Hammer Time

Hidey-ho, fellow horror nuts. Welcome to yet another WTFHM!

So, you might remember last week that the next bunch of movies in my line of sight within the Ferndale Area District Library’s illustrious collection had to do with the Hammer Films. On the off chance that there might be a Hammer film that I haven’t seen, I checked out the two disc collection so to review for this week. So, how did that work out, you ask?




Yeah, I’ve seen every one we have. Thanks Thriller Double Feature!




Now, normally, this is where I’d be moving on to the next movie in the series, but I thought, meh, why not do a Hammer Appreciation blog instead?




So, this week we’re going to cover the Hammer Movies, starring, like, all the best horror movie actors in the 60s and 70s. Hammer movies have a distinctive quality to them that you can pretty much spot at a glance. So, in honor of that, let’s do an At A Glance guide for all you newbies out there going “What’s a Hammer Movie?”. Welcome to today’s special segment entitled:

How Do I Know if I’m watching a Hammer Movie?

The Hammer Acting Crew

Here’s probably the best way to spot a Hammer Horror film from back in the day is whether or not the following actors are in it:

Christopher Lee

Peter Cushing

Oliver Reed

Bella Lugosi

Barbara Shelley

Veronica Carlson

David Prowse

Michael Ripper



Michael Ripper, by the way, is probably the one guy you’d see all the dang time. I’m pretty sure he was in all of them.

And those, of course, aren’t all the common actors, but those are the ones I recall seeing the most.

 

And before you get at me about forgetting Our Lord and Savior Vincent Price, contrary to popular belief, he never did any Hammer movies. He was a Roger Corman guy.

Moving on:

Everything is in British

Okay, so, you have to keep in mind that the majority of the old school Hammer horror movie productions jumped off around the time when most of the world was obsessed with the British. Like the Beatles and The Rolling Stones were hot and Twiggy was the big It Girl in Fashion and everything was in that weird high definition swirly tie-dyed color scheme.

All that was working out pretty good considering Hammer Productions was based out of, you guessed it, London. And at some point, somebody said, hey, you know what’d really be far out? Horror movies!

Yeah, I don’t really get the connection either, but it worked out for them. So, yeah, everything in a Hammer movie is in British, even if the movie takes place in Spain. I’m looking at you Oliver Reed.

 The Goth Look

So, I have no citations to back me up on this, but I’m pretty sure the Hammer films started this trend:

Or maybe even this trend:




However it started, Hammer Horror movies became synonymous with horror movies that took place back during the time of horse and carriages and floor-length black and red velvet gowns and dark paisley wallpaper and heavy curtains and canopy beds with drapes and so forth. It was commonplace in a Hammer movie to live in a castle in a high necked gown with lots of pearls.

Vampires are a Thing

All and all, the Hammer Horror movies ran for, like, a decade and you would think with that kind of run there would be about a billion new and interesting story ideas that came out of it.




Well...interesting, sure, but they were all pretty much vampire movies. I mean, there were werewolves and mummies and all the classic monster mash things happening, but really, Hammer Horror films were mostly vampire movies. Dracula, The Horror of Dracula, The Brides of Dracula, Kiss of the Vampire, the list just goes on and on and on.



In fact, Christopher Lee played Dracula, like, nine or ten times...which is a lot when you think about it. You know how when you think of Wolverine, you can only picture Hugh Jackman playing him? That’s what it was like for Lee in Hammer’s heyday.

But that vampire thing leads me to…

Bloodshot eyes are also a thing

Closeups of well-lit monster eyes are pretty commonplace and they’re always bloodshot. I never looked into it, but I’ve always wondered if actors had to stay awake for days at a time to achieve the bloodshot thing, but worked pretty well. No matter how handsome or rich he was when he was human when you saw this:




You knew you didn’t want those kinds of problems.

And lastly…

The Colors, The Colors!

Hammer horror (well, all the Hammer films) were known for their bright and vivid color scheme. Everything kind of looks like somebody turned the gamma up on the screen. All the blondes and REALLY golden blonde and the redheads all have red/orange hair. And blood looks more like candy apple red paint than blood.




In a way, though, that’s part of the fun of it. Most Hammer Horror movies, you can watch with Granny without a lecture about how violent movies are bad for you. Seriously, nothing’s all that gruesome when it’s colored like a Bugs Bunny Cartoon after all.





So, next week we’re getting right back in the game with The Haunting of Alice D, which I really hope I haven’t seen before. I’ve seen a lot of movies that started off with “The Haunting of Blah, Blah, Blah.”

See you next time!

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