I fairly enjoy Warhammer. There's something about the gloriously over-the-top, terribly British sense of excess in the Grim Dark Future, very much like 2000 A.D.'s legendary Judge Dredd. Of course, after Warhammer 40,000 became a smash hit, its rustic counterpart - Warhammer Fantasy - came about. I became more a fan of the unusual races like the indigenous Lizardmen, the grotesque Skaven, and the gothic Vampire Counts, rather than the traditional fantasy races, like the Orcs and Elves and Dwarves. That said, the Empire has its charms, particularly the not-very-subtle caricature of the inquisition, and their requisite counterpart to Matthew Hopkins, the Witch Hunter.
So cometh Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter.
The omnibus starts with an introduction by Mr Werner himself where he talks about Mathias Thulmann being his first character created for Black Library, his love of halloween, and the influences of Vincent Price's Anthony Hopkins and Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane when creating Thulmann.
Oh ho! (Presumably Lord of the Night, the poster, means Matthew Hopkins of Witchfinder General, as opposed to Anthony Hopkins of such films as Magic and Shadowlands.)
I'm going to have to track this book down now.
Oh, hell, yes. You need to read Thulmann. C. L. Werner deilvers a Hammer horror movie in a Warhammer wrapper.
ReplyDeleteOld review of mine here;
Witch Hunter
"a Hammer horror movie in a Warhammer wrapper"
ReplyDeleteInstantly piques my interest! Now I'll be imagining Cushing/Price doing the voice of Thulmann (though I probably would have anyway, since Lee is saved for Solomon Kane)
I read the first book a little while back and quite liked it (still need to get around to the second two). It's essentially the characters from Witchfinder General reimagined as heroes in a fantasy setting. Fun stuff.
ReplyDeleteAh,yes, WITCHFINDER GENERAL aka THE CONQUEROR WORM, Vincent Price's finest hour.
ReplyDeleteWhen something is, you know, EXACTLY THE SAME, the word "inspiration" lost his sense.
ReplyDeleteBut I forgive them. Warhammer universe is about rip-offs. But they only rip-off the best ones.
The Omnibus is great! The author does pay direct tribute to those that influenced Mathias. The chacter of Mathias and Stige, a mercenary of low morals and character that is his partner, are well drawn. The Witch Hunter's personality is a wonderfully realistic combination of hauture of the nobleman, the piety of a cleric, and the madness of a zelot. Enjoy!
ReplyDeletehave you read Geralt de Rivia by polish author Andrej Sapkowski? is not a character of that kind?
ReplyDeleteFrancisco...
^ AKA "The Witcher", orig. Wiedzmin. For some reason, they skipped the second book of short stories in the English translations, even though many of the stories directly link to the third book.
ReplyDeleteAndy, I suspected this might be the case. *clicks "buy" on Amazon.co.uk*
ReplyDeleteSyon, it always confused and vaguely annoyed me how they changed the title to "The Conqueror Worm", since it doesn't really have that much to do with the poem outside the brief reference. I suppose one could consider it a thematic title, I guess...
Kike, well, that's Warhammer. Part of the fun. They have a character called "Crom the Conqueror!"
R.R., good to have another endorsement.
Francisco/OneLastSketch, I haven't yet read Geralt/Witcher, but it does intrigue me. Polish fantasy!
Regarding the use of THE CONQUEROR WORM as an alternate title, my understanding is that it was an attempt to capitalize on the enormous success of the Edgar Allen Poe films that Price had made with Roger Corman (cf. THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, etc). Indeed, Corman used the same technique when he used THE HAUNTED PALACE as the title for his adaptation of Lovecraft's THE STRANGE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD.
ReplyDeleteI'm sold. just ordered the Omnibus from Amazon, along with a DVD of captain Kronos:Vampire Hunter. Halloween is looking good.
ReplyDeleteSyon, sounds about right. Oh, that Corman!
ReplyDeleteCharles, I completely forgot Hallowe'en was around the corner. I'll need to do something about that!
With HAUNTED PALACE, it was the studio that pressured Corman. He wanted to adapt HPL for a while, and was given the go ahead. At the last minute, the studio got cold feet and he had to make a Poe hook. So, he bookended the movie with quotes from the poem and changed the title.
ReplyDeleteThe studio continued the trend with renaming WITCHFINDER GENERAL, too. (and the source poem doesn't even come up in that one!)
a bit offtopic... is there anybody like me who prefer Amicus sketeches films than the classic stuff of Hammer? I don't know exactly why but I found some titles by Hammer a bit boring, maybe is because I prefer modern psycological horror than the classic monsters...
ReplyDeleteFrancisco...
Oh, I LOVE Amicus films! Dr Terror's House of Horrors, Torture Garden, Asylum, The Vault of Horror, From Beyond the Grave and especially The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot - lots of classics there. However, I don't so much prefer them over Hammer, rather I consider them different.
ReplyDeleteI can understand why you find some of the Hammers a bit stilted: might be the atmosphere was lost in translation. I recommend the more unusual films like Frankenstein Created Woman, Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Twins of Evil, Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb. Taste of Fear is an excellent psychological horror. That said, I find The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula and The Mummy excellent films.
I also really love She, Quatermass and the Pit, Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Devil Rides Out. Obviously, I also adore One Million Years B.C. and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (I actually prefer the latter over the former from a storytelling perspective, though obviously there's no beating the effects of the former).
and Prehistoric women aka Slave girls? blonde girls and white men are the good guys and their enemies black haired girls helped by a tribe of black men... all in the middle of Africa... delirious and a bit racist??? Hammer films used that dicotomy blonde girls pure and good and black haired girls not so good...
ReplyDeleteThe people that time forgot is a very frazettian film...
Francisco...
Hah, well you'll note I specifically left Prehistoric Women off the list! Not only that, but they didn't even have dinosaurs - that is the ultimate shame for me!
ReplyDeleteIn 1 Million Years B.C., the blonde tribe didn't bother me because they were "good guys," so much as they were complacent. The brunette tribe fought tooth and nail for their lives, while the blondes enjoyed a lazy life by the beach. I will say that When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth handled that much better, IMO.