Hammer Horror - A Brief Moment in British Cinematic Creativity
A Thing of Unspeakable Horror: A History of Hammer Horror Films (2007) Sinclair McKay Hammer Films may have been founded in 1935 but it only produced anything of consequence, other than the first of its Quatermass series in 1955, when Peter Cushing emerged as Baron Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). Until its demise (in its original incarnation) as film maker in 1979 (although its story really ends in 1974 to all intents and purposes), it became known for a peculiarly English Gothic take on themes originally developed by Universal Studios in the 1930s but derived from English literary models. There was Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy as well as a homegrown Quatermass series and Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard and Dennis Wheatley adaptations ( Hound of the Baskervilles , She and The Devil Rides Out respectively). Highly variable in quality, its keynote stars were Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee with Ingrid Pitt as perhaps the best known female st...