''Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense'' is a short-lived (one season)
anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors.
In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically cate ...
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
series produced in Britain in 1984/85 by
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is a British film production company based in London. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic horror and fantasy films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Many of these involve class ...
. Though similar in format to the 1980 series '' Hammer House of Horror'', the ''Mystery and Suspense'' series had feature-length episodes, usually running around 70 minutes without commercials.
The series was a co-production by
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is a British film production company based in London. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic horror and fantasy films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Many of these involve class ...
with
20th Century Fox Television
20th Television (formerly 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century-Fox Television, and TCF Television Productions, Inc.) is an American television production company that is a division of Disney Television Studios, part of The Walt Disney Co ...
(as was the 1968 anthology series ''
Journey to the Unknown
''Journey to the Unknown'' is a British anthology television series, produced by Hammer Film Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. It aired on ABC from September 26, 1968, to January 30, 1969.ITV in 1984, though it was shown in different timeslots (and a different running order) throughout the various ITV regions.
Episodes
Two of the episodes, "A Distant Scream" and "In Possession", were remakes of stories that had been made for the fourth season of the BBC anthology series ''
Out of the Unknown
''Out of the Unknown'' is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Most episodes of the first three series were a dramatisation of a science fi ...
'', originally titled "The Last Witness" and "The Uninvited". The master videotapes for both of the original teleplays were
wiped
Lost television broadcasts are mostly those early television programs which cannot be accounted for in studio archives (or in personal archives) usually because of deliberate destruction or neglect.
Common reasons for loss
A significant prop ...
by the corporation during the 1970s and no copies are known to exist, leaving only still photographs, a short video clip of "The Last Witness" and a complete audio recording of "The Uninvited" surviving. "A Distant Scream" and "In Possession" are effectively the only way these two stories can be viewed in a full audio-visual format.
Home media
The series was released as a six-DVD set in the UK in 2006, currently out-of-print. In Germany, a four-DVD set was released in March 2018 under the title ''Vorsicht, Hochspannung!''.