Hammer Horror: the name rings so ubiquitously in the realms of cinema, and especially around Halloween. Hearing the name, you’re likely to picture one of a number of the British studio’s releases between the 1950s and early 1970s which boasted decadent set design and an intensity of fear and playfulness. A studio of progressive storytelling compared to other offerings of the time, in Hammer’s horror subdivision could be found Technicolor horror (and its subgenres), often sexually and socially provocative, taking classical source material and turning it on its head. Seen as vulgar to the critics, audiences loved the low-budget thrills of Hammer Horror as a refreshing alternative to Hollywood, with two actors in particular becoming distinct heroes of the cycle, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.But what are the sounds behind the horror? The wonder of movie soundtracks can be put on best display in the horror genre,...
- 10/24/2022
- MUBI
Hammer Horror: Four Gothic Horror Films
Blu ray – All Region
Imprint
1971-72
Starring Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, Eric Porter
Cinematography by Kenneth Talbot, Dick Bush
Directed by Peter Sasdy, John Hough, Robert Young
In December of 1959, Hammer Studios released a bit of Yuletide cheer called The Stranglers from Bombay, a censor-baiting melodrama highlighted by severed limbs and Marie Devereux’s cleavage. The studio would spend the next decade expanding upon those themes and wore the inevitable X Certificates like badges of honor. But as an ancient reprobate said, “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough” and by the seventies the bad boys of Bray seemed positively sedate. Though the power to shock had waned, Hammer was still a thriving business—there were two Dracula films produced in 1970 alone. Still, no one could blame them for shaking things up—Anthony Hinds, the studio’s guiding light,...
Blu ray – All Region
Imprint
1971-72
Starring Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, Eric Porter
Cinematography by Kenneth Talbot, Dick Bush
Directed by Peter Sasdy, John Hough, Robert Young
In December of 1959, Hammer Studios released a bit of Yuletide cheer called The Stranglers from Bombay, a censor-baiting melodrama highlighted by severed limbs and Marie Devereux’s cleavage. The studio would spend the next decade expanding upon those themes and wore the inevitable X Certificates like badges of honor. But as an ancient reprobate said, “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough” and by the seventies the bad boys of Bray seemed positively sedate. Though the power to shock had waned, Hammer was still a thriving business—there were two Dracula films produced in 1970 alone. Still, no one could blame them for shaking things up—Anthony Hinds, the studio’s guiding light,...
- 8/28/2021
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Scream favorites Vincent Price and Christopher Lee become tangled in an African curse, grave robbing, a premature burial and a clutch of throat-slashings -- yet the two stars have no real scenes together. Steve Haberman's well-researched and insightful commentary tells the story of Gordon Hessler's first production for the English arm of American-International Pictures, a movie planned to be directed by the mysterious Michael Reeves. The Oblong Box Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1969 / Color /1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date October 20, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Uta Levka, Sally Geeson, Alister Williamson, Peter Arne. Cinematography John Coquillon Original Music Harry Robertson Written by Lawrence Huntington, Christopher Wicking Produced by Gordon Hessler, Louis M. Heyward Directed by Gordon Hessler
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
I've been doing my best to warm up to the filmic output of producer-director Gordon Hessler. I agree that Hessler's three major A.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
I've been doing my best to warm up to the filmic output of producer-director Gordon Hessler. I agree that Hessler's three major A.
- 9/29/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Now more than 50 years old, Ealing comedy The Ladykillers is one of Britain's best-loved films. So how will Graham Linehan, writer of The It Crowd and Father Ted, rework it for the theatre?
In the vaulting back room of a church off Islington's Upper Street in north London, five bad bogus men are plotting to bump off a little old lady. It is a hugely ambitious undertaking. Not only is The Ladykillers one of Britain's best-loved films, but the cast of the 1955 production – Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom and Danny Green – did include one or two actors that modern film programmes like to wrongly refer to as "legends", even if (pedantry aside) you know what they mean.
But this won't be a film; it's a stage version. And it's far from a knock-off of the film. The story's pretty much the same, of course – criminals posing as...
In the vaulting back room of a church off Islington's Upper Street in north London, five bad bogus men are plotting to bump off a little old lady. It is a hugely ambitious undertaking. Not only is The Ladykillers one of Britain's best-loved films, but the cast of the 1955 production – Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom and Danny Green – did include one or two actors that modern film programmes like to wrongly refer to as "legends", even if (pedantry aside) you know what they mean.
But this won't be a film; it's a stage version. And it's far from a knock-off of the film. The story's pretty much the same, of course – criminals posing as...
- 10/31/2011
- by Euan Ferguson
- The Guardian - Film News
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