The Face of Horror Movies: Hammer Films

You've heard about historic figures who have helped shaped the horror and science fiction genre, from gothic poet Edgar Allan Poe to dystopian Cthulhu creator H.P Lovecraft, but there is one name in horror movie history you should know, and it is actually the name of a film production company that helped shaped horror movies that we know and love today.

I'm talking about Hammer Films.

Hammer Films is one of the oldest film companies in the world and was founded in November 1934, being the film production company behind such notable black and white classics as Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, and The Mummy.

Hammer Films were more detective and crime-story based back in the days, but in the 1950's the film production company switched to horror, making the first full colour creature feature with The Curse of Frankenstein and following on with Horror of Dracula just one year later. With these two classic cinematic stories, Hammer became cemented into horror history. Following with other horror movies such as sequels to its existing titles and literary adaptions, including Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Phantom of the Opera, before it upped the female leads in the 1970's to battle against colour television with Countess Dracula. To the Devil A Daughter was the company's last horror film of the 20th century.

Moving forward into the 1980's, Hammer Films was no longer a force in horror cinema, but instead started driving television horror, including the production of Hammer House of Horror, which was a series of tales of genuine horror laced with dark humour.

Hammer Films have a back catalogue of nearly 300 titles, ranging from classic monsters to stories about mobsters, psychopaths and cavegirls, and their most recent productions included The Woman In Black, Let Me In, and The Quiet Ones.