Hammer Has Risen From The Grave!... er Rave!

December 18, 2007 9:23 AM

Hammer films are back! ... The classic British horror film company has returned from the dead with the first new film in 20 years to be first broadcast in instalments via MySpace. This has allowed some news programs to camp it up just a little... See the trailer here. Behind the scenes.

Time will tell if the latest venture will be up to the classics of the past such as... Draculawith Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing (recently restored by the BFI), The Curse of Frankenstein (also with Lee and Cushing), The Mummy (Lee and Cushing again), The Hound of the Baskervilles (with yup, you've guess it, Lee and Cushing), She (with Lee, Cushing AND Ursula Andress), The Quatermass Xperiment (The Creeping Unknown in the US), the rather arty Vampire Circus, One Million Years B.C (with Raquel Welch in that fur bikini), The Devil Rides Out (with Lee playing a good guy for once), Countess Dracula (with Ingrid Pitt) and the 'Karnstein Trilogy' of The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil. (Which I was introduced to by the splendid Horror Double Bills the BBC used to run late night in the summers of the 1970s)

Although best known for their classic horror films though they also produced films in other genres (they made a great deal of profit from horrifically bad film versions of the popular tv sitcoms of the time)

Even though the popularity of the films faded Hammer continued into television (some of which may look rubbish now but frightened me to death as a kid.)

Their style has been spoofed over years... but never better than here.

Here's one lady who should be happy at least.

(Some of those clips may be NSFW... or X-rated as we used to say)

posted by fearfulsymmetry (18 comments total)

Curses! looks like the Beyond The Rave Trailer link escaped me...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:27 AM on December 18, 2007

Keeping it classy!
posted by Artw at 9:35 AM on December 18, 2007

That was truly diabolical...
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:37 AM on December 18, 2007

Via...MySpace?

Oh, that sounds...uh...completely not promising in any way whatsoever...

[NOT HAMMERIST]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:43 AM on December 18, 2007

Hammer?

Hammer?

Hammer!
posted by miss lynnster at 9:54 AM on December 18, 2007

Those Lee and Cushing joints, man I loved 'em when I was a kid. All the scary is in the soundtrack with this sort of film. Turn the sound down and it's a hoot!
posted by Mister_A at 9:57 AM on December 18, 2007

Please Hammer, don't hurt `em!
posted by blue_beetle at 10:06 AM on December 18, 2007

Okay, the Lee and Cushing films were great, but we all know the best Hammer film is Quatermass and the Pit.

Or do you need to be cleansed?
posted by lumpenprole at 10:13 AM on December 18, 2007

I'd like to think that is going to be cool, but I'm trying to not get my hopes up. The odds are against them of recapturing some of that magic.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 10:20 AM on December 18, 2007

That giant glowing devil-headed alien in Quatermass and the Pit haunts me to this day. I blame thee, lumpenprole!
posted by schoolgirl report at 10:21 AM on December 18, 2007

Blimey, I never thought they'd actually make a film (someone seems to buy Hammer every couple of years, without ever actually bothering with the making films bit). Though I'm not sure if something released in installments on MySpace counts as a film.
posted by jack_mo at 10:37 AM on December 18, 2007

Do people still do MySpace?
posted by Artw at 10:50 AM on December 18, 2007

Sweet! Now all they need is a proper replacement for this Queen of the Hammer Films.

MySpace though..... yeesh.
posted by elendil71 at 11:03 AM on December 18, 2007

It's coming out on DVD down the line... the MySpace thing got them fair amount of publicity. And no matter how terrible it looks I suspect it will be a lot better than this revival of a British classic.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:44 AM on December 18, 2007

Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires changed my life.
posted by cazoo at 12:35 PM on December 18, 2007

In what sense is this going to be a Hammer film? I get that there's a corporation called Hammer and that it released films in the past, took a big break, and is now releasing another film, but are an of the creative minds from the old films working on the new film? How many are still alive? Does this have any meaning beyond branding?

Sorry if this was answered in the links. I clicked some of them, skimmed, but didn't find an answer.
posted by grumblebee at 12:48 PM on December 18, 2007

In what sense is this going to be a Hammer film?

In the sense that the bloke behind the Big Brother reality TV franchise bought the rights to the existing Hammer films, and the right to use the Hammer name to make more. So, the 'not really a Hammer film' sense of Hammer film.
posted by jack_mo at 4:14 PM on December 18, 2007

I used to watch Hammer films. (Camp) Classics in the same manner that Roger Corman movies are classics.

This looks like they are trying to hard to get the 'youth' element:
Beyond the Rave
MySpace

Need I say more. One can hope, but it doesn't look promising.
posted by eye of newt at 11:07 PM on December 18, 2007