REVISED 2012

TIGON

Tigon British Film Productions or Tigon was a film production and distribution company founded by Tony Tenser in 1966. It is most famous for its horror films, particularly Witchfinder General(directed by Michael Reeves, 1968) and Blood on Satan's Claw (directed by Piers Haggard, 1971). Other Tigon films include The Creeping Flesh, The Sorcerers and Doomwatch(1972), based on the TV series of the same name.

Tigon was a small British film company active from the mid-60s to the mid-70s. Although they produced films in all kinds of (exploitation) genres, they’re best known for their horror films. Tigon was run by Tony Tenser, whose sole interest was making as much money as possible. In contrast to Amicus, Hammer’s other main rival, Tigon generally gave its film-makers a great deal of artistic freedom, and a few of the horrors they made are absolutely outstanding. An awful lot of the others, of course, are complete rubbish.

Michael Reeves:Early career

Reeves was born in Sutton, Surrey,and grew up in Suffolk, whose landscape made a deep impression on his masterpiece, WitchfinderGeneral. His father died when he was young, but his mother was a devoted single parent. As a child he began making short films, some of which starred his lifelong friend, the actor Ian Ogilvy. As a boarder at Radley College he obsessively broke bounds to attend the cinema, and was utterly single minded about his ambition to work in film. Upon leaving school he turned up on the doorstep of his favourite director, Don Siegel, who promptly employed him as an assistant. Subsequently he worked in Italy, where he eventually directed La Sorella di Satana (1965; also called Revenge of the Blood Beast). The film was made very cheaply, and is remembered for an appearance by horror icon Barbara Steele, of whose time Reeves was given four days. Back in London in 1966, Reeves made The Sorcerers, starring Boris Karloff, an effective 'swinging London' picture with supernatural overtones. Both films starred Ian Ogilvy.

Witchfinder General

It's for his third and final movie, Witchfinder General, that Reeves is best remembered. He was only 24 years old when he co-wrote and directed it, but it is often called one of the greatest horror films that GB has produced. Made on a very modest budget in East Anglia and adapted from the novel by Ronald Bassett, Witchfinder General tells the story of Matthew Hopkins, an infamous lawyer-turned-witch-hunter who blackmails and murders his way across the countryside. Reeves imbues the film with a powerful sense of the impossibility of behaving morally in a society whose conventions have broken down, and though it is by no means free of the conventions of low-budget horror, it stands as a notably powerful and evocative film.Reeves wanted actor Donald Pleasence to play the title role, but American International Pictures, the film's co-financiers, insisted on using their resident horror star Vincent Price instead. This caused friction between the veteran actor and the young director. A famous story is told of how Reeves won Price's respect: Reeves was constantly telling Price to tone down his over-acting, and to play the role more seriously. Price eventually cracked, snapping: "Young man, I have made eighty-four films. What have you done?" Reeves replied: "I've made two good ones." WitchfinderGeneral was released to generally favourable reviews.

Although the '60s British horror film is most closely identified with Hammer, other companies including Amicus were involved in the genre. The firm was set up by two Americans, producer/writer Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg, and was based at Shepperton Studios.Amicus did make films in other genres including the musical It's Trad, Dad! (d. Richard Lester, 1962), but the company specialised in the horror film, beginning in 1960 with City of the Dead (d. John Llewellyn Moxey).

Many of Hammer's personnel worked for AMICUS including Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and director Freddie Francis, and Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, wrote a number of their films. The studio's distinctive contribution to the genre was the anthology film such as Dr Terror's House of Horrors(d. Freddie Francis, 1964), The House that Dripped Blood (d. Peter Duffell, 1970), and Tales from the Crypt (d. Francis, 1972).