The Shadow of the Cat (1961)
The Shadow of the Cat is a breezy seventy minutes. It's nothing more than a slice of entertaining nonsense, but that's what I exactly wanted from it.
Hell Is a City (1960)
Some of the best Hammer productions sit outside their signature genre of period horror. What Hammer did as well as - or perhaps even better than - colourful Gothic horror was stark, stripped back, black and white crime-thrillers.
Twins of Evil (1971)
There’s a school of thought that Hammer Film Productions were washed up by the late 60s. I love Hammer’s work from the late 50s and early 60s as much as any Hammer nut, but their latter day efforts entertain me just as much. In the late 60s, Hammer films started to lay on a significant...
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973)
Without a doubt, Hammer’s most consistent and successful franchise was their series of Frankenstein movies. Of their seven Frankenstein films – beginning with The Curse of Frankenstein in 1958 and finishing in 1973 with the focus of this article – only a single entry is bad. Unfortunately, that one bad film, The Evil of Frankenstein...
Greasepaint and Gore: The Hammer Monsters of Roy Ashton
I, like most horror nuts, am fascinated with the practical special effects process that goes into creating monsters, gore and general madness. So, unsurprisingly, I got pretty damned excited when, while strolling through the library of the school I work at, I stumbled across this: The centred image from one of my favourite Hammer...
Cash on Demand (1962)
Hammer Film Productions are mostly known for their horror films; monster films of the likes of Horror of Dracula (1958) and The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). In this regular article, From the Hammer Vaults, I’ve discussed Hammer’s foray into war films, but perhaps their most consistently successful deviation from horror was their efforts in the...
Michael Ripper’s yellow-faced humilation
I was planning to write about Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974) in this From the Hammer Vaults entry, but unfortunately I simply have not had the time. Instead I will share with you a humiliating death scene courtesy of Hammer’s The Camp on Blood Island (1958). The last Hammer article I wrote about...
The Secret of Blood Island (1964)
THE SECRET OF BLOOD ISLAND 1964, Quentin Lawrence Hammer Film Productions produced a handful of war movies that quietly coexisted alongside their more boisterous horror output. These films were a strange lot. The two most easily available efforts are The Camp on Blood Island (1958) and Yesterday’s Enemy (1959). Despite both being directed by Val...
The Many Faces of Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Lee is awesome. I often say he is the greatest man in the world… like ever. People think I’m joking. I’m not. Lee is the Dark Prince of Hammer; Hammer’s own Boris Karloff. He’s played all the great monsters: Dracula, the Mummy and Frankenstein’s Monster. Yet, as witnessed in Hammers like The...
The Stranglers of Bombay (1959)
When you think of Hammer Film Productions, things that may spring to mind are Dracula or Frankenstein. You think of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Michael Ripper. Images of decadent locations, lavish costumes and tasteful stories appear. You might even be reminded of the cheese of productions like One Million Years B.C. (1966) or the...
