The Hand of Night

Details

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This special limited edition spot gloss slipcover (designed by Lucas Peverill) is limited to 3,000 units and is only available on our website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them.

Welcome Vinegar Syndrome Labs (VSL) to the VS Sub-Label family! As with each of our sub-labels we are hoping to expand and defy expectations with the diversity of films we restore and release. As the name implies, VSL will serve as a kind of testing area for releasing genres and eras of film that one might not immediately expect to come from VS. The ultimate objective of VSL will be to see if these types of films will find an audience, and if so, pursue and release more of them…and even if not, still serve as a means of restoring more of the weird, rare, and unusual movies you might not expect from Vinegar Syndrome.

Reeling from the recent death of his wife and two children in a car crash in England for which he was partly responsible, American architect Paul Carver is traveling to Morocco utterly dejected. Plagued with nightmares in which he relives the accident, amid what appear to be ominous premonitions, Carver is befriended on his flight by German archaeologist Otto Gunther, who invites him to a party that evening. While perusing Gunther’s home, Carver encounters a striking but strangely ethereal Moroccan woman named Marisa, who leads him to a remote, opulent palace. When, driving to their archaeological site the next morning, Gunther and his young assistant Chantal find Carver unconscious in the desert, they reject the tale he recounts as being a figment of his alcohol-addled imagination, claiming not to know of any such woman. But Gunther, well-versed in the region's ancient folklore, begins to fear that the forces of darkness may have their sights set on his new friend and that his very soul is at stake.

A true outlier in the annals of 1960s British horror, THE HAND OF NIGHT (also released as Beast of Morocco) is a bewitching and highly singular take on the vampire mythos, trumping its Hammer peers by taking the -- for the period -- unusual step of filming largely on location in Morocco, lending the film a much greater sense of atmosphere and scope than many of its contemporaries. Featuring a host of notable American and British actors, including William Sylvester (Gorgo, Devil Doll), Diane Clare (The Haunting), and Edward Underdown (Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors), the celluloid archaeologists at Vinegar Syndrome Labs are delighted to dust off THE HAND OF NIGHT for its first-ever disc release, newly restored for Blu-ray and accompanied by a host of new bonus features.

directed by: Frederic Goode
starring: William Sylvester, Diane Clare, Edward Underdown
1968 / 90 min / 1.66:1 / English Mono

Additional info:

• Region A Blu-ray
  
• Newly restored by Vinegar Syndrome from a studio-supplied 4K master
• Commentary track with film historians Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons
• "A New Breed of Vampire" (17 min) - an appreciation by author and film critic Kim Newman
• "Associated with British Pathé" (25 min) - a featurette on Associated British Pathé, the production company behind The Hand of Night, with sound editor Roger Voss and ABP production accountant Franz von Habsburg
• "An Associated British Pathé Budget" (8 min) - production accountant Franz von Habsburg discusses how an ABP production was budgeted
• Reversible sleeve artwork
• English SDH subtitles