The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

When I was a kid growing up, I used to love when a Hammer horror movie would come on tv. They were my first introduction to Dracula, Frankenstein, and the wolfman. The special effects weren't much by today's standards, but there was a magic about them.


The question then is this:

If you are familiar with the films, what might be your fave?

My favorites are: Scars of Dracula, The mummies shroud, and The curse of the werewolf.

at the earths core and the awakaning as i know a couple of the actors well.

The Devil's Bride aka The Devil Rides Out....Rasputin the Mad Monk, Horror of Dracula, and Vampire Lovers are some of my all time faves.

P.S. catseye...neither of the films you mentioned are Hammer films.

Hammer films are EXCELLENT. Punctuated by the intense music.

Mummy, Dracula, Son of Drac

ive bought a couple of hammer collections i enjoy them so much.

i still recall going to a drive in (yes, im that old lol) as a kid and seeing the mummies shroud.

for mummy aficionados you should see it if you have not. when the mummy takes the mans head between his hands...
you never see any blood...but you know he is crushing the guys skull.

most of the hammer films had real class...it wasnt just shock and gore. the vampire lovers was yummy. gotta say that when hammer showed just a little skin, it felt like youd seen ALOT of skin. some of those buxom young bar maids in the movies may have caused early onset puberty in me!!!!
LOL
~W~

Those films did a LOT with fairly small budgets. They looked gorgeous, and yes, a fair number of the leading ladies were "discovered" from posing in Playboy but that didn't hurt anything!

Their suspense films were great also. Taste of Fear is excellent. And we can't forget the adventure/pirate films...Pirates of Blood River is outstanding.

what was the one where peter cushing was a reformed pirate that was the minister of a village, and he and his band would ride thru the night dressed as ghosts to scare the tax collectors away.
that was quite good
~W~

That would be Night Creatures...sometimes called Dr Syn. Very eerie,quite good film.

The Ghoul, a rather nasty Beastie who would feed on the flesh of unsuspecting travelers.

Many of the hammer girls were truly rather beautiful, more curvey than the sticks regularly employed nowadays.

I wonder if the casting agents were men back then?

Hammer Horror films. Those were the glory days.


Fond, fond memories.....


The Brides of Dracula and Dracula Prince of darkness outstanding films and who could forget the twins of evil!


Happy days..... never to return!

The Ghoul was not a Hammer film. It was made by Tyburn films I believe. They made several good movies in the horror genre, and some had Peter Cushing in them, which may account for being mistaken for a Hammer film.

As to the casting....good ol Colonel Jim Carerras had the most say in who played who. He chose most of the leading ladies! He had a good eye for talent, and was known for having a poster made and then taking it to the writers and saying "Here's the poster...now write me a movie!"

Vampire Circus was a real chiller since the vampires were out to kill all the children of the village to resurrect their master.

OMG - I love those Hammer films! Hard for me to choose one fave; I loved the vampire ones with Christopher Lee.
They were so over the top with the bright red blood gushing everywhere...and the cleavage! Lol!

Horrors of Dracula DEFINITELY! and Vampire Lovers

As a matter of fact, there's a NEW one coming out with the kid from Harry Potter!!! LOL It's gonna be called "The Woman In Black".

"The Woman In Black" will be a Gothic horror film based on the story by Susan Hill. According to Variety, Radcliffe (Harry Potter kid) will star as Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer who travels to a remote pocket of Blighty to tend to a deceased client's papers. Kipps soon begins to uncover the terrible secrets of the house and village. The film will be directed by James Watkins and written by Jane Goldman.

Oh yeah.. and Brides of Dracula was pretty friggin awesome too :)

That's going to be a Hammer film? Sounds good, with a name star to sell it. I hope it goes over big!

Plague of the Zombies was another good one...it was made back to back with The Reptile, and they were known as the Cornish set lol...as both films were set in and around Cornwall.

i didnt even know hammer studios still existed!

and thanks for the info carnelian...i like "here is a poster, make a movie about it" thing.


did hammer make vampyres? now that was a sexy little movie.
~W~

what have they made recently?

Favorite would have to be the classic vampire Circus,

I like "Brides of Dracula" I cannot think of other Hammer movies Ive seen

No, you're thinking of John carpenter. He made Vampires.

And yes, the movie I was talking about is a Hammer film. Here's the link:

http://www.metro.co.uk/film/835505-daniel-radcliffe-grabs-lead-role-in-horror-film-the-woman-in-black

Brides of Dracula is such a classic....seems to be shown so much on late night TV. Gotta love the slightly fey Baron Meinster, the lovely ladies of the girls' academy, and the heroic Van Helsing saving the day!

Peter Cushing is such a good actor.


personally I love movies that have nothing to do with Dracula, I feel he's overused. instead i would like it if the main vampire was a woman, someone who is very regal looking and middle aged ( not that there is anything wrong with hot young vampire girls, its just hard to take them seriously as the primary vampire for a story)

no no sexy, i ment the english movie from the late 60s/ early 70s called vampyers (with the y).

its about to female vampires that apparently were murdered for having a lesbian love affair, and came back.

the plot is frankly a bit hard to follow...and they seem to run alot ...
but its a very striking movie, and sticks in my head.
~W~

I remember that movie, I saw it years ago when they played it on halloween back when AMC still played really good old classic movies.

According to their website, they have two films so far for 2010:

Let Me In
The Resident

During the last ten years, they did:

Beyond the Rave

I missed those! I see I will have to go a hunting to try and find them now.

No one has mentioned Hound of the Baskervilles yet....great performance by Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes, and a guest appearance by a very realistic spider...ech!

i always thought lee and cushing both were exceptional actors, and very underrated due to the kinds of roles they took.
im sort of perversely pleased that both found their way into the star wars pantheon.
~W~

They were/are the only reason I watched the Star Wars films...Cushing would have been a shoo-in for the Lord of the Rings films had he lived that long.

Both of them put great integrity into their performances. They never 'phoned in' their roles. Classy all the way.

besides star wars, did they work for any of the american studios like universal or paramount? trying to think if they were any other "mainstream" movies.
~W~

Mr Lee moved to America for about 10 years in the late 1970's. His first "big" US film after that was Airport 77, in which he played a hero's part. Later on he did Serial for Paramount, and he appeared in many roles in films and on TV during his time here. Mr Cushing on the other hand remained planted in England and appeared in home grown projects there.

you forget Christopher lees work for MGM (I assume) when he was Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun

Yes I did forget that! That was just prior to his move to America. The Bond film was a great chance for movie makers to see him as something other than Dracula.

Unfortunately not all of his US films weren't top shelf...things like Howling 2, End of the World and Curse 3 made us long for a good Hammer film again!

personally I think he has the right idea, he sees that he has at MOST 10 more years to live and so he is in a tone of things now even if its only small parts.

Since he has moved back to the UK, his parts have been better, but smaller, quality roles. And of course he got knighted! From my friends in the UK I hear that Mr Lee also attends various Hammer get-togethers, which is nice.

it really is sad that peter cushing died so young (comparatively)

i had forgotten his role in man with the golden gun as well...which is odd because i really do enjoy it.

how old was cushing when he died?


here is some hammer trivia...there was this one actor that seemed to always play the innkeeper in the dracula films.
what was his name and is he still alive?
(i figured we do have some serious hammer fans here so someone might know...) i always enjoyed his acting.

~W~

quatermass and the pit
the devil ride's out
rasputin the mad monk
she
dracula
frankinstine
I love hammer film's think I may have seen most of them
I have 35/40 on dvd up to now lol

LW, the man you're thinking of is Michael Ripper. Alas he passed away a few years ago. Towards the end his memory went completely and he could not recall being in any of his Hammer films! What a dear man he was.

Mr Cushing was 81 when he passed in 1994.

I grew up on Hammer Films and still enjoy watching them when they show every once in a while.

I like most of their movies but amongst my favourites are:

All of the Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing Dracula and Frankenstein Films
Vampire Circus
Twins of Evil
The Vampire Lovers
Countess Dracula
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter
Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
She
The Lady Vanishes
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Kiss of the Vampire
Lust for a Vampire
One Million Years B.C.
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
The Phantom of the Opera
The Gorgon
The Devil's Own (aka The Witches)

i agree. anything with Lee and Cushing is worth a mention. We sat as a family on a Saturday evening and watched The Hammer House of Horror when i was little. i loved the whole thing: the music score; the acting; the plots. Why dont they make them like that any more?

cm said:
LW, the man you're thinking of is Michael Ripper. Alas he passed away a few years ago. Towards the end his memory went completely and he could not recall being in any of his Hammer films! What a dear man he was.

Mr Cushing was 81 when he passed in 1994.

shame about mr ripper...you sound as if you knew him personally! if you did im very envious...he had something that shined thru his roles...i think id have enjoyed knowing him. i do hate what aging does to us tho...dementia is one of the most tragic things i can think of.

i thought cushing was much older. when he appeared in star wars (filmed in 75 or 76?) he already looked like he was in his 70s.
i pick on him, but growing up if i saw a moving on the late show with his name in it, id be figuring out a way to be awake and watching it!!!
i lived one hundred miles away from where the movie station was, no cable, the picture had alot of snow (altho sometimes it would be quite good). we had a b&w set (family too poor for color), and I HAD A BLAST!

now i flip thru my 60 begillion channels and see a movie on, i just dvr it and watch it whenever. its cool, its convenient but it takes some of the magic away i think.
~W~

Alas I did not know Mr Ripper personally. I have many many books on Hammer and the people who made the films so it may seem like I do know them! They were a great part of my young years.

Mr Cushing suffered from cancer in his final years, but his last Hammer collaboration with Mr Lee was in narrating a look at Hammer titled "Flesh and Blood". It is well worth looking up as it covers all aspects of Hammer as well as many clips from the films. Mr Cushing died in hospice before it was shown but I'm sure he enjoyed it nonetheless!

i just hope that when he passed he was surrounded by a loving family.

i will track down that film.

thanks for all the info....you rock!
~W~

Something else Hammer fans might want to check out...www.littlleshoppeofhorrors.com. This is the website for the fanzine Little Shoppe of Horrors, which is dedicated to Hammer films. It's a really well done magazine and the latest issue covers the Mummy series, always a favorite of mine. Each issue is just crammed with facts and interviews and reviews, just a treasure trove. Well worth looking into. (End of plug, back to the thread now!)

The Man who could Cheat Death is another good Hammer film but rarely seen these days.

what are the movies in the hammer mummy series? im only familiar with the one where lee plays the mummy and cushing finally kills him, and the mummies shroud.
~W~

The 4 Mummy Films are:

The Mummy

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

The Mummy's Shroud

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb

The last film was one that Peter Cushing had started and worked a couple of days on, then his wife passed away and he dropped out of the production. Interesting to speculate on how much better that film would have been with him in it. Also the director, Seth Holt, died during production....from a case of the hiccups! Michael Carerras filled in as director.

hicups?????

fatal hicups????

well, i need to hit amazon for curse of the mummies tomb.

the blood one...the way you worded it made it sound like one that i could miss

~W~

LW, the hiccups had been going on for quite awhile and it weakened his heart...he actually died of heart failure, but the contributing cause was hiccups.

Way to go. That film was sort of cursed I would say.

ok, its on its way to me from amazon...
also has the gorgon and some other things on it.

waiting by my mailbox! LOL
~W~

Good ol amazon! They have a Hammer collection called Icons of Suspense, which has a GREAT selection of Hammer films...one is the little seen "Never Take Sweets from a Stranger" and a great Cushing performance in "Cash on Demand", Hammer's take on a Christmas Carol!

did hammer do a movie in the early to mid 70s called masters of horror? (maybe masters of terror)

about some guys on a train that have their stories told, and in the end turns out they are dead.
cushing was in it.
~W~

Sounds like the movies put out by Amicus Fims called "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors".

Amicus Films was a competitor of Hammer, but the movies were similar due to their using some of the same actors and directors.

Amicus put out some reallu great sci-fi and horror flicks:

* It's Trad, Dad! (1962)
* Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1964)
* Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965)
* The Skull (1965)
* Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966)
* The Psychopath (1966)
* The Deadly Bees (1966)
* Torture Garden (1967)
* Danger Route (1967)
* They Came from Beyond Space (1967)
* The Terrornauts (1967)
* The Birthday Party (1968)
* A Touch of Love (1969)
* The Mind of Mr. Soames (1969)
* The House That Dripped Blood (1970)
* I, Monster (1971)
* What Became of Jack and Jill? (1971)
* Asylum (1972)
* Tales from the Crypt (1972)
* The Vault of Horror (1973)
* From Beyond the Grave (1973)
* And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)
* The Beast Must Die (1974)
* Madhouse (1974)
* The Land That Time Forgot (1974)
* At the Earth's Core (1976)
* The People That Time Forgot (1977)

i thought the land time forgot was a show?

I seem to remember a show by that name too, probably a spin-off from the movie.

LOVED Amicus films...some of em. Same with Hammer. They had their greats, and not so greats. Dr Terror's House of Pancakes...I mean, Horrors...was a good one.

damn you cm! i wasnt going to make the house of pancakes comment!!!

lol


when i was a kid, i had an 8mm movie camera and made a movie called dr terrors house of pancakes. it was silly, but when i showed to my friends, i had at least one guy drinking a sprite spray it out of his nostrils.
one of my vignettes was about the starship hamster-prize.
ah good times.
~W~

I just got a couple of Frankenstein movies and I think one of them is a Hammer movie, at least it has peter cushing in it.

I was never very fond of the Frankenstein films. I used to have this theory, that guys liked the Frankie films and girls liked Drac. However that theory has been proven wrong lol..lots of female Frankie fans out there.

I did like Frankenstein Created Woman..it had the most beautiful score.

And LW...nyahh nyahh! :P

cm....bad little girls get spanked! LOL


i loved the frank movies when i was a kid...as i got older tho i came to enjoy drac more and more.

and i do think that chris lee had the ability to be both a romantic gentleman (altho he wasnt given the lines for it more of the time) and also the beast.

a hell of a fine actor indeed.
~W~

Mr Lee played a romantic gentleman part as Henry Baskerville in Hammer's Sherlock Holmes film. Not only that, but he looked smashing in those riding boots!

Repeated viewings of this film bring to mind a question...Holmes always tied up his loose ends (or Conan Doyle did when he wrote the stories)...so why was Dr Mortimer left as a "red herring"? I never liked that character anyway, lol...very shady Dr indeed.

im curious...

did vincent price appear in any hammer film?

that said, did he ever appear in a film with either cushing or lee?


i got my copy of curse of the mummies tomb today.
sat and just enjoyed it very much.

~W~

Not in a Hammer film, no. But Mr Price has been with both Lee and Cushing on a couple of occasions..one is "Scream and Scream Again" and the other is "House of the Long Shadows" which also featured John Carradine, a fearsome foursome indeed!

Mr Price appeared in several good Roger Corman films in the early 60's, well worth checking out, especially "The Raven" and "House of Usher."

I forgot to add, in my last post...that Mr Price has appeared with Lee and Cushing individually in other films as well. "The Oblong Box" with Lee anda couple others with Cushing, the titles of which escape me at the moment.

one of my fave films of price was the abominable dr phibes.

it wasnt a hammer film, but there were many aspects of it that felt like one.
i could be mistaken, but i felt that perhaps some of the crew had or did work for hammer...that might explain it.
~W~

Some of the "horror" films in that era were designed to look like Hammer films, and Dr Phibes was one of those. Mr Price was sometimes mistaken for an Englishman as he spoke so well and played a lot of English roles..even marrying an English lady.

Did you know he, Mr Cushing and Mr Lee have almost the same birthdate? May 26 for Mr Cushing and May 27 for Lee and Price..different years, of course.

I am impressed by your extensive library, I did not know much of what you speak of but it all makes sense.The fact that some of the girls had shady past lives is most amusing and how the gentry talent spotting hid it so well.Very amusing, one wonders what else these latter day actors and casting crews were up to...well....not really.Rofl.

Some of the Hammer actresses were models before they were spotted and signed but I don't recall saying any of them had a "shady past". To my knowledge none of them did.

well I'm happy I just got the compleat set of hammer vampire movie's on dvd lol and witch finder genral as well

Witchfinder General is a GREAT film. Mr Price playing a real baddie, and not tongue in cheek like he usually does. The director sadly died young, just seeing that film makes me think he could have done other more brilliant things.

Nice to have all the Hammer Draculas in one set tho!

ive not seen all the hammer dracs in one set!!!!

i want!!!!

~W~

the hammer films were fun . love the curse of the werewolf with oliver reed . that filmed rocked and still does today . christopher lee was a good dracula . But for the magic is in the old BW classics with borris karloff i know they were RKO and not hammer but without em we wouldnt have the horror flicks we have today .

Ollie Reed really got his start in Hammer films, he was in a good few of them and played everything from a pimp to a pirate...along with his star turn in Curse of the Werewolf. I thought he did an outstanding job in that film. To the end of his days he praised Hammer and the films they made. He was really proud of those films.

Interestingly enough, I was invited to a drink with Mr Reed, a local Legend from Capel in Dorking ,Surrey. Oh yes there are some stories, my friends brother also runs a dark network and magazines from Coulsdon I think.
So what say you...a drink at the Nutley Hall in Reigate? Hee hee, those who know, know.
In short I would dearly love to meet you, I have a feeling we know each other which would be hilarious.

im obviously not in the know...

but i really did enjoy mr reeds work. i used to enjoy reading of his rather bawdy escapades. lol


curse of the werewolf was one of the earliest hammer movies i ever saw, and i really did (and do) enjoy it.
it was a good solid story, and the acting was top notch.


note: the boris karloff frankenstein and bela lugosi dracula movies were done by universal.

~~W~

There are some wonderful Ollie Reed stories out there. I prefer to remember him at what I thought was his peak, in The 3 and 4 Musketeers. Those were fabulous films.

Pirates of Blood River and Devil-Ship Pirates are well worth seeking out, if you like your Hammer films swashbuckling and the women wild.

Anyone into the prehistoric films...the one that launched Raquel Welch (and her teeny bikini)?

he was a fabulous athos...very believable.

i have never actually seen raquel welsh in her fur bikini, but as to being in it...i think it would look a bit silly on me.

but i think watching ms welsh in the musketeer films is what jump started puberty for me! LOL


did hammer ever do any non horror/fantasy films?
~W~

They did a LOT of them. They first started off as a distributing company, then made their own films. The early ones were quite noir-ish, some with American actors in leading roles (to help give name value and thus sell the films overseas).
Some non-fantasy films include:
Song of Freedom, Cloudburst, The Last Page, Blood Orange, Visa to Canton, and A Weekend with Lulu (Lulu being an ice cream van!).

Hammer did quite a variety of films in their early years. Once they hit gold with the sci fi-fantasy films they tended to stick with those but did other films also.

at the moment I'm hunting down a list of all hammer filme's an I'm going to try to get every one they have made I love hammer man they rock !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ironhead, you can message me for a list. If you want ALL the Hammer films, I can do that, or just the horror/fantasy ones. Just let me know!

cm...could you post the horror/ fantasy list to the thread?
id really love to see it and it sort of goes along with the topic LOL

~W~

.. those films were a staple diet of my youth.

.. gotta say The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

that one seemed to fall flat for me. that one and dracula ad 1972 seemed a bit ...lame.

for me the top of the heap was scars of dracula. i dont really know why i like it so much, but i think it had some thing to do with seeing it in the theater when i was young...and seeing that lovely young ladies bum as she ran down and then back up the stairs...

another incident that helped to jump start puberty for me
LOL

~W~

for me its the devil rids out and quatermass and the pit

i dont believe i have seen either one of them.
~W~

LordWolf:

Here's a link to HammerWeb:

Hammer Films

If you click on the Film Archive, you can find all of their films and movies made for TV. You can search by Decade and alphabetically.

You can also play trivia, purchase merchandise and DVD's, and read up on current releases, and events.

thank you very much psivamp! thats way cool!
~W~

Phew, thanks, now I don't have to spend all that time typing in the titles of the films. Everyone can just go there and get the info they need.

still very good info. and thank you cm for bringing your vast array of knowledge to the party.
~W~

When one lives long enough, LW, one becomes knowledgable in certain areas...lol though most of my knowledge came in the years BC...before computers...when I had to send away for books about the films I loved.

Another good source of info back in the day....Famous Monsters of Filmland. Forry did a great job of bringing monsters and movies together for fans of all ages. I remember when Fangoria first came out, the shock of seeing THAT mag after years of reading Famous Monsters..it was like in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy opens the door when she first lands in Oz and the film changes from sepia to color!

Fangoria is still around today, and thank goodness it does pay attention to Hammer films. I give it respect for that.

sigh...i always wanted to meet forry ackerman...he had the coolest collection of weird crap in the world!

i was also hooked on vampirella, creepy, and eerie as well.

ah...good times.
~W~

I was always a "Tomb of Dracula" girl, lol. Still have a couple of back issues.

Forry's mag was a great launching pad for some of todays greatest film people...Stephen King, Steven Speilberg, Rick Baker and Tom Savini among them, all great fans of FM.

from what i can get out of the thread, hammer films were a bit like a gateway drug for our dark interests. lol


famous monsters certainly made me want to become involved in making films...but all i did was filmed with an 8mm camera, and dinosaur models (and a hamster).

the film was pretty amusing. i wish i still had it today...was monty python worthy...at least it was to me when i was 12 lol.
~W~

We was po' folks lol, couldn't afford movie cameras and such. I just drew a lot. And wrote..my own versions of Hammer films, or rather my alternate endings lol. I always wanted to see Dracula kind of make peace with the good guys and go away for awhile.

i saw a couple of the christopher lee draculas movies and was surpirised at how few lines he had.

Mr Lee was always trying to get Bram Stoker's lines into the story, and he did a couple of times. I read somewhere that in the first Hammer Dracula, the character was only on screen for five minutes! Now I have to rewatch the film and find out if that is true.

but it works so well !!!!!!!!!!!

Yes it does. You can toss in all the cleavage you want from the ladies...it's the count we all want to see! And maybe explains why those films just keep on staying popular over the years.

true but it also helps that the actors have such a screen presints I meet chrispher lee a few years ago and he's such a great nice guy but has such a arua about him

love to meet mr lee...

i understand he actually turned away from the dracula role because they wanted to put too much nudity and such into the films.

i also read somewhere that he managed to get at least one stoker line into each movie he did.

dont know if its right.

~W~

He got in a couple lines. Of course, in Prince of Darkness, he had no lines at all....just hisses!

My favorite is from Dracula AD 1972..."You would play your brains against mine...against me who has commanded nations?" Great line, not covered too well in the scene, but Stoker readers got it.

i didnt realize he only hissed in prince of darkness...

how the hell did he let them get away with that????

lol
~W~

This thread has been automatically closed for length.