Hammer: Dracula Prince Of Darkness

So with Hammers first Dracula film we had Chrisopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, then we got a second Dracula film the Brides of Dracula which featured Cushings Van Helsing but didnt actually featuring Christopher Lee or anyone for that matter as Dracula and so after that we got the third Hammer Dracula film, Dracula: Prince of Darkness which saw the return of Lee, this time without Cushing (with the exception of scenes from Horror Of Dracula featuring him in the prologue). I saw this film originally years ago when I was quiet young, I however recently watched it and felt that I would like to review it as a part of my series of Hammer reviews.

Ok so I try to keep things spoiler free but if you havent yet watched Horror of Dracula and dont want that film spoiling then skip this paragrape as the start of this film is the end of that one. The film starts with a prologue which replays the final scene from Horror of  Dracula, in which Dr. Van Helsing destroys Dracula by first pulling down the curtains and then using two large candle sticks to act as a cross, a cross which he uses to push Dracula back in to the sunlight that is coming through the window which kills him. These replay is accompanied by voice-over narration which tells of how Van Helsing was able to end Dracula's  reign of terror making him nothing more than a dreaded memory. I really like the way this is done, it really conects this film to the first one, it also reminds you of just how brilliantly that film ended, what once was a great ending now serves as a really awesome high impact start to this film with the naration adding a certain freshness to it, personally I think this was an awesome way to open the film.

The main story doesnt feature Van Helsing at all, it instead tells about how Dracula is reserected and then gives us a new set of characters to go against him, the closist to a Van Helsing style character being Father Sandor who goes from visiting an inn and warning four English tourists to stay away from Dracula's castle to eventually offering those who have escaped Dracula sanctuary and help to defeat him. I dont think he is as good as Peter Cushing however Andrew Keir plays Sandor well and makes him both a believeable and intresting character, you feel that he is just as knowledgable and willing to fight evil as Helsing was but he in my mind at least just doesnt feel as formidable a foe, he doesnt feel like Dracula's natural equal.

I guess your expecting me to go on and on about how wonderful Christopher Lee is now or how much I miss Peter Cushing?  Well I do and dont miss Cushing there was a nice little bit of seeing how cool he was at the start even if it was purly a recap and reused footage, yes its great to see Helsing against Dracula but its intresting to see how Dracula deals with and relates to other diffrent people. Now I find it important to note that the Dracula seen in this film is kind of diffrent to the one seen in the first movie for a start Dracula does not speak in the film, he gestures and looks and hisses apart from the hisses its almost like a silent movie portrayel of Dracula but just like with a silent film Chrisopher Lee manages to speak a thousand words with every look with every movement, he might not talk but he speaks volumes with his acting.

 According to Christopher Lee: "I didn’t speak in that picture. The reason was very simple. I read the script and saw the dialogue! I said to Hammer, if you think I’m going to say any of these lines, you’re very much mistaken."^{, this account was contradicted by the} Screenwriter Jimmy Sangsterwho claimed that "Vampires don't chat. So I didn't write him any dialogue. ''Personally I can think of a whole bunch of reasons Dracula might not talk in this film from a story point of view, maybe it was because of how he came back, maybe meeting his end and then being reserected effected him, or maybe he just didnt find anyone worth talking to that he met during this film. If it is true that Lee read the script and the dialogue was poor then I say that it was a good call on his behalf to decide that less was more and say nothing instead pouring everything in to his almost silent performance.

I didnt enjoy this game as much as Horror of Dracula but I actually have tio say that I think it was better than Brides of Dracula and certainly well worth a watch.

Hammer: Brides of Dracula

Last night I watched The Brides of Dracula which is another Hammer horror film and well its the sequel to The Horror of Dracula which I reviewed recently. It in some ways is a strange sequel particularly when you realise that despite having the name Dracula right there in the title doesnt actually feature Dracula at all. So if this films not about Dracula then who and what is it about and what makes it a sequel? Well Peter Cushing returns from the previous film once again playing Doctor Van Hellsing and thats what ties the films togther. At one stage apparently the film was going to be called Disciple Of Dracula which I actually think would have been a better title for the film as the Brides are not really the main Villian of the piece or what the focus point of the film in general.

So in my review of the first Hammer Dracula I talked about how well Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing worked alongside each other and thats sort of the downside of this film. Peter Cushing gives a fabulous performance once again but there isent really anyone around him who comes even close so it really is a one man show. Dont get me wrong Cushing acted the living crap out of the role, I dont fault a single line he utters or movement he makes the man is an acting legend and once again he puts on a motion picture acting master class but it just doesnt equal the previous film as there isent the same feeling of it being an equal battle and the same sort of on screen chemistry. I will try not to spoil to much of the plot but I want to go back to what I said about the brides not being the main antagonists of the piece. The main Villian is actually played by an actor called David Peel and is a character called Baron Meinster, who and I say this more because of the possible title than anything I noticed in the film is apparently a disciple of Count Dracula. Now anyone who has watched a lot of horror and vampire films will instantly be able to tell you that not all Vampires are equal or actors for that matter. No offense to David Peel but he is a poor subsitute for Christopher Lee, Baron Meinster apart from possibly one scene largly comes across as a cardboard cut out monster, in my oppinion you could have lifted him straight out of the film and dropped anyone dressed as a vampire in to his place and given them some simple instructions, Cushing tottally carries him (and the whole film).

I know some people might have issues that this whole review has just become a piece in which to praise Cushing but heck its my review, watch the film and see what you think.  I just feel that Cushing had really gotten the role of Van Helsing and made it his, he had become the character and knew how he would act and what he would say. The ending to this film originally was going to be that all of the vampiresare killed by a swarm of bats released straight from hell via a black magic  ritual. This ending was rejected by Peter Cushing, who said that Van Helsing would never resort to using black magic, that it didnt fit the character and I have to admit that I do think it would have been tottally out of context and well jaring to see this version of Van Helsing do something like that (Hammer did stow the idea away and use it in a latter Vampire film). To me this is the mark of a good actor, one who gets a real feel for the characters they play and begins to breathe real life in to them and make them more than just an image on the silver screen. So I guess I will leave things here, its not a bad film, in fact it is enjoyable, heck if you like Cushing you will proberbly love it, it just doesnt compare to the first entry in the series.

The Birth of Hammer Horror

When I was 12 I didnt know hardly anything about film studios, sure I watched a heck of a lot of films but I tended to be drawn by the subject matter or by the actors, however in the world of Video Games I was a little bit more knowledgable If I saw particular logo's on video game boxes such as the Capcom Logo then I was almost certain I was going to get a certain quality of product, a product which would provide a certain kind of experiance. So when I read what none other than Martin Scorsese had to say about Hammer Films in the following quote well I knew exactly what he meant “When I was 11 or 12, and went with groups of friends to see certain films, if we saw the logo of Hammer Films we knew it was a certain kind of film. A surprising experience, usually… and shocking.”

Hammer Films are by and large quality films, the company has a reputation, on of excellence, its a historical studio, one with a legacy, one which has and should never be forgotten but where did it all begin? Well it all began back in November 1934 with a man who went by the name of William Hinds, he was a comedian and businessman, he registered his film company, a company which was called Hammer Productions Ltd. The company was housed in a three-room office suite at Imperial House, on Regent Street in London. The company name came from William Hinds' stage name, which was Will Hammer, he had takken the name Hammer from the fact he lived in an area of London called Hammersmith. This was not the birth of Hammer as we really know it though, during this time though William Hinds met a man called Enrique Carreras a former cinema owner and they formed a film distribution company called Exclusive Films. Hammer was forced in to bankruptcy due to a slump in the British film industry and therefore  went into liquidation in 1937. Hammer was gone for the time at least but Exclusive survived.

It was from Exclusive that Hammer would once again rise and it all began when James Carreras joined Exclusive in 1938, he was closely followed by William Hinds' son, Anthony.  In 1946, James Carreras  resurrected Hammer as the film production arm of Exclusive Films. Hammer was resurrected to supply'quota-quickies' (cheaply made domestic films designed to fill the gaps in cinema schedules). James and Anthony really put Hammer on the board properly with its production of Nigel Kneale's BBC series, The Quatermass Xperiment in 1955. The success of this project encouraged these young producers to find another fantasy based story to turn into a new production, and they found this with the out of copyright book Frankenstein, which they turned into the film The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), It has been argued that this was the most important horror film since Universal released Dracula way back in 1931. Wether you agree with this statment or not I am sure you will agree that it was a very important fim for both Hammer and the world of Horror films in general. Dracula had kick started the age of Universal films and Frankenstien did the samme for Hammers age of Horror, it seemed only fitting that Hammer would then turn to Dracula for there next film

As for The Curse Of Frankenstein though well it was a genre defining picture, it allowed us brits to usher in the return of gothic horror, gothic horror in colour and with lashings of gore at that. This wasnt the only thing that made it a heck of a landmark film though, no you can thank the director Terence Fisher and the fabulous acting team of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing for a lot of what makes this film a legendary piece. Lee manages to bring a certain sense of sympathy to the monster without ever saying a word and yet Cushing manages to remind us that Frankenstein is the man and not the monsster, in fact he breaths so much life into the Doctor that you almost expect him to break out of the screen and become a fully fleshed out person. There is a reason why both of these men both togther and seperatly appear in so many horror films and it is because they are quiet simply masters of the macabra, and they are so linked to Hammer in my mind that to see them makes me think of the very company itself.

This was the birth of the real Hammer the one we all remember and look back on fondly

Is it wrong to use Peter Cushings likeness after his death, and the Helen Cushing Rose.

OK so lets get one thing straight right from the start of this, I adore  Peter Cushing, the first time I saw him as a child was in the American Doctor Who and the Daleks movies, then he was Moff Tarkin in Starwars , then I found out that he was Van Helsing in the Hammer Horror Dracula films and got in to his horror work, I dont think I would be over stating it when saying that he was an amazing actor and he was one of the very best horror film actors who has ever lived.

So In order for you to get the point of what I am talking about I need to lay down a few simple points Peter Cushing is dead, he has been for sometime unfortunatly and the new StarWars film Rogue One has just come out. Ok so Rogue One is set before StarWars a new hope otherwise known as the original 1977 StarWars. They decided in this film to use CGI so that Grand Moff Tarkin the character portrayed in the original 1977 film could appear in this film despite the actor who originally brought him to life being dead. Now some people seem to have a problem with this Catherine Shoard has written an artile for the Guardian online where she offers the oppinion that ''Rogue One’s resurrection is a digital indignity''one which should not have happend.  She makes what I must admit is a half way decent argument that ''The dignity of death ought to be preserved'' but isent acting itself a form of digital imortality? Peter Cushing might be dead but you can pick up any of his old films and watch them today or tommorow or in 10 years time.

For a start it needs to be noted that Peter Cushing's family gave the filmmakers permission to use his likeness. Yet people will ask what woud Cushing have thought about it. Well there are a few things I will add to this for you to thing about for one. Peter Cushing was very deeply in love with his wife, she was his world and the way he felt about her was genuinly heart warming, he talked about her after her passsing with a look which seemed to contain both a smile and a tear, he apparently wrote letters from both of them even after her pasing and In 1986, he wrote to Jim'll Fix It to request that a rose be developed in memory of his late, dearly beloved wife, Helen. This was granted and a rose was developed specially in her honour and was named ... Helen Cushing. The Helen Cushing rose was a cross between Silver Jubilee rose and a Deep Secret rose and was pink in colour, it was Cultivated by a man called Christopher Wheatcroft who used to own a garden center in Notingham. He created this rose by removing the pollen from the Silver Jubilee roses and using them to polenate the Deep Secret Roses this sounds like it would be easy to replicate but no itse not its complicated because you never know how much of the DNA from each rose will be dominant. The Helen Cushing Rose was created, I would argue that Peter Cushing wanted part of his Wife's beauty an spirit to live on in this rose and to touch others the way she had touched his life, and if this is true then I cant see him having any issue with the use of his likeness to bring pleasure to others.

I can not say that Cushing would have agreed with this use of his image or with my oppinion but I do think you should at least consider what he would want and try to learn a little about him before jumping in to the argument.