Film Trust Blog

Hammer: The Studio that Dripped Blood, after two decades of cranking out middle-of-the-road movies to fill the wrong half of double bills, finally hit upon a winning formula: reinventing the Hollywood horrors of the 1930s with grand guignols photographed in splashy, glorious Eastmancolor. Big campy slabs of genre entertainment, Hammer horrors have become synonymous with raw gaudiness and jerry-built special effects, all wrapped up in red velvet and crimson gore.

The Cambridge Film Festival’s screenings of the BFI National Archive’s new restoration of Hammer’s 1958 DRACULA, are particularly timely: 2007 is the 50th anniversary of the Hammer Horror cycle. Christopher Lee’s first outing as the eponymous Count is a breathlessly-paced, pulpy gem. The billboards used for the film’s London premiere warned: “Every night he rises from his coffin-bed to seek the soft flesh, the warm blood he needs to keep himself alive! Who will be his bride tonight? Don’t dare see it alone!” The leery tone is typical - so many exclamation marks, so little time. Witness the birth of an icon as Lee’s bloodsucker, all insidious charm and elegant hauteur, glides down a vast staircase for his first close-up: “I am Dracula, and I welcome you to my house.”

The house that Hammer built was full of juddering papier mache monsters; rustic village inns with spooky locals falling silent; cagey landlords intoning: “We don’t get many travelers in these parts…” The studio has left a vast back-catalogue, including perennials like THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and THE MUMMY; as well as lesser-known trash-fests like LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES (Hammer does kung fu) or THE WITCHES (Hammer does mass orgy dance numbers).

These days we reside in Pointless Horror Remake Land: an Abercrombie and Fitch photoshoot with more viscera. That’s when we’re not being subjected to the yawnsome tawdriness from Eli Roth et al. Frightfest, which oozed out of the Picturehouse this past weekend, proved there’s life in the genre yet; but the B-movies - those wacky, wayward cousins of the mainstream - just aren’t being made any more. Nostalgia covers a multitude of sins, but the recent Grindhouse retread completely misses the point, drowning in cash and postmodernism instead of old-fashioned slime and shadows. Still, there’s hope, of a sort: the man who brought us Big Brother has recently bought the Hammer label, pledging to reinvigorate the brand with a new wave of horror films. Be afraid, be kind of afraid.

Laura Smith