Meanwhile, much of the industry had taken note of Hammer’s successes and forged a similarly gothic path. ![]() The trajectory of Hammer’s vampire films mirrored Hammer’s general output as the studio ventured further and further away from the unique brand of gothic horror that had made them so successful in their early years. Combining elements from multiple unused scripts and discarding continuity altogether, Kiss excises stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and embraces the morally ambiguous occult as opposed to the anachronistic morality tale presented in Terence Fisher’s original film. Immediately following the success of Brides, Hammer started work on a third Dracula film, Kiss of the Vampire (1963). In the months that followed its release, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster submitted Disciple of Dracula, a story focused on one of the Count’s progenies, which went on to shed the title villain from its runtime and become Brides of Dracula (1960). This month we dissect Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966).ĭracula (1958) had been a massive hit for Hammer, helping to establish the studio’s footprint as a new, defining voice in horror, so it was a foregone conclusion that the creatives in charge would quickly begin work on a second outing. It’s time to highlight the power, impact and influence of Hammer Studios and ignite new conversation surrounding some forgotten classics. Over the course of this column, I will focus on these releases, gauging the films in context of the Hammer Studio story as well as analyzing the merits of the release. In late 2018, Shout Factory’s Scream Factory line began to focus on bringing Hammer’s titles to disc in the US, finally making many of the studio’s underseen gems available in packages that offered great visuals as well as insightful accompanying features. Spanning a library housing over 300 films, Hammer Studios is a key part of horror history that until recently has been far too difficult to track down. On top of ushering the famous monsters of Universal’s horror heyday back into the public eye, resurrecting the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy in vivid color, the studio invited performers like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt and so many more to step into the genre limelight. ![]() While Hammer Studios has been in business since 1934, it was between 19 that it towered as one of the premier sources of edgy, gothic horror.
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