The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

The Curse of Frankenstein is the film that launched Hammer Horror on to the world, and there is a deliberate attempt to distance this film from both the Mary Shelley book and James Whale's iconic Universal version and create something unique. There are no pursuits to the North Pole, no fairy-tale castles, and no hunchback assistants, but the basic premise of the precociously talented scientist obsessed with creating a fully formed human being, and then being forced to deal with the consequences of achieving this remains intact.

Jimmy Sangster's script makes Victor Frankenstein the focus of the story but makes no attempt to portray him in a sympathetic light. This is a man who does not think in terms of good and evil, only in terms of getting his work done, and as a scientist who has no concept of the consequences of his actions. Peter Cushing brings a mix of charm, coldness, and nervous energy, to the role, creating a character who is determined, dangerous and unpredictable. While courting his cousin Elizabeth he carries on an affair with his maid, and when the latter finds she is pregnant, it is fascinating to watch the difference in his attitude to creating life in the laboratory and creating life with a human being.

Christopher Lee gives a similarly distinctive performance as the Monster. When he is discovered chained to a wall by his creator, his first instinct is to cover his face, still showing traces of vanity and humanity. The end result is a complex creature who is both a mindless killer, and a slightly pathetic pawn of somebody else's ambitions.

With two such dominating characters (and actors), it is difficult for the supporting cast to get a look in. Hazel Court does her best with the underwritten part of Elizabeth, but Frankenstein's increasingly moral and self-righteous mentor Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) is just irritating.

When placed in the context of the Hammer Horror story, what amazes in retrospect is how fully formed the style seems already, with so many of the tropes, such as the colour, the gore, the actors, the urgent, dramatic music, and the Gothic European settings already in place.




The Curse Of Frankenstein / Original Theatrical... by AndersEben

Island of Terror (1966)

Island of Terror (1966)

Island of Terror is a fast paced, imaginative and at times, wonderfully cheesy slice of British sci-fi horror, straddling the twin sub genres of "science run amok" and "trapped on a remote British island". Despite the presence of director Terence Fisher and star Peter Cushing, it is not a Hammer film, and feels if anything like a precursor 1970s era Dr Who.

On a remote island the police constable makes a grisly find - the corpse of a local farmer, but without a single bone in his body. The local doctor is stumped, so travels to the mainland to seek help from top London pathologist Dr. Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing) and bone disease expert Dr. David West. Back on the island they find more boneless bodies - and a mysterious lab where a scientist was working on a cure for cancer. Has this got some link to the strange creatures responsible for the horrifying deaths? But with all transport and communication to the island cut off, will any of them make it off alive?

Island of Terror was very obviously knocked out cheaply and quickly, but the film-makers respond to it with typical British Gusto. Firstly, by cheerfully ignoring the ridiculous rubber monsters causing the terror, and secondly by focussing more on the script. Being trapped in a place is a classic horror trope, and the script does set up, albeit through portentous dialogue, plenty of reasons why they can not get away. The writers are also not afraid to throw in twists and shocks, and bump off important and likeable characters. Granted some of the attitudes have not dated well. Toni Merrill, Dr West's girlfriend exists purely, as the daughter of a wealthy man with a helicopter, to give the men quick transport back to the island. After that she spends most of her time screaming and needing to be rescued. The slightly patronising attitudes of the London lot to the island folk looks a little cringeworthy too, especially when it was big city slicker scientists that started the whole crisis in the first place.

Some of the special effects, such as the boneless corpses or an dismembering a hand are surprisingly gruesome and shocking for a 1960s film. Others, particularly the creatures themselves, are just awful. They look like rubber shells stuffed with noodles, and coupled with the weird squeaky electronic noises they make, could come straight out of 1970s Dr Who. Cushing, as usual, plays it admirably straight, and brings some dignity to these scenes.

In fact, with some minor tweaks, the whole thing could play as a 70s Dr Who story, with Jon Pertwee in the Cushing role, and similar ideas of science gone bad and threatening the world were explored in stories of that era, such as The Green Death and The Seeds of Doom. Plus, there is a perpetually screaming woman who always needs to be rescued.

The film finishes on a speech defending the scientist whose work caused all the problems, a sort of, "okay, it went bad, but at least he meant well". This is quickly followed by a twist ending along the lines of "at least it's not happening anywhere else", followed by a cut to a lab in Japan, where.... well, I'm sure you can guess.

Sword of Sherwood Forest (1961)

A lesser-known entry in the Hammer studios back catalogue, Sword of Sherwood Forest is a slight and only sporadically entertaining take on the Robin Hood legend. The plot sees the Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Cushing) trying to get control of the estate of a nobleman who has been killed fight in the Crusades. When the Archbishop of Canterbury intervenes, the Sheriff plots to have him assassinated. Meanwhile Robin finds himself falling for the mysterious Marion - despite her links to the Sheriff.

Unfortunately, the story is part of the problem, not being substantial enough to sustain a whole film, instead feeling more suited to an episode of the Robin Hood TV show of which Green was the star. Green himself is another part of the problem, seeming a little long in the tooth, lacking the exuberant energy of Errol Flynn.

Thankfully his co-stars pick up some of the slack, with Peter Cushing oily but charismatic as the evil Sheriff and Niall MacGinnis (who played the creepy Julian Karswell in Night of the Demon) as a fun and funny Friar Tuck. Look fast for Desmond “Q” Llewelyn and a virtually unrecognizable Oliver Reed, although as the former has no lines and the latter is dubbed, neither of them make much of an impact

The other asset the film has is legendary Hammer director Terence Fisher who makes the most of the beautiful Irish countryside locations and ensures the sword fights and horse chases are fast and exciting, even if the script is not. Sword of Sherwood Forest was not the only time Hammer adapted a TV show, but unlike with the other examples such as the Quatermass series, here they failed to develop it into something cinematic.

Dracula (1958)

It is always good to go back to an old film favourite and find something new, and a recent viewing of the Hammer Studios 1958 take on Dracula provided just such an opportunity.

Made nearly 30 years after Tod Browning's equally ground-breaking,iconic and financially successful Universal version starring Bela Lugosi, director Terence Fisher crafts something just as distinctive and unique, helped both by a first rate cast and a punchy script by Jimmy Sangster, one that never forgets that the audience wants to be entertained. Sangster takes the basic premise from the Bram Stoker novel but tinkers with the story quite significantly, stripping the plot to the bare essentials, moving the action from England to Germany, changing some characters (Jonathan Harker is upgraded to Van Helsing’s undercover sidekick, and is fully aware of the Count’s night-time activities), and playing down or eliminating others, such as Dr Seward. 

The main theme of Good v Evil is left in place, along with the absolutist, black and white definitions of each, and this film taps into many of the tropes associated with vampires and Hammer films, such as the gloomy castles, frightened villagers and lush Gothic ambience. However, despite the changes from the source material, the underlying themes are still in place too, and as any media studies student knows, vampires are about two things - addiction and sex. The former is undisguised, with the vampires depicted as slaves to their craving for blood, and Van Helsing explicitly comparing it to narcotic dependence.

Sex is there too, in an overt rather than explicit manner. The main source of the sex is the Count himself, with Christopher Lee lighting up the screen as six feet five inches of charm, testosterone and magnetism. Of course, if you go with the "neck biting as intercourse" theory, he is not only seducing other men's wives, but other men too, (in the climax between Van Helsing and Dracula, after their initial skirmish, look quickly and you can see Van Helsing checking his neck to make sure he hasn’t been penetrated by the Count). This imagery gives a queasy undertone to the sight of Harker’s fiancée Lucy, turned into a vampire by Dracula, trying to abduct her niece and seduce her brother,.

The lurid sexual tone is backed by an equally violent one, albeit tamer than we see nowadays, with lashings of very red blood, and a new slightly extended gruesome sight of Dracula disintegrating, thanks to some recently rescued footage taken from a previously lost Japanese version of the film.

The other thing that I had not properly appreciated is the energy, intensity and swashbuckling demeanour of Peter Cushing. His version of Van Helsing is a world away from the elderly, more academic characterisation by Edward Van Sloan in the Browning film, and the final battle between him and the Count could almost have come right out of an Errol Flynn film.