If you're among the guys who got socks and underwear from Christmas, here's something to add to your misery. Cinema Retro UK correspondent Adrian Smith was lucky enough to get the new Hammer horror DVD game tossed in among the coal in his stocking.

Now is probably a good time to reflect on Christmas. Almost every year I hold out great hopes of getting old film-related presents, with a particular leaning towards relatively obscure horror. I imagine some of you will no doubt have felt my pain when you unwrap a promising-looking present to discover something starring Ben Stiller.

However, last year I did strike it lucky when I received the intricately structured Hammer horror-themed board game Forbidden Terrortory. Since Hammer recently came under new ownership all sorts of innovative methods have been employed to plunder the back catalogue. The film rights are spread out between many different companies due to complicated distribution deals struck at the time, so the marketing has focused instead on the Hammer brand itself. We have had jewellery, fancy-dress costumes, poker chips and poster reproductions, and now games. If any of you have managed to play Forbidden Terrortory, which involves a group of intrepid Hammer heroes including Van Helsing and Captain Kronos, hunting down Dracula and taking on other classic Hammer monsters including the mummy and Oliver Reed’s werewolf, please let me know. I’ve had it for a year now and still not figured out the rules.

Anyway, back to this year. I actually struck it lucky and got some pretty cool stuff, including the rather promising-sounding King Kong vs. Godzilla on DVD. Continuing the Hammer theme I received the new, thankfully simple interactive DVD game Vampire Terrortory. The DVD box says the game features “the voice of Countess Dracula star Ingrid Pitt”. This is somewhat ironic given that Ingrid was dubbed in Countess Dracula by another actress! Her Polish accent is suitably thick and gives the game that mittel-Europe feel that the Hammer Gothics always had. The game has Van Helsing place you on a quest to rescue the mayor’s daughter from, yes you’ve guessed it, Count Dracula. Each round consists of viewing a clip from a Hammer movie and answering questions. I was actually quite surprised at how difficult some of the questions are. I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable when it comes to Hammer, and quickly realised that if I didn’t know the answers, the family members I was playing it with, who can not really be described as Hammer fans in the slightest, would have no chance.

So all in all, it was a good Christmas for me, present-wise. I also got some new socks. Vampire Terrortory is a fun game, but I would recommend that you find other Hammer-minded friends to play it with. Fortunately the game designers had the foresight to include a single-player option, so those lonely old horror fans like me can play it alone. I’ll probably play it after a viewing of King Kong vs. Godzilla, which I’m also fairly sure I’ll be viewing unaccompanied…

So from this isolated Cinema Retro correspondent, Happy New Year, and thank goodness that we have the Internet to bring us together!