Wednesday 3 December 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests


A beloved British institution

Hammer’s Dracula is now a beloved British institution

Wednesday, 17th October 2007

Hammer’s 1958 Dracula is being re-released

To some, the spectacle of heaving bosoms, goblets and hideous bloodshot eyes might simply signify an average night out in Boujis. For the rest of us, however, these are the amusingly persistent leitmotifs of Hammer Horror — together with brightly lit Transylvanian inns, horses clattering through Home Counties woodlands, huge fangs and glass paintings of distant castles.

Cinema horror these days is largely to do with gruellingly repulsive scenes of realistic torture — from the Hostel films to the Saw series. So how is it that the now-antiquated scare devices of a gimcrack British outfit of the 1950s and 1960s remain so extraordinarily pervasive?

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