Description
This collection offers close readings on Hammer’s cycle of horror films, analysing key films and placing particular emphasis on the narratives and themes present in the works discussed.
Ranging from the studio’s first horror outing, The Mystery of the Mary Celeste (1935) to Hammer’s last contemporary film, Doctor Jekyll (2023), the collection celebrates cult-favourites such as The Quatermass Experiment, the films of Terence Fisher, to overlooked classics such as Captain Clegg or The Mummy franchise. This volume also delves into Hammer’s psychological thrillers, the studio’s venture into TV with Hammer’s House of Horrors, with theoretical frameworks varying from queer studies to postcolonial readings.
This volume will appeal to scholars and students of film studies, international cinema, film history and horror studies.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Hammer Horror before (and Beyond) Horror
1. The Mystery of the Mary Celeste – Hammer’s First Horror
2. The Quatermass AnXiety and the Evil Within: Re-emerging Victorian Ethos in Post-War Science-Fiction Narratives
3. Hammer Studio’s Captain Clegg and the Genre Legacy of Swashbuckling Gothic Horror
4. I Bette you I’m a Great Mother: Middle-Aged Women and Grotesque Maternity
Part II: The Golden Age of Horror
5- ‘A Sickness partly Spiritual, partly Physical’: Monster, Savant, Gender and Class in The Brides of Dracula (1960)
6. “Give Me a Skin for Dancing In”: Female Grotesquery and Desire in The Witches (1966)
7. Children of the Night: Vampiric Blood Lines, Reproduction, and Queer Futurity in Hammer Horror’s Karnstein Trilogy
8. Let Horror Speak: Theodicy, Eschatology, and Rebellion in Hammer’s Dracula and Frankenstein Films
9. House of Horror: Domestic Architecture and Eco-Gothic Slippage in The Reptile (1966) and Children of the Full Moon (1980)
Part III: The Horror of Decadence and Resurrection
10. Sinking Masculinity in Hammer’s Cycle of Mummies
11. The Sun Has Finally Set: Hammer House of Horror as Postimperial Provincial Horror
12. The Kick and/or the Crucifix: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires and the Kung Fu Craze of 1970s
13. Postmodernity and Elevated Horror in The Lodge (2019)
Part IV: Interviews
14. The Satanist: An interview with David Wickes
15. Visitor from the Grave: An interview with actor Kathryn Scott
16. Revenge of the Runners: An interview with Brian Reynolds
17. Run Like Hell: An interview with Hammer Film Production runner Phil Campbell
18. Doctor Jekyll – An Interview with Joe Stephenson
