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HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN (1970)

In the same year that David Prowse became The Green Cross Code Man, the Bristol native appeared in the second of his three roles as Mary Shelley's most famous creation.

JIMMY Sangster's HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN is detested by Hammer purists for its comedic tone, and plays out as a parody of the previous respected entries. The film opens with Victor Frankenstein (Ralph Bates) at school, accompanied by friends Elizabeth (Veronica Carlson), Stefan (Stephen Turner) and Henry (Jon Finch). Victor arranges for the death of his father and travels to university in Vienna, where he acquires sidekick Wilhelm (Graham James) and impregnates the daughter of the Dean. Returning to Ingstad, Victor starts a series of experiments, using corpses delivered by a local body snatcher (Dennis Price) - who lets his wife do the digging. After electrocuting Wilhelm for complaining about his work - which includes reanimating a tortoise - Victor poisons Elizabeth's professor father (Bernard Archard) for his brain, but the organ is damaged and the resulting patchwork man is a mute thug (David Prowse).

Initiated as a start-over remake of CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, the picture dispenses with Peter Cushing's services and tries to introduce a younger generation (a failed attempt, as Cushing returned four years later in FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL). Despite the traditional 19th Century setting, HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN is very much of its time - as illustrated by Bates' hair and puffy shirts - and quite anarchic, mixing additional plot threads (Elizabeth's finances, Stefan's crush on Victor) with comic relief (a severed arm making a V-sign) and grue (Victor's hands smearing his face with blood). Duelling femmes fatale O'Mara and Carlson are always watchable, but only Price can deliver a performance at the correct pitch. Bates, at this point being groomed to become the studio's next big star, is not so much a mad scientist but a psycho scientist, enjoying the thrill of the kill and rejoicing in the fact that he has this powerful monster ready to do his bidding. And when the creature eventually appears - an hour in, and sporting white cycling shorts - Prowse goes through the motions with a checklist of victims and a perfect physique which bestows its fragmented origins.

"You’ve put on weight in a couple of places"; Kate O’Mara is the bed-warming housekeeper of Hammer's relaunch of its Frankenstein franchise.

Reusing the Karnstein Castle set from THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, and even shooting most of its forest scenes on Elstree stages, there is a distinctly cheap and recycled feel. Furthermore, HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN was not helped by a misleading marketing campaign, where it went out on a double bill with the sombre and gristly SCARS OF DRACULA (as Sangster states in Wayne Kinsey's Hammer Films: The Elstree Studio Years, "if people had gone to see it knowing it was shot light hearted they would have enjoyed it more [instead of] thinking it was a Gothic horror.") However, this twin feature did hold the distinction of the first Hammer movies to be totally financed by British companies, thanks to a deal between Sir James Carreras and ABPC/EMI. But Hammer's new partner would only distribute to England and the Commonwealth, leaving Carreras able to acquire just a small American distributor - Continental - to impossibly cover the whole of the United States market. 

The notion of deriving humour from such pseudo-scientific source material is an interesting one. Since Frankenstein was published in 1818, and Boris Karloff's seminal interpretation hit screens in 1931, Mary Shelley's serious text - and similar works - generate mythical themes and uncomfortable laughter. As the initial power of the book recedes in a collected consciousness, the tome gathers extraordinarily wide responses, snowballing a range of spoofs and humorous asides now over 200 years on. The level of comedic takes is mind-boggling, even to the point of delicious meta-levels: Mel Brooks' celebrated YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, for example, used many pieces from James Whale's original laboratory set, and even in The Beatles film YELLOW SUBMARINE we had the Monster drinking a potion and becoming John Lennon.

Neither Blood Nor Legacy

NEITHER THE SEA NOR THE SAND (1972)

BLUE BLOOD (1973)
THE LEGACY (1978)

Mills and Boon meets George A. Romero as Michael Petrovitch shifts from misty-eyed romance to the annals of the undead.

IN July 2017, Screenbound collected these three pictures in a handily disposable budget DVD. Adapted from his own novel by ITN newsreader Gordon Honeycombe, NEITHER THE SEA NOR THE SAND sees Anna Robinson (Susan Hampshire) taking a winter break in Jersey from a lifeless marriage, where she falls in love with introverted Hugh Dabernon (Michael Petrovitch). Hugh has a strange affinity with the rugged coastline, and his antiques dealer brother George (Frank Finlay) takes a disliking to Anna, who threatens the insular Dabernon lifestyle. While the inseparable couple are in the North of Scotland, Hugh suddenly has a fatal heart attack, and is issued a death certificate. Through the strength of love he is reanimated; now without conventional speech (conversations are limited to what may well be Anna's imagination), Hugh physically deteriorates, leading the lovers to a watery grave.

Originally optioned by Hammer, director Fred Burnley attempted to ensure that the film would not be known as "another Tigon horror movie" (Tigon would be rebranded LMG by the time of release), but regardless of genre expectations, it was labelled by Time Out as "one of the worst films of the decade." NEITHER THE SEA NOR THE SAND - nor entertainment - is a ponderous love story without charisma, and a supernatural tale with little Fortean interest (reincarnation within Dabernon history is briefly hinted, as is Robinson being a witch). With no connection on screen, Hampshire and Petrovitch are doomed from the onset, Hampshire's theatrics grating with Petrovitch's distant portrayal; when Hugh's rigor mortis starts to set in, there is no difference to our male lead's performance. What remains is ninety minutes of meaningful stares and glances.

The Peasants are revolting: Oliver Reed not so much chews the scenery than spits it out in BLUE BLOOD.

Directed by Andrew Sinclair, BLUE BLOOD is a delirious story of Devil worship set and filmed at Wiltshire's Longleat House. Gregory (Derek Jacobi) is a young aristocrat who complains of modern England while maintaining a servant lifestyle, which includes new German Nanny Beate (Meg Wynne Owen). Entrusting control of the house to butler Tom (Oliver Reed), and in a complicated relationship with his estranged singer wife Lily (an icy Fiona Lewis), the Lord succumbs to the unholy practises of the under classes, governed by his leading manservant. Adapted from Alexander Thynn's novel The Carry-Cot by Sinclair, Thynn is the 7th Marquess of Bath and grew up in his family's seat at Longleat (and to further the in-house connections, BLUE BLOOD features Thynn's wife Anna Grael as Gregory's mistress Carlotta). UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS on acid, Reed's ham performance is either extraordinary inept or one that plays to the general foolishness; moving like an automaton, Tom's Satanic control is built up by a series of almost freeze-framed red-hued images of black masses and sacrifice, usually depicting Owen, Grael and Lewis draped around him while holding a bloodied knife.

THE LEGACY is another tale of Mansion-based Satanic shenanigans. Designers Maggie Walsh (Katharine Ross) and Pete Danner (Sam Elliott) leave California to work for an anonymous British client. On reaching their destination they are involved in an accident with a limousine, which is actually owned by their benefactor, Jason Mountolive (John Standing). Inviting them to his estate, Mountolive introduces Walsh and Danner to five guests, who die in a variety of ways: Maria (Marianne Broome) drowns; Clive (Roger Daltrey) chokes to death; Karl (Charles Gray) is burned alive; Barbara (Hildegard Neill) is pierced by a splintered mirror; and Jacques (Lee Montague) falls from a roof. All had chequered pasts, and were spared punishment due to Jason's unorthodox interventions: his mother being Lady Margaret Walsingham, a practitioner of witchcraft. It transpires that Walsh is actually Mountolive's great-granddaughter, and Jason's last acts were to kill the other heirs so Katharine can continue Satan's work.

British character actor John Standing is under the emaciated

makeup of a dying Occultist in THE LEGACY.

Although graced with exquisite cinematography both externally (the lush country setting) and internally (white cats on marble staircases), this tepid Anglo-American production suffers from an inappropriate upbeat soundtrack and lengthy dull patches between the body count. Directed by Richard Marquand, THE LEGACY is all too twee to adhere effectively to the twin 70s fixations of black magic and haunted houses (to further amplify the Seventies feel, we have an opening credits "love-in" with a song from Kiki Dee). The original treatment was written by Jimmy Sangster and "polished" by British SF author Patrick Tilley and Paul Wheeler; Sangster unsurprisingly disowned the film as the "tinkering" involved moving the setting wholesale from a rundown Detroit hospital to the grounds of Mountolive's Ravenhurst.

Their Satanic Majesties Request

THE HELLFIRE CLUB (1961)

TERROR (1978)

French A style poster for New World's THE HELLFIRE CLUB, more pulp adventure than demonic horror.

THE notorious real-life Hellfire Club was famed for its debauchery and devil worship, the name given to several exclusive establishments in Britain and Ireland as meeting places of "persons of quality" who wished to take part in immoral acts. Founded in 1719 London, The Club motto Fais ce que tu voudras (Do what thou wilt) was a philosophy associated with François Rabelais' fictional abbey at Thélème, and later adopted by infamous magus Aleister Crowley. Set in 18th century England, THE HELLFIRE CLUB tells the story of circus acrobat Jason (Keith Michell) in his attempt to reclaim the estate of his estranged father Lord Netherton (Andrew Faulds), leader of the Hellfire Club. Years earlier, Jason as a boy (Martin Stephens) is whipped by his father after walking in on an orgy held by The Club, and together with his mother (Jean Lodge), flees with Timothy (David Lodge). Jason discovers that his villainous cousin Thomas (Peter Arne) has stolen his rightful inheritance, and together with lawyer Merryweather (Peter Cushing) plans to bring an end to the deceit, and brake the grip of The Club on King George II’s rule. 

Although billed as a guest star, Cushing's fussy but erudite character is pivotal to the fate of English society. In fact, the actor later adapted Merryweather's demeanor for his takes on Doctor Who and Abner Perry. Because of Cushing's presence and its lush staging, the film is often mistaken for a Hammer production. But there is no bite to THE HELLFIRE CLUB, with no satanic overtones, and the picture limits itself to a handful of lame orgies where most of the participants remain fully clothed. Directed by Robert S.Baker and Monty Berman from a script by Leon Griffiths and Jimmy Sangster, the production is more swashbuckling melodrama, using The Club as a pinning to hang its elaborate fight scenes and love interests (redheads Adrienne Corri and Kai Fischer). Like most cinematic heroes brandishing a sword, Jason is not only morally perfect but also irresistible to all women, and Michell gives a likable performance as he gathers his circus comrades to do battle with the evil hierarchy.

With a running time of only 80 minutes, TERROR is a whirlwind of gore, semi-nudity and in-jokes. Amazingly, the film topped the UK box office charts for a week in early 1979.

TERROR takes a much more direct approach to its satanic theme. Reuniting director Norman J.Warren with scriptwriter David McGillivray - after their exploits on SATAN'S SLAVE - TERROR is not so much an unashamed rip-off of Dario Argento's operatic gore noir SUSPIRIA but a star-struck reaction to it. The picture starts with a witch hunt and a beheading, subsequently revealed to be a "film within a film" being watched in the same house where hundreds of years before the events being portrayed on screen took place. The witch exacts her revenge on the ancestors of her persecutors, one of whom is the production's director, James Garrick (John Nolan). After a makeshift hypnosis goes awry, the curse takes on a more direct approach, including death by lighting equipment, murderous film cans (in reality nine faulty prints of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER specially supplied by Rank Laboratories) which leads to a very Argentoesque window-pane decapitation, and aspiring actress Carol (Glynis Barber) is impaled to a tree trunk with knives.

The performances are generally competent, but James and Ann Garrick (Carolyn Courage) both have too little screen time to develop the family curse scenario, even if Warren was more interested to do so. Instead, the focus is on Les Young's coloured filters to provide TERROR with a suitably garish tableau for its elaborately bloody murders, and enhance the hallucinatory disregard for logic. The opening "film within a film" narrative acts both as a Hammer Gothic pastiche and a expostulation of it, but this is not the only nod to a cinematic heritage; the viewer is also treated to snatches of a ficticious soft-core film called BATHTIME WITH BRENDA, scenes heavily indebted to experiences not necessarily enjoyed by Warren and McGillivray in their careers. Other points of interest are a nightclub act you won't forget in a hurry, and a red herring sequence culminating in a Peter Mayhew cameo.

Terrors Below and Above

X THE UNKNOWN (1956)
QUATERMASS 2 (1957)

Fuelled on the then-current fears of radioactivity,
X THE UNKNOWN is Quatermass without the nuances.

IN the wake of THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT's success, Hammer approached the mentor of their breakthrough picture - Nigel Kneale - for permission to use the Quatermass character in a sequel. When Kneale refused ("I said 'No, you can't - it's mine' - they were funny people"), the company progressed with Leslie Norman's X THE UNKNOWN, from an original screenplay by Jimmy Sangster. The film begins with a sudden appearance of what seems to be volcanic fissure in military grounds. When a soldier, then a young boy, die of first-degree radiation burns, Dr Adam Royston (Dean Jagger) - a scientist working on a radio signal capable of neutralising bombs  - investigates. Collaborating with McGill (Leo McKern), a representative for Atomic Security, Royston surmises that an opening has unleashed a mass of energy from the centre of the Earth, a sentient being that has fed off natural radiation for millions of years.

X THE UNKNOWN is sombre 50s Hammer, using its premise of internal horrors primarily for budgetary reasons - at least the studio wouldn't have to build expensive sets and spaceships. Royston is no Quatermass, and the sloppy movement of the titular creature (which, when finally glimpsed, looks like chocolate mousse) mimics the film's lack of thrills. Impervious to "Machine gun bullets! Dynamite! Flame Throwers!," this combination of radiation and molten crust is often mentioned in the same breath as THE BLOB which followed a year later, yet the latter was an extraterrestrial mineral, and X shares more in common with particle masses CALTIKI THE IMMORTAL MONSTER and THE H-MAN. Where X THE UNKNOWN does deliver is with its disintegrating radiographer; Phil Leakey placed a heating element in a plastic skull housing a wax mask of actor Neil Hallett, a scene which is still a show-stopper.

A stylish French poster for QUATERMASS 2 makes the paramilitary zombie guards centre stage.

When Hammer did return with Quatermass at the helm a year later, the result - in contrast - was one of the finest science fiction films produced by a British studio. Val Guest's QUATERMASS 2 sees metallic meteorites rain down on Winnerden Flats, a town near a highly guarded chemical plant. Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) is startled to discover that contact with the shells causes deadly infection, and that the facilities - supposedly producing synthetic food - appear to be modelled on his own aborted moonbase design. Quatermass uncovers a sinister conspiracy that extends to Government level, and has to battle zombie-like guards who will stop at nothing to protect the top secret complex. With the aid of old friend Inspector Lomax (John Longden), the Professor discovers that the plant is in fact housing an alien invasion, and that gestalt creatures have been arriving inside the meteorites.

Britain's answer to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, QUATERMASS 2 drips with postwar paranoia. Scripted by Kneale (from his 1955 BBC teleplay) and Guest, the film is as urgently paced as the alien takeover (the actors even indulge in "cue biting"). Kneale was always critical of Donlevy's brutish approach to the beloved scientist, but the actor's forcefulness here actually works with the rapidly unfolding horrors and realisations, especially when the Professor commandeers a guard uniform to infiltrate the plant. This insurrection culminates in a memorable pressure control room scene, where oxygen is being pumped to kill the alien manifestation in the plant domes. When workers venture out to talk to their "superiors," they are murdered and their body parts stuffed into the pipes to impede the oxygen flow, an action, as Jonathan Rigby states in his book English Gothic, is "as grotesque an image of capitalist exploitation as can be imagined."

Brains That Wouldn't Die

THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1958)

THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1964)
FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969)

Michael Gwynn suffers THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

HAMMER's THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN - a direct sequel to THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN scripted by Jimmy Sangster - consolidated the feel of Hammer Horror. The Baron (Peter Cushing) has also undergone a rethink, changing from the aloof and self absorbed into a visionary, becoming the obsessive that we would become familiar. The film begins with hunchbacked Karl (Oscar Quitak) helping the Baron escape the guillotine, with Frankenstein promising him a new body. Michael Gwynn is cast as the physical form which incorporates the brain of Karl, remaining sympathetic even after developing cannibalistic tendencies. His emotional confrontation with Frankenstein at a dinner party, which ultimately exposes the Baron's true identity, is as moving as anything Hammer ever achieved. Elsewhere, performances are equally solid, particularly from Francis Matthews as the Baron's assistant Hans Kleve who, it's interesting to note, has the only real success in creating an artificial man in the entire cycle. Curiously, THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN has rarely achieved the level of analysis bestowed on others in the series, particularly in its pointed portrayal of the middle class medical elite using the impoverished working class as a mass donor bank.

The next film, THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN, sits uncomfortably among the Hammer cannon, and the title is a complete misnomer, for the Baron was never less evil than here. Frankenstein (Cushing) discovers his original monster (Kiwi Kingston) perfectly preserved inside a mountain glacier attended by feral deaf-mute Rena (Katy Wild). The Baron gives his monster renewed life, but its brain has been traumatised by gunfire. A circus comes to Carlstaad, featuring the mesmerist Zoltan (Peter Woodthorpe), whom the Baron recruits to stimulate the creature's brain. But when officials order Zoltan out of town for operating without a licence, he uses his mesmeric hold over the monster to exact revenge.

New Zealand wrestler Kiwi Kingston is the “Cornflake Box” creature of THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN. Kingston reunited with Hammer and Freddie Francis in the murder mystery HYSTERIA a year later.

Previous entries were skilfully directed by Terence Fisher; THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN was helmed by Freddie Francis, and legend has it that Fisher was temporarily relieved of his duties as punishment for the commercial failure of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Whatever the reason, it is a rogue entry which negates the genetic advancements made by Fisher by forcing an ill-advised return to the feel of Golden Age Horror. The film was made for Universal, and consequently has an emphasis on ruined castles, sparkling lab equipment, villagers and burgomasters, which recall the American studio rather than the bloody tragedies of Hammer; also the Creature make-up design is very Karloffesque).

The Hammer Frankensteins were always superior over the Christopher Lee Draculas thanks to Cushing; he was always the glue that held them together, his coldly articulate Baron pitch-perfect for FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, which shows an England struggling under the environmental weight of lunatic asylums and abandoned estates. On the run from the police, Frankenstein blackmails Anna Spengler (Veronica Carlson) and her fiancé Karl Holst (Simon Ward) into helping him kidnap his former colleague Dr Brandt (George Pravda) from a sanatorium. Anxious to exploit Brandt's knowledge, the scientist cures his insanity and after death transplants his brain into the body of Dr Richter (Freddie Jones). Unable to communicate with his "widow" Ella (Maxine Audley), the "new" Brandt is determined to kill his tormentor.

"Scientist … Surgeon … Madman … Murderer … Search the length and breadth of Europe … hunt him … track him down. No matter what the risk … FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED.”

Fisher's FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED comes closest of all to Mary Shelley's original concept. For the first time, the Baron's creation is a sensitive, misunderstood being who finally turns the tables on his maker. Here, Frankenstein avenges himself not only on the medical establishment but also on womanhood. Given that he is working on projects which, in effect, excludes women from the creation of life, it's perhaps understandable that he should treat women with increasing disdain. In FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN, it was a female who unsportingly terminated his experiment by taking her own life. Now he systematically turns on all women, raping and killing Anna and treating a traumatised Ella Brandt with emotional sadism. It is Cushing at his finest, a genuinely frightening performance matched in its quality by Jones's moving turn as the bewildered Richer/Brandt. That Frankenstein himself is now the monster couldn’t be clearer.

Murder Across Millennia

THE MUMMY (1959)

Towards the end of the Universal Mummy cycle, the monster devolved into a harmless joke, shambling and closing on his prey with all the menace of a turtle. Hammer makes Christopher Lee’s Kharis a constant threat, an automaton that crushes the throats of his victims.

ALTHOUGH most modern readers have been conditioned by decades of horror stories and movies to expect a Mummy to be intrinsically evil, initial literature portrayed them as intelligent, reasonable and even philosophical beings, such as in Leopardi’s 1827 The Dialogue of Frederick Ruysch and his Mummies. It wasn’t until later in the century, however, that the Bad Mummy became a stock device, particularly in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lot No. 249, which illustrates the shift in tone in the wake of important archaeological discoveries, and the increase in Britain’s involvement and later occupation of Egypt. Hammer’s spin on such mysticism is one of the studio’s most glamorous productions, enriching the expected violence and spectacle with a memorable, melancholy undertow. Continuing director Terence Fisher’s fascination with Gothic Romanticism, THE MUMMY sees John Banning (Peter Cushing) excavating the tomb of Princess Ananka, only to have the mummified corpse of her former lover Kharis (Christopher Lee) instructed to murder the desecrators.

THE MUMMY was one of the last of the first wave of British horror films that enjoyed enormous world-wide success, and may arguably stand as the finest of all Mummy movies. The basic plot is little more than a series of predictable monster attacks, but Jimmy Sangster’s script uses politically-based complexities, as the priggish English battle the vindictive ideologies of the third-world. Mehemet Bey (George Pastell), the devout worshipper acting only out of love for his God, is mercilessly baited and dismissed by colonial contempt. In the most memorable scene, Banning’s midnight visit to Bey - a verbal confrontation between East and West – contains more malice than the violent sequences. Lee’s Kharis is a powerful and fast-moving adversary, a Golem-like juggernaut with a swift and deadly grasp. His human signs of adoration and weakness upon recognition of Isobel Banning (Yvonne Furneaux) as a dead ringer for Ananka, are all communicated through evocative eyes and precise mime; equally striking is the actor’s initial clumsiness after emerging from the swamp, as though unused to manoeuvring his limbs. In stark contrast is Cushing’s subtle performance as the cold fish archaeologist with a pronounced limp and death wish, his emotions as atrophied as the muscles in his leg.

A typically hyperbolic ad mat for THE MUMMY.

The film’s prevailing sense of atmosphere is generated in deeply saturated tones that include eerie greens and rich crimsons (Fisher's wide masters are equally sumptuous and full of detail). Franz Reizenstein's sweeping score is the best in any Hammer film; the main theme carries the weight of a Hollywood Biblical epic, and its cues augment Kharis' murder missions with regal flourishes, and evoke his tenderness when confronted by the vision of his undying love. A sexual reading of THE MUMMY can see the men as weaklings, either cripples or sex slaves; even in afterlife, the female is in charge. This interpretation hits hard in the final confrontation, with Kharis reduced to a mere puppet in the hands of a woman who simply resembles the princess to whom he's so devoted. Seemingly, the power of the feminine sex trumps all - English society, ancient religions, and even magical prowess.

English Gothic

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)
DRACULA (1958)

Phil Leakey’s make-up for Hammer's ground-breaking THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. The last-minute design was a collage of mortician’s wax, rubber, and cotton wool.

WITH their lurid, uncompromising tone, and relentlessly amoral protagonists, Hammer’s legacy as the most successful horror film production company is testament to the quality of the personnel involved. Released onto a market dominated by science fiction creature features, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN was Hammer’s breakthrough picture; directors such as William Castle and Roger Corman in the United States, and Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava in Italy, were soon following Hammer’s grand guignol lead. Helmed by Terence Fisher, the film is a flamboyantly visceral retelling of Mary Shelley's classic, casting Peter Cushing as Baron Von Frankenstein, and Christopher Lee as his reanimated creation.

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN established Fisher’s ability to lend credible characterisation to formula-bound material. The John Ford of English Gothic cinema, Fisher's work presents a fascinating moral dilemma: the seductive appeal of evil, versus the close-minded representatives of good. The consistency of theme in Fisher's work, coupled with a distinctive style achieved through precise framing and dynamic editing, refutes the idea that he was merely a hack for hire. In the best of his work, there is an element of spirituality that remains unique in a genre supposedly larger-than-life; Fisher’s characters die less often from violence, than from their adherence to a belief. His five Frankenstein films for Hammer can be taken as a single work, a path that follows the metamorphosis of physician into metaphysician into quack, as the Baron’s preoccupations blind him to the importance of human life and, finally, his own mental health. In the last entry of the cycle, FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL, a final judgement on the Baron seems that the asylum setting of the film is the best place for him.

Christopher Lee makes the role of The Count his own in DRACULA.

Fisher’s achievement is complemented by Jack Asher’s lavish Eastmancolor photography, the gothic opulence of Bernard Robinson’s production design, and James Bernard’s ominous score. Furthermore, Jimmy Sangster’s literate script sees the Baron misguidedly sincere rather than intrinsically evil; not the madman of popular myth, but a scientist challenging God as a triumph of Man’s intellect. In addition to this already bulging bag of riches, you have the casting of Cushing and Lee. Both actors’ consistently elegant performances would do much to elevate the British horror film to a position where it commanded international attention. Cushing was a master of eloquence and physicality, combining impeccable diction with a manic athleticism. Lee’s Creature, as Fisher once recalled, a "wandering, forlorn minstrel of monstrosity," fuses a colossal physical presence with an icy allure. The Creature wears a shabby military greatcoat - the very image of society’s dispossessed rejects - and its futile, puppet-like attempts at communication are followed by the inevitable, exasperated lapses into violence. The monster’s introduction, bandaged, and framed in a laboratory doorway, supplemented by an unearthly tracking shot, is a scene that determined Hammer Horror.

Reconvening the major talents from THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA is a maturing of style against the blueprint of its predecessor. Seminal in the character's film canon – the Count’s first colour adaptation – Terence Fisher’s film is, however, a free and melodramatic re-evaluation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel. Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) is now a dedicated vampire hunter working under the tutelage of Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), who, in turn, is no longer the priest-physician-teacher of the novel, or the elderly savant typified by Edward Van Sloan in Universal’s 1931 film, but younger and more dynamic. Yet the film is far truer in tone to the original text; The Count (Christopher Lee) represents liberation at its most overt, shifting the characters cinematic emphasis from the supernatural to the sexual. Initially presenting its female leads as submissive, stereotypical Victorian women, both Lucy (Carole Marsh) and Mina (Melissa Stribling) transform when they encounter their demon lover, breathless in anticipation, and eager for brutish, physical contact.

Valerie Gaunt, thirsting for blood, in DRACULA.

Cushing is impeccable, radiating an Old World charm and a confidence in his rightness, but this is Lee's movie. Instead of the stylised movement, hypnotic stare and thick accent of Bela Lugosi, Lee is more physically imposing than any other actor in the role, and intractably feral. Make no mistake, Lee's Dracula is Stoker's Dracula, a charming, well-spoken, imperious aristocrat, overwhelming his female victims with sheer animal magnetism. Biting his victims discreetly by modern standards, but explicit to audiences who might have expected this activity to be shielded by the judicious swirl of his cape, Lee’s Count is a flesh-and-blood monster to be grappled with at close quarters, rather than some ethereal, blood-drinking ghost in formal wear. Van Helsing and Dracula represent a myriad of Fisheresque dualities; good and evil certainly, but also order and chaos, civilisation and anarchy, the soul of humanity and the spirit of the beast.