Hammer and British Cinema

This chapter examines the relationship between Hammer Films and British cinema. The history of British cinema has been characterised by a strong dedication to realism, in its many forms. From the documentaries of the 1930s with a focus on social responsibility to the gritty kitchen sink dramas of the 1960s, and even the naturalistic aesthetic of television police dramas, the British moving-image industries have a strong heritage of realism. If this is the case, Hammer horror, despite its international fame as a specifically British brand of filmmaking, does not seem characteristic of British national cinema at all. On one hand, Hammer's horrors are clearly fantastical; on the other hand, they amalgamate infrequent and abrupt moments of gore with a 'neat unpretentious realism'. Moreover, the films were lambasted in the press for not exhibiting 'good taste' or restraint. The chapter then assesses to what extent Hammer horror can be understood as British.

Hammer After the ‘X’

This chapter assesses how the success of The Quatermass Xperiment (1953), despite, or because of its X rating, enabled Hammer Films to test the British Board of Film Censors' (BBFC) boundaries of taste. Correspondence between the censor and Hammer illustrate the studio's desire to shock audiences, while still ensuring films received a certificate. Their move into colour enhanced the shock appeal and distinguished Hammer's works from earlier cinematic reincarnations of gothic characters. The chapter presents readings of X the Unknown (1956) and The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), considering the impact of the X certificate and colour on production. It examines how these two films represent a transitional period in the studio's history, establishing many of the tropes that would appear in the studio's classic films.

Hammer Horror as Genre Film

This chapter evaluates Hammer horror as genre films. Hammer is renowned for its horror films, despite its breadth of productions including comedies, war films, action-adventures, and thrillers. Its specific brand of horror has often been considered to be a particularly English Gothic, Gothicism with its interest in the liminal, transcending traditional genre categories. It is poignant, then, that Hammer's Gothic style can be seen in some of its non-horror productions. One might question the usefulness of genre for understanding a range of the studio's films, despite the label 'Hammer horror'. Hammer brought something incredibly new to the 1950s cinema screen and it was the studio's juxtaposition of traditional fairy-tale storytelling and a return to a primitive cinema of attraction interested in spectacle and experience which has arguably earned the studio such a prominent place in the history of British film.