HAMMER HORROR

By Tom and Vicki

ORIGINS OF HAMMER

British Company.

Founded in 1934.

Most famous for films produced from the mid

50’s to the 70’s.

First film was produced for television as a

live series: The Quatermass Xperiment (1953)

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Starred Peter Cushing and Dr Frankenstein

and Christopher Lee as his monster.

Was a remake of 1933 Universal production

Son of Frankenstein.

BBFC were very unsure of it as it was going

to show horror and gore in “vivid colour”.

It was a smash hit both in the UK and

America.

Frankenstein Trailer.

DRACULA

Starred Peter Cushing ,

Christopher Lee and Michael

Gough.

Dracula was an enormous

success, breaking box-office

records in the UK, the United

States and across the world.

Dracula Trailer

STARS TO EMERGE

There would be 3 major stars to

emerge from Hammer Horror’s films,

the stars were:

Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin

in Star Wars)

Michael Gough (Alfred in Batman)

Christopher Lee (Saruman in Lord

of The Rings)

CHANGES

During the later 60’s, Hammer

Horror struggled to compete with

new American horror, particularly

George A Romero’s, Night of the

Living Dead.

American Horror had a bigger

budget, so they could be more gory

and violent.

HAMMER IN THE 80’S

Two TV series “Hammer House of Horror”

were broadcast both in the UK and America

(known as Fox Mystery Theatre in the US).

HAMMER IN THE 21’ST CENTURY

In 2010, Hammer, in partnership with

Overture Films and Relativity Media,

remade Swedish Film “Let the Right

One In”

Most recently it has been announced

that Hammer are working with Alliance

films to do an adaptation of “The

Woman in Black”, set for release in

2012. The film will star Daniel Radcliff.

FIN