Details

July 1588: In the English Channel the British Fleet has been battling for two days against the mighty Spanish Armada. Badly damaged, with half their crews killed, the ships of Spain battle their way on up the Channel. And in the thickest part of the fighting is one of the smallest Spanish ships - the licensed privateer 'Diablo'. Robeles, the pirate captain of the Diablo, puts in for repairs and convinces the local villagers that the English fleet has been defeated...

Despite not being from their usual horror genre, The Devil Ship Pirates contains all the trademark Hammer themes: the weak-minded local landowner, subdued villagers led to salvation by a headstrong youngster and not forgetting the obligatory buxom wench!{

This film marks the Hammer debut of Assistant Director Bert Batt whose future credits would include Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, while Director Don Sharp would make two further films for Hammer - The Kiss Of The Vampire and Rasputin The Mad Monk. The Devil Ship Pirates also stars Hammer regulars Suzan Farmer and Michael Ripper.

Synopsis

Badly damaged during an engagement in the English Channel with the British fleet, Captain Robeles (Lee) decides to sail his small privateer Diablo to a remote coastal village in England for supplies and repairs. Informing the villagers that the Spanish Armada has defeated the British Navy, the ruthless Robeles and his band of pirates terrorise the village into submission, abusing the women and plundering their homes. When some of the women are taken hostage the villages can take the abuse no longer and revolt, determined to rid themselves of the pirates at any cost.

A bastion of British film-making for decades, Hammer films helped to launch the careers of such celebrated British actors as Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Bela Lugosi, Oliver Reed and of course Christopher Lee himself.

Over the last three years Warner Home Video has released fourteen Hammer productions on DVD including Rasputin The Mad Monk, The Curse Of Frankenstein and Quatermass And The Pit.