FilmFlicking

LEEMO · Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:17 pm Post subject: Hammer Horror

Hello everyone! I am new to this site and need as much feedback as possible relating to your interests,desires,hates and general feelings towards Hammer Horror?!

I am doing a course at University which involves me to focus on Hammer Horror and I need to know how people feel about the Production of the films and the subjectification of women within these films!

Any infomation or links are much appreciated!

ps! Please feel free to answer this final question- Why do you feel women are sunjected to so much violence in the Hasmmer Horror films....if so why?!

Thanks all...Leemo

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

Hi LEEMO

Welcome to FilmFlicking.

..We hope you enjoy here....I started a post for you over on the 'hello' section just to say hi and to give the others a chance to say Welcome aswell

I loved the Hammer movies as a kid and still would watch many if I seen them on particularly the old Dracula, Werewolf and Frankenstein ones even though many consider them dated now...
I'd probably need more time to think about the rest of it and reply but I definitely don't feel there was any more subjectifation in Hammer movies than there was in any other types of films of the day... In fact you could argue that in later films women were quite empowered and often the instigator of violence towards others....I will think further about this
though and lets see what others think too.....
_________________

Catnapper · Site Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 6149

I haven't seen too many Hammer Horror films and the ones I've seen don't feature the subjectification of women! I think that came about more in the late 60s and 70s with films like Lust for a Vampire and other such titillating titles (pardon the pun!) and were a sign of the times.

"Why are women subjected to so much violence in the films?"......I should imagine it was the idea of women being seen as the weaker sex and not being able to fight back in the same way as men do.......though that perception has altered more over time and through films such as Alien that featured a strong female lead.

If you look up Hammer Film Productions on Wikipedia there are lots of links and info about the Hammer films.

There are more links here too......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A710272

LEEMO · Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 11:46 pm Post subject: Many Thanks!

Hey! Thanks very much for your reply to my post! It is much appreciated and will help towards my UNI project! If you feel that you can come up with more infomation for me? or know anyone who would be interested in sharing some views, keep them coming! All is appreciated thoroughly.Leemo

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

No Probs Leemo.....

_________________

JohnG · Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:10 am Post subject:

Hi Leemo
I've just finished my first year of a media degree, and one of the modules was Film Theory. I chose to do a case study on Hammer Film Studios for the module. Within it I touched upon the sexual exploitation elements. Here is the case study in full with references... Hope it helps or at least hope you enjoy it.

Hammer Productions

Introduction

During the 1950s and up until the 1970s, Hammer film productions were responsible for a series of gothic horror films often referred to as ‘Hammer Horror’. During the studio’s most successful years, Hammer films dominated the horror film market and enjoyed worldwide distribution and financial success both in Britain and the United States (Anon 2007). The films that the studio produced were often explicit in content, for the time and, therefore, caused great controversy; the British press used terms such as ‘repulsive’ and ‘sadistic’ to describe certain Hammer productions (Newman 2007). Despite this, Hammer studios became one of the most successful independent British production companies with a legacy that inspires many genre films of today as well as many eminent directors and film makers (Lee 1997, cited in Hearn & Barnes 2007).
The Beginning
Hammer Productions Limited was formed in November of 1934 by William (Hammer) Hinds, an entrepreneur and vaudeville entertainer (Hearn & Barnes 2007). In 1935, Hinds formed a partnership with Spanish immigrant Enrique Carreras and together they formed a film distribution company called Exclusive Films Limited, of which, Hammer films was a production subsidiary (Newman 2007).
Hammers first production was an hour long comedy entitled The Public Life of Henry the Ninth. This was followed by their first full-length feature film, The Mystery of the Marie Celeste, featuring Universal studio’s star of Dracula Bela Lugosi (Hearn & Barnes 2007). Over the next two decades, Hammer films produced several B grade films (Anon2 2007). During this period, Exclusive/Hammer films became associated with Hollywood. Due to the Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 an American main feature had to play with a second feature of British origin so as to safeguard the industry against the demand of American products, which were seen as more popular (Hearn & Barnes 2007). Although the American studios made these ‘British’ second features themselves in order to retain the box office receipts, the ‘quota’ law stated that the films had to be made by a British associate. Hammer films became the British associates of Twentieth Century Fox (Hearn & Barnes 2007).
Because of this association with Hollywood, Hammer films had the rights to include fading American film stars, who were still recognisable, in their British productions so as to make the films more accessible to an American audience (Anon2 2007).
By the mid 1950s, however, Hammer films had begun to encounter problems. The American distributor’s interest with Hammer was waning and the introduction of colour, cinemascope and, more importantly, commercial television was resulting in a reduction of audience numbers (Hearn & Barnes 2007).
Redefining a Genre
By 1955, Hammer films had been taken over by James Carreras (son of Enrique) and Anthony Hinds (son of William), together they both set about putting Hammer films back on the map, and they started by looking at the horror genre (Alexander 2007). Through the 1950s, traditional horror – Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy – was seen as old fashioned, for kids or silly (Newman 2007). Hammer began to look at the potential of the popular American ‘Creature Features’, films that had paranoid overtones and included aliens, body snatchers, murderous robots and giant radioactive creatures (Newman 2007).
They bought the film rights to the popular BBC Sci-Fi horror television serial The Quatermass Xperiment. The film was released on August 25th 1955 and was given an X certificate due to its lurid content, which contrasts it against the television series which had a much more sedate content (Hearn & Barnes 2007). According to Hearn & Barnes (2007) this was in order for the studio to “win audiences back with X-rated material they wouldn’t find on either television channel”.
Quatermass gave Hammer a much needed commercial hit and also brought them to the attention of major film distributors such as United artists, Warner Bros. and Columbia (Hearn & Barnes). Hammer now set out to produce films of the horror genre aimed at adult audiences with explicit content including gore and sexuality, whilst taking the story seriously and delivering quality productions with quality acting (Newman 2007).
In 1957 Hammer released The Curse of Frankenstein. This film is seen as the first of the British gothic horror films that Hammer will always be associated with and the one that spawned the phrase ‘Hammer Horror’ (Hearn & Barnes). The original idea was to cast Boris Karloff – Universal’s Frankenstein star of the 30s – as the monster (Hearn & Barnes 2007), however, when Universal became aware of these plans they informed Hammer that if any detail from Universal’s version of the movie that was not in the Mary Shelley novel was copied, they would sue Hammer studios (Anon* 2007). This included the distinct make up (flat head, bolts through the neck) of the original film, which was copyrighted (Newman 2007).
The film saw the emergence of two British actors who would become icons of the British gothic horror genre: Peter Cushing as Baron Victor Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the Monster.
The film told the story from the perspective of the Baron, who has been condemned to death for murder. He is recalling the story to a priest. This put forward the idea that the Baron was responsible for the murders and the monster was a figment of his imagination (Anon3 2007). The film was released with an X certificate despite concerns from the BBFC, regarding the script’s “preoccupation with horror and gruesome detail that goes far beyond what we are accustomed” (Anon 2007) and their suggestion that the script be revised with the “overall unpleasantness mitigated” (Anon 2007). According to Kinsey (2007), director Terence Fisher took a more liberal approach to the story, focusing on the lurid and sexual aspects. Being the first Hammer film to be shot in colour (Alexander 2007), it allowed the audience to experience the mise en scene like never before. The elegance of the 19th century sets and costumes, the colourful potions bubbling in the laboratory and of course the blood and gore (Newman 2007).
Critics were offended and appalled by it (Newman 2007), conservative sections of the British press called it ‘salacious’, ‘repulsive’ and ‘for sadists only’ (Hearn & Barnes 2007). Despite this, the film did well at the box office and grossed over seventy times its production costs. Hammer had produced a film that redefined the horror genre (Hearn & Barnes 2007).
Following the success of The Curse of Frankenstein, audiences were quick to respond to subsequent Hammer productions and, in return, the studio was quick to put the same crew onto productions such as Dracula and The Mummy (Universal studios had, by now, licensed the rights to their stock of creatures to Hammer giving them freedom to recreate these iconic horror characters) (Newman 2007).
The Psychological and the Erotic
As the 1950s came to a close, Hammer had produced films for Columbia, United Artists, Paramount and Universal (Hearn & Barnes 2007). Following the 1960 release and success of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Hammer studios began to produce films that strayed from their gothic horror genre into the psychological thriller genre with films such as Maniac, Paranoiac, Hysteria and Nightmare featuring cracked madmen, twists in the tale and unpredictable endings (Newman 2007). The first of these was Taste of Fear, released in 1961, which was launched with a clever promotional campaign that deliberately confused the films subject matter whilst leaving tantalising images and signs that relate to the story’s shocking qualities and casting the “ever-villainous Christopher Lee” as a red herring (Hearn & Barnes 2007) (the films poster included a tag that encouraged the viewer to see the film right from the start, and a ‘Patron’s Pledge’ not to reveal the plot or the ending to anyone (Hearn & Barnes 2007), mirroring Hitchcock’s ‘no late admission’ policy for Psycho).
During the 1960s the studio flourished, but as the decade began to draw to a close there was, once again, a decline in cinema attendance, in part due to the introduction of colour television (Hearn & Barnes 2007). To try and rectify this problem and to try and coax the public back into the cinema, Hammer took advantage of the relaxed censorship standards of the time and included more sex and violence on screen (Newman 2007). Films could now be much more exploitative towards the female characters and contain scenes of full frontal nudity and have lesbian themes (Hearn & Barnes 2007).
An extreme example of this new policy took place during the filming of the 1969 film Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. The distributors decided that there wasn’t enough sex in the film and insisted on the inclusion of a rape scene, much to the dismay of both cast and crew (Kinsey 2007).
In 1970 Hammer released The Vampire Lovers, which caused great controversy due to its “explicit blend of lesbianism and viscera” that would have been unthinkable in previous years (Hearn & Barnes 2007 p136). When the script was presented to the BBFC they replied, warning the producers that they would be unhappy about certifying it even with an ‘X’ for the age of eighteen (Kinsey 2007), and, referring to the content of the film, thought it was a dangerous cocktail of horror and sex, “especially when the horror includes sadism and brutality” (Kinsey 2007 p169).
During the 1970s, Hammer appeared to have lost its way and, aside from trying to bring its unique style of horror into the present with productions such as Dracula AD 1972, it was perceived as a “flagging formulae” (Newman 2007) and struggled to find markets for its traditional horror films (Brooke 2007). The final ‘Hammer Horror’ film to be released was To the Devil a Daughter in 1976 (Newman 2007). During this period Hammer was struggling to sustain itself within a British film industry that was, itself, struggling (Hearn & Barnes 2007). In the last years of Hammer’s film existence four projects were attempted. Three of them (Vampirella, Nessie and Vlad the Impaler) would bankrupt the company. The fourth (1978s The Lady Vanishes) would be the final feature film for Hammer Film Productions as, with a debt of eight hundred thousand pound, the studio went into receivership (Kinsey 2007). On April 30th 1979, Hammer fell under the control of the official receiver (Hearn & Barnes 2007).
Conclusion
After nearly five decades of producing films that would go on to redefine a genre (indeed, create its own sub-genre of gothic ‘Hammer Horror’), scare generations of cinema goers, infuriate and appal the critics, inspire future film-makers and introduce actors who would go down in cinematic history as icons of the horror genre, Hammer Film Productions had come to the end of its life, left only with the prospect of, someday, being raised from the dead.

Reference
Anon, 2007, Hammer Films, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_Film, accessed 30/11/2007

Anon2, 2007, http://fortunecity.com/lavender/judidench/339/hammer.html, accessed 30/12/2007

Anon3, 2007, The Curse of Frankenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Frankenstein, accessed 8/12/2007

Alexander, L., 2007, Hammer Film Productions http://screenonline.org.uk/people/id/455323/index.html, accessed 30/11/2007

Brooke, M., 2007, British Films in the 1970s, http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1237381/index.html, accessed 8/12/2007

Kinsey, W., 2007, Hammer films: the Elstree Years, 1st ed. Tomahawk press: Sheffield

Hearn, M. & Barnes, A., 2007, The Hammer Story, 2nd ed. Titan Books: London

Newman, K., 2007, English Gothic, Fortean Times, Dennis Publishing Limited

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

Very useful info there John..well done bud

_________________

Catnapper · Site Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 6149

That's excellent John....you've put a lot of effort into that and I'm sure LEEMO will find it very useful

JohnG · Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 8:24 pm Post subject:

Cheers. I chose Hammer Horror as it's probably one of my favourite horror sub-genres (I even loved the TV series spin-off Hammer House of Horror). Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are bona-fide iconic legends (and lets not forget the lovely Ingrid Pitt; there's a particular scene in the Vampire Lovers with Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith that is burned into my brain and is replayed every time I day dream, kind of like my mind's screensaver)

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

I got a load of that old Hammer tv series at home on tape...they were great...always takes me back to ehen I was a kid aswell....even the music and the opening theme of it

Though I love the films aswell particularly the classics like Dracula, wolfman and Frankenstein

As for having a mind screensaver mine is is a neverending slideshow pf beautiful lovelies

_________________