British Horror

During the first half of the 20^th century, Hollywood was dominating the film industry, producing many big hits. The UK’s film industry was well established during this period, not to the same extent as Hollywood, but enough to garner international attention, with many British films being made during the 1930’s.

To combat Hollywood’s widening grasp on the film industry, the British parliament introduced the Cinematographic act in 1927. The aim of the act was to revitalise the British film industry, by making it law for exhibitors of film to show a quota of British-made films. This led to the release of many low-budget productions, very few of which were horror.

Hammer Film Productions are a British based film studio. Their history starts in 1934, during the build-up to World War 2. During this period, Hammer were not involved in any horror productions; their only output then was comedies and dramas. After the war broke out, production came to an immediate halt.

After production began again in the mid-40’s, Hammer continued to release similar movies to their pre-war filmography. It wasn’t until the release of ‘The Quatermass Xperiment‘ (1955) that their interests began to shift. Adapted from the 1953 BBC TV serial of the same name; Quatermass became a surprise hit, possibly due to the x-rating the film received by the BBFC, meaning no one under the age of 16 could watch it.

This marked the beginning of Hammer’s focus on producing B horror movies. With such immediate titles as ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ (1957) and ‘Dracula’ (1958) becoming quite large crowd-pleasers. These films also helped kickstart the cinematic careers of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, who appeared in many of Hammer’s productions.

However, while the audiences loved them, critics looked on in disdain and laughter. These films were considered quite cheesy for the time, especially compared to similar Hollywood productions of years prior. Of course, said Hollywood horrors appear aged gracefully themselves either.

As the 1970’s rolled around and the availability of colour televisions increased, the interest in cinema dwindled. Hammer, in an attempt to regain their audience, resorted to producing some rather outlandish films, such as ‘The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires’. These attempts, however, weren’t enough to rekindle audience interest. This eventually led to Hammer indefinitely ceasing all cinematic productions from the 1980’s and onward. Hammer never officially shut down though, the company was simply on a long hiatus, until they saw a return to the big screen in 2010 with the critically acclaimed ‘Let Me In’ (2010).

The decline of Hammer’s popularity is a product of society’s shift from the cinema to the living room, but also due to Hammer’s inability to interest their audience with anything substantial. The tacky nature of their films was what drew people towards them; and what eventually drew them away.