Shatter

It’s 1974, and Hammer Film Productions are about to release one of their best known, most loved and eventually unexpectedly critically revered horror movies – Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter. Although it would come too late to do very much save the ailing studio, who had struggled to respond effectively to the late sixties rise of auteur-driven cinema on the one hand and cheap and literally ‘nasty’ teen-scaring shockers on the other, Captain Kronos’ lone big-screen outing would nonetheless point a potential way forwards with its deft blend of traditional classic horror, sword and sorcery, swashbuckling derring-do and even a dash of absurdist humour. Envisaged as the first in a series of Captain Kronos adventures set in different time periods, it would sadly prove to be the only one; although you do have to wonder how many individuals involved in the creation of a teenage cheerleader turned vampire slayer, a witch searching for magical artefacts in the company of a reluctant ‘familiar’ in a sideways baseball cap or a dynasty of increasingly underachieving horrid little men might have caught it at their local cinema on its original release.

That same year, Hammer would also release the ambitious international co-production martial arts horror crossover The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires and a feature-length adaptation of ITV sitcom Man About The House, both of which did well but again not enough to reverse their declining fortunes, which may well have had some bearing on the decision to not release a certain other film in 1974. Apparently never quite able to make up its mind which cinematic bandwagon it was attempting to jump on, Shatter would only sneak out in cinemas virtually unnoticed much later in the decade, showed up on television a handful of times a decade or so after that, and then more or less just plain disappeared.

Starring Stuart Whitman as the titular hard-living hitman, Anton Diffring as an even more disreputable underworld associate, Peter Cushing as a Chief Inspector who understands when and how to use them to his advantage and Hong Kong screen legends Lung Ti and Lily Li as martial artists who know a lucrative side hustle when they see one, Shatter might sound somewhere between Enter The Dragon and Get Carter, but if it is then that ‘somewhere’ is adrift at an indeterminate point of in the mid-Pacific. If you like either of the above – or indeed the Blaxploitation or indeed, erm, ‘adult’ films it also appears to have been casting the odd glance towards at some stage of its production – then it is probably fairer to say you that might like it rather than love it, but irrespective of where it stands in the great tradition of gangster and Kung-Fu movies, Shatter is never less than interesting and in several regards genuinely fascinating. It’s a taut and luridly amoral thriller that at least tries to do something a little different with its narrative and setting, boasts a top drawer cast who are doing their absolute best with what they have to work with, features superb martial arts setpieces and an enjoyably grimily funky score, is skilfully directed and inadvertently captures the push and pull between East and West in early seventies Hong Kong, repackaged Coca-Cola bottles and all. Somehow none of this ever quite fully manages to slot together, but Shatter is a movie that deserves much better than its lack of reputation – doubtless not helped by the fact that it is one of Hammer’s more numerous than you might be led to believe non-horror efforts – ever seems to afford it. If you had chanced upon one of that handful of late night television showings, chances are you would have spent the next couple of weeks asking everyone you met if they’d seen it.

Well, now you can make your own mind up about Shatter – or indeed watch it last thing at night and then spend the next couple of weeks asking anyone you meet if they’ve seen it – as it is now enjoying pride of place as the lastest release in Hammer’s outstanding series of Bluray restoration box sets. Joining the neglected 1953 sci-fi romantic melodrama Four Sided Triangle and – what else – Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter on the shelves of any self-respecting enthusiast of British cinema history, Shatter is presented in fully restored high definition complete with some long-lost material originally cut to secure a BBFC certificate back in 1974, and frankly looks a good deal better than even the original release prints did. Amongst a ton of extras there are several commentaries from genre experts and even an archival chat with Stuart Whitman and original director Monte Hellman, who was dropped two weeks into filming, along with documentaries on the film’s troubled production and Hammer’s ‘difficult’ seventies. As if all of that wasn’t enough, there is also an accompanying book all about this underappreciated ‘lost’ film and its unusual position in Hammer’s history, which includes a chapter by me looking at Shatter‘s flawed attempts to follow the differing directions of popular culture at the time, and how the state of the cinema industry, changing audience habits and expectations and even industrial relations all played their part in pulling the rug from under not just this but so many promising early seventies British movies that should have worked and almost did, but just not quite. So if you ever wanted to know how the British film industry in the seventies was stifled by bus strikes, Albert Steptoe trying to learn ‘kung fu’ from Enter The Dragon and detectives who tried to pretend they only had one name, then this is pretty much essential reading.