Back in the glory-days of the 1960s you could generally count on Hammer to knock out a decent little 90-minute horror piece that wouldn’t tax your patience or your brain overmuch – they tended to look quite stylish (or at least stylised), sounded fine with soundtracks by the likes of James Bernard, and featured fabulous casts. What they weren’t noted for was the brilliance of their storylines or the depths of their characterizations.

Which left John Burke with something of a problem when he came to re-work the plots into a series of novellas (novellae?) in this collection and its successor, The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus. There’s nothing wrong with Burke’s writing style, but it’s hard to see why anyone would read these when there’s so much good horror so readily available. It’s rally not worth the effort.

Mind you, I do like that description on the back of The Gorgon: ‘What is the terrible secret of the village of Vandorf, where a murderer’s victims turn to stone?’ Well, the clue could be in the title. Just a thought.