Can we start a Hammer topic here?

Chris Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt

Gorgons, and Reptiles, and Creeping Flesh--Oh My!

This fabulous studio pretty much single-handedly saved Horror in the sixties.

What about The Witches (a.k.a. The Devil's Own), Quartermass and the Pit, Satanic Rites of Dracula, Rasputin, To the devil a daughter, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, ect. I love Hammer, in fact one of my earliest memories is of watching The Witches at my Grandmothers house when I was a kid and no one was around. Scared the shit out of me!

This one died too quick.  Is there anyone else who has memories of the great Hammer films?  Favorites?

I know alot of you guys were born at least 10 or 15 years after Hammer stopped making films, but I also know that alot of you guys still appreciate good older horror..  They were such a huge  evolutionary step in the history of Horror.  Took the old Universal monsters and themes and added color, blood, and sex. Three very good things.  And also branched out into Aliens, Reptiles, Gorgons, Witches, and Zombies.

Show of hands.  Let me know if you've seen at least 3 Hammer films.  Be honest now

I've seen some of them.  They were good for seeing breasts and lesbianism ( I mean, I was 10 or 11 when I saw some of these at drive-ins...what else would I be interested in?) but they just didn't stay with me growing up beyond that.

Big hammer fan. To name favorites would take me too long honestly. They seemed to capture the perfect atmosphere with just about every film. Terence Fisher was a true artist and genius. I sometimes wonder and i know this sounds stupid if horror would have survived and be as prosperous as it is today if Hammer had not come along.

I like all the old Hammer films,horror and non horror.On my internet travels i happened across this site   http://horrorclassics.lefora.com  .It has quite a few of their films,all to view online.

I hope i can mention this here,if not please remove.

There wasn't much good horror made between the Universal years and the Hammer years--alot of giant bug stuff.  Hammer productions were such stylish things--very beautiful.  Just full of that lush gothic atmosphere.  I think being made in Britain helped and Fisher was superb.  Chris Lee was also a worthy sucessor to Lugosi.  There's really nothing else, other than some Amicus stuff, with which to compare them to, although Bava was also making good stuff in Italy.

They kind of stand alone as monuments to another place and time and while they're considered old and boring by many today, they opened up the sex and violence doors in Horror that Universal had not.  They were really the first to start showing the blood and many a woman of that time had Chris Lee dreams. 

Then Romero's NOTLD came and I got scared (a good thing)--We embraced our brutality and Hammer drifted off into Puff's cave.

Not only was Christopher Lee a good successor to Lugosi, he was a good successor to Karloff. His Frankenstein monster and Mummy were just as good if not arguably better than Karloff's. Lee, like Karloff managed to freighten in every role, not just one specialty. As great as Lugosi was he was greatest at Dracula, and other horror roles were "B" grade performances. Lee and Karloff always fascinated and terrified, not matter the role.

I do believe it a shame that Universal did not use the team of Lugosi/Karloff team the way Hammer used the Cushing/Lee team. The few times Lugosi and Karloff were together they were good together.