It's Hammer Time!!

HAMMER HORROR MONTH!

In celebration of Halloween, I am going to focus on the films of the famous Hammer Studios, a British film studio that revived the classic movie monsters to great success in the 1950s.

This is going to be fun for me because I've only seen a few of these films all the way through. I caught them in snippets and I certainly know them by their reputation (both good and bad). But I have always wanted to see them, and thanks to TCM, I will finally be able to! Throughout October, they will be playing several of them on Friday nights.

So what's the big deal about Hammer Films? In the 1950s, while Hollywood was busy attacking audiences with aliens, UFOs, and giant ants, the famous monsters of lore had been reduced to a joke. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man only appeared in films if they were parodies. Their effectiveness had been played out, or so the conventional wisdom said. Of course, Hollywood was wrong (big surprise).

Starting with the Curse of Frankenstein, Hammer revived the fortunes of these old school baddies and created an incredibly successful series of films for the next two decades. One of the innovations was a no-brainer. Color! Hammer was known for their vivid color palattes - particularly the color red. Blood flows freely in these flicks - to actually see blood on the lips of a vampire after feeding was a HUGE shock in 1958. The Hammer Films also added an element of sexuality to horror - granted, beautiful women have been plagued by monsters since silent films. But to have these women be so overtly va-va-voomy was a Hammer innovation. The sex and the gore are very tame compared to today, even laughably tame, but for the 1950s it was quite risque and contributed to the huge business at the box office.

The other thing Hammer Films gave us were two new horror icons - enter Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. We all know Christopher Lee as the evil wizard Saruman in Lord of the Rings, but he was a huge horror star in the 1950s and 60s, playing druids, warlocks, mummies, Frankenstein's monster and most famously, Count Dracula, a role he played 12 times! We all know Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin, the old commander of the Death Star and the only guy in Star Wars who can boss Darth Vader around. These two appeared in countless Hammer movies and are true icons of the genre.

On the negative side, these movies were pretty cheaply made and you can usually tell. The pacing can be slow and lots of the acting outside of Cushing and Lee can be...well, let's say there are times when they should have focused less on the va va voom and more on the talent. But I have a feeling these problems probably affected the latter flicks more than the earlier ones. I guess we'll find out!!

So this is month is going to be a fun one. I may sneak in a review of something else, particularly if it is a new movie (I am probably going to see The Social Network and will want to review that). But the theme of the month is Hammer. It's Hammer Time!!!!