we'll keep you posted for when news of individual Hammer Blu-ray releases start popping up!

Source: Deadline Hollywood