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Radcliffe's new film signals Hammer Films' return from the grave
Submitted by Capt. Xerox on July 20, 2010 - 9:38pm.
I am excited by the news that Daniel Radcliffe, the eponymous star of the Harry Potter movies, is set to play in a new horror movie adapted from the novel The Woman in Black. It's not the news that Radcliffe is making a movie that's got me excited, but that it will be the first film from a revived Hammer Films.
While known mostly as a horror studio of schlocky vampire movies during the 50s, 60s and 70s, they also made some science fiction titles, most notably The Quatermass Xperiment.
I am curious to see what sort of success the studio has, although it seems unlikely that they can recreate the spirit of the original studio. It's sort of like those revivals of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Each time they tried, the magazine seemed a little less amazing than the original.
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The studio that dripped blood
Like you said, there is no way that you can capture that lighting in a bottle. Growing up, the Universal monster classics seem to elude me no matter how often I scanned the movie listings in the TV guides, but I often caught the Hammer horror movies and some of them in the theaters as well. Today as I rewatch them, I appreciate them even more. The kid in me wanted to see the gore and spooks. But now, mood, scenery and writing is what sets Hammers appart from the Hollywood stuff. I didn't really know about the Hammer SF until I learned about it on the BatEotU.
And I'm still catching up today on other Hammer horrors that I've missed over the years. Just a few weeks ago enjoyed Night Creatures which isn't even really a horror. But it's one of Hammer's finest movies thanks in large part (as is often the case) to Peter Cushing. Another great oddball Hammer I finally got around to watching last month was Raputin: The Mad Monk. That one was pure Christopher Lee, the 'other' Hammer lynchpin actor.
The impending rebirth of Hammer has been in the works for some time. While I'm hopeful that it will be a source of good movies, I'm not expecting to see anything like what they once made. You just can't go back like that.
~ Lazarus ~
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