Hammer's Cornwall Classics

THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES (1966)
THE REPTILE (1966)

The stunning Jacqueline Pearce, fresh from RADA, gives standout performances in both of these Hammer favourites.

FILMED back-to-back, and utilising much of the same production crew and sets, THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES and THE REPTILE were both directed by John Gilling. Each picture portrays an anti-colonial stance, and Hammer’s renowned class dynamic (that is, treading a noble path between the ignorance of the working class, bound by fear and superstition, and the unfettered power craving of the upper class). But the notion of the aristocracy as carriers of infection is crystallised in these two releases. Using the same basic story conceit as the Bela Lugosi favourite WHITE ZOMBIE, THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES belongs to the list of genuine classics in the studio’s back catalogue. Here, Sir James Forbes (Andre Morell), Professor of Medicine at London University, receives a letter from former pupil Dr Peter Tompson (Brook Williams). Now practising in Cornwall, Tompson tells of a mysterious malady which has overrun his village. The rash of deaths in the district, of which Tompson’s wife Alice (Jacqueline Pearce) is one of the latest victims, is ultimately traced to local Squire Clive Hamilton (John Carson). After returning from Haiti, Hamilton has become a black magician, using voodoo to reactivate the dead to staff his inherited, reopened tin mine.

Maximising its desolate setting, THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES is a model of economy and invention. The rural English setting, far from the usual Central European milieu, allows Gilling to use the pre-existing class structure to frightening effect; a film in which an aristocrat murders his lowly subjects in order to put them to work in daddy’s tin mine, unpaid as well as undead, would appear to operate on levels deeper than that of schlock horror. Indeed, the zombies' appearance, dressed in ragged brown robes, even suggests a link with medieval peasantry. The director shows sensitivity to Christian themes that characterised Terence Fisher’s work for Hammer; the Squire's enterprise is an immoral subversion of the Christ-story, and Tompson's recollection of his dream - "I dreamed I saw the dead rise; all the graves in the churchyard opened, and the dead came out" - is an allusion to Matthew 27:52-53. The great strength of the film, however, are the three performances from Morell, Pearce and Carson. Morell projects a moral bedrock that is necessary to carry the picture, expertly combining unflappable suavity with a deeply felt moral outrage. Pearce’s account of the living but ailing Alice is one of the most delicate performances in any horror film, and her all-too-brief reincarnation is one of the most terrifying. And Carson’s persona, a cool magnetism mixed with chilling repugnance, inevitably invites comparison to Christopher Lee.

THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES’ lumbering ghouls preceded NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD by two years. Squire Hamilton’s dilapidated characters opened the way for the armies of increasingly malevolent living dead that flowed in their wake; the first zombie appearance on the nocturnal hillside, together with the celebrated nightmare sequence - in which the undead dig their way out of the ground and advance with outstretched hands - are both highly influential.

THE REPTILE - scripted by Anthony Hinds - opens with a lengthy pre-credits sequence, in which a young Cornish landowner is lured across a moor by exotic music, only to be bitten to death by a lethally poisonous assailant. His property is inherited by his brother, Harry Spaulding (Ray Barrett), who learns that he died of causes described by locals as "The Black Death", symptoms of which are identical to those bitten by a King Cobra. In fact, neighbouring theologist Dr Franklyn (Noel Willman)’s daughter Anna (Jacqueline Pearce) has been cursed by the Snake People of Borneo, to transform into a half-human snake creature as punishment for her father’s professional exposure of their religious cult.

Slower and more stately than THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, THE REPTILE nonetheless is rich in atmosphere, and its carefully orchestrated tension belie its support feature status. Pearce, in another splendidly intense performance, makes for a fascinatingly sympathetic character, despite her clumsy – but oddly endearing – transformation make-up. The actress transcends the papier mache face mask by investing the Reptile with a sinuous grace, encased in a black gown of watered silk and a pony tail slithering incongruously down her back. Appearing as if to have strayed into the lurid landscape of Hammer Horror, Franklyn is more suited to M. R. James’ stories in which antiquarian scholars pay a terrible price for their academic zeal. The theologist’s Malay manservant (Marne Maitland) seems like the conventionally negative ‘Yellow Peril’ figure, but it is worth pointing out that though the evil in the film originates in the East, it only chooses to infiltrate England thanks to the blundering presumptions of a Westerner. Unlike Squire Hamilton, Franklyn hardly seems a villain at all, but both characters are tainted by their exposure to other cultures; as these two releases appear to illustrate, time spent in a foreign country invariably corrupts an Englishman's soul.

English Gothic

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)
DRACULA (1958)

Phil Leakey’s make-up for Hammer's ground-breaking THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. The last-minute design was a collage of mortician’s wax, rubber, and cotton wool.

WITH their lurid, uncompromising tone, and relentlessly amoral protagonists, Hammer’s legacy as the most successful horror film production company is testament to the quality of the personnel involved. Released onto a market dominated by science fiction creature features, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN was Hammer’s breakthrough picture; directors such as William Castle and Roger Corman in the United States, and Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava in Italy, were soon following Hammer’s grand guignol lead. Helmed by Terence Fisher, the film is a flamboyantly visceral retelling of Mary Shelley's classic, casting Peter Cushing as Baron Von Frankenstein, and Christopher Lee as his reanimated creation.

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN established Fisher’s ability to lend credible characterisation to formula-bound material. The John Ford of English Gothic cinema, Fisher's work presents a fascinating moral dilemma: the seductive appeal of evil, versus the close-minded representatives of good. The consistency of theme in Fisher's work, coupled with a distinctive style achieved through precise framing and dynamic editing, refutes the idea that he was merely a hack for hire. In the best of his work, there is an element of spirituality that remains unique in a genre supposedly larger-than-life; Fisher’s characters die less often from violence, than from their adherence to a belief. His five Frankenstein films for Hammer can be taken as a single work, a path that follows the metamorphosis of physician into metaphysician into quack, as the Baron’s preoccupations blind him to the importance of human life and, finally, his own mental health. In the last entry of the cycle, FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL, a final judgement on the Baron seems that the asylum setting of the film is the best place for him.

Christopher Lee makes the role of The Count his own in DRACULA.

Fisher’s achievement is complemented by Jack Asher’s lavish Eastmancolor photography, the gothic opulence of Bernard Robinson’s production design, and James Bernard’s ominous score. Furthermore, Jimmy Sangster’s literate script sees the Baron misguidedly sincere rather than intrinsically evil; not the madman of popular myth, but a scientist challenging God as a triumph of Man’s intellect. In addition to this already bulging bag of riches, you have the casting of Cushing and Lee. Both actors’ consistently elegant performances would do much to elevate the British horror film to a position where it commanded international attention. Cushing was a master of eloquence and physicality, combining impeccable diction with a manic athleticism. Lee’s Creature, as Fisher once recalled, a "wandering, forlorn minstrel of monstrosity," fuses a colossal physical presence with an icy allure. The Creature wears a shabby military greatcoat - the very image of society’s dispossessed rejects - and its futile, puppet-like attempts at communication are followed by the inevitable, exasperated lapses into violence. The monster’s introduction, bandaged, and framed in a laboratory doorway, supplemented by an unearthly tracking shot, is a scene that determined Hammer Horror.

Reconvening the major talents from THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA is a maturing of style against the blueprint of its predecessor. Seminal in the character's film canon – the Count’s first colour adaptation – Terence Fisher’s film is, however, a free and melodramatic re-evaluation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel. Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) is now a dedicated vampire hunter working under the tutelage of Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), who, in turn, is no longer the priest-physician-teacher of the novel, or the elderly savant typified by Edward Van Sloan in Universal’s 1931 film, but younger and more dynamic. Yet the film is far truer in tone to the original text; The Count (Christopher Lee) represents liberation at its most overt, shifting the characters cinematic emphasis from the supernatural to the sexual. Initially presenting its female leads as submissive, stereotypical Victorian women, both Lucy (Carole Marsh) and Mina (Melissa Stribling) transform when they encounter their demon lover, breathless in anticipation, and eager for brutish, physical contact.

Valerie Gaunt, thirsting for blood, in DRACULA.

Cushing is impeccable, radiating an Old World charm and a confidence in his rightness, but this is Lee's movie. Instead of the stylised movement, hypnotic stare and thick accent of Bela Lugosi, Lee is more physically imposing than any other actor in the role, and intractably feral. Make no mistake, Lee's Dracula is Stoker's Dracula, a charming, well-spoken, imperious aristocrat, overwhelming his female victims with sheer animal magnetism. Biting his victims discreetly by modern standards, but explicit to audiences who might have expected this activity to be shielded by the judicious swirl of his cape, Lee’s Count is a flesh-and-blood monster to be grappled with at close quarters, rather than some ethereal, blood-drinking ghost in formal wear. Van Helsing and Dracula represent a myriad of Fisheresque dualities; good and evil certainly, but also order and chaos, civilisation and anarchy, the soul of humanity and the spirit of the beast.