Over half a century ago, Britain’s prestigious Hammer Studios suddenly switched gears from costume dramas and relatively sedate thrillers and shocked the world with a pair of boldly provocative, revisionist horror hits, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror of Dracula (1958,) both starring what would become one of the greatest teams in monster movie history, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, who now rate right up there with Karloff and Lugosi. Both films’ garishly colored depictions of sanguinary sadism and salacious sensuality were almost completely without precedent, certainly in the post-Code era, and Hammer went on to establish itself as one of the most influential and successful fear factories in the annals of cinema, rivaling Universal Studios, whose rogue’s gallery the ballsy Brits went on to reinvent with such modern classics as The Mummy (1959) and The Curse of the Werewolf (1960). Hammer was well ahead of popular culture’s maturation curve, getting a jump start on the violent sexual revolution of the 1960s, which rapidly accelerated as the decade wore on, and the studio continued to break ground and set trends well into the 1970s, introducing graphic gore and nudity into their macabre mix with such cult favorites as The Vampire Lovers (1970), Twins of Evil (1971), and Vampire Circus (1972). But Hammer achieved more than just a reputation for explicitness; all of their relatively low budget productions were elegantly draped in lushly photographed, richly atmospheric, eerily evocative sets and costumes, and the familiar tales of terror they (re)told were refreshingly sophisticated, creatively developed, and obviously aimed at adults, even as they thrilled matinee minions, grindhouse goons and drive-in derelicts alike. To this day, for my money, Christopher Lee remains the definitive screen Dracula - suave, sexy, and savage. Today’s twilit teen twerps don’t even merit legitimate comparison in my book, since they’re merely annoying little puppies snapping at your ankles, as opposed to murderous red-eyed demon dogs ripping out your throat. Those were the celluloid vampires I knew, and still love.
Happily, after a decades-long lull, Hammer Studios is back in business - and ironically, it’s not their once impressively innovative cutting edge that counts, but their classical sense of traditional, tried-and-true terror that is giving them distinction amid the onslaught of Blair Witch/Scream/Hostel/Saw/Paranormal Activity clones clogging the system nowadays, not to mention all the remakes riffing (and ripping) off the Second Wave of Modern Horror that flooded and drowned our collective consciousness in the 1970s, just as Hammer’s influence and popularity was waning in the face of the no-holds-barred brutality in demand by a much more jaded populace. After getting their toes wet again with the edgy, experimental straight-to-video indie thriller Beyond the Rave (2008), Hammer once again dove headlong into the mainstream with the American version of the Swedish vampire sensation Let the Right One In: 2010’s commercially and critically acclaimed Let Me In, reintroducing themselves, albeit somewhat tepidly by their own standards, as the reigning proponents of box office bloodsuckers. They also produced and distributed two films in 2011, The Resident and Wake Wood, neither of which I've yet seen, and so I cannot currently comment on them. They're definitely in my queue, though.
Now they’ve made an even bigger splash with The Woman in Black, a stunningly old fashioned ghost story with absolutely no sex, hardly any blood, and no computerized effects, relying strictly on those supernatural standbys: a haunted house and a lurid legend. The entire movie drips and oozes from beginning to end with sumptuously spooky Victorian atmosphere (once their trademark, making this “feel” like classic Hammer) - all traits that are remarkably retro in the context of the hyper histrionics common in most contemporary fright flicks. I won’t go into the plot because I don’t want to spoil anything, though not much of the story is a surprise anyway (except for the very end, which is poetically portrayed). What makes The Woman in Black such an unlikely success story and compelling comeback is the fact that it isn’t outré in any sense. This is simple but solid old school filmmaking, seemingly belonging to a bygone era - and the good news is these creaky scare tactics still work. The audience I saw it with was mostly young, obviously not your aging B movie buffs anxious to see if Hammer could still swing it in the 21st Century, but they genuinely seemed to enjoy it, screaming and jumping out of their seats at the sporadic but strategically placed jump-scares scattered throughout the deliberately paced narrative (another Hammer hallmark some fans bemoan), slowly building momentum to an unsettling if not wholly spectacular conclusion.
Glad to have you back, old chaps. Now that you’ve proven you still got it, bring on the lesbian vampires!
The Woman in Black is now playing at Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley, Jack London Cinemas in Oakland and other Bay Area Theaters.
Will “the Thrill” Viharo is a pulp fiction author and B Movie impresario.
