Hammer horror

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Hammer Horror!

Transcript of Hammer horror

Hammer Horror!

The history of Hammer House of Horror

Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a

series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, Film

Noir and comedies and in later years, television series. Hammer films had low budgets, but nonetheless appeared lavish, making use of quality British actors and cleverly designed sets. During its most successful years, Hammer dominated the horror film market, enjoying worldwide

distribution and considerable financial success. This success was due, in part, to distribution partnerships with major United States studios, such as Warner Bros. In May of 1957, a British horror film called the curse of

Frankenstein opened in London. At the time Hammer Films was making 5 films a year and no one at the studio had any idea what a success this film would be. Costing under 70,000 pounds, the curse of Frankenstein

was an overnight success.

During the late 1960s and 1970s the saturation of the horror film market by competitors and the loss of American funding forced changes to the previously lucrative Hammer-formula, with varying degrees of success. The company eventually ceased production in the mid-1980s and has since then been, in effect, in hibernation. In 2000, the studio was bought by a consortium including advertising executive and art collector Charles Saatchi. The company announced plans to begin making films again after this, but none were produced. In May 2007, the company behind the movies was sold again, this time to a group headed by Big Brother backers, the Dutch consortium Cyrte Investments, who have announced plans to spend some $50m (£25m) on new horror films. The new owners have also acquired the Hammer group's film library.

The key to their success

Hammer Horror came up with a formula of film, of which was very different to other films around that period of time, this consisted of showing blood, guts and breasts. Which at the time was very risky, and they were unaware of how the audience would react.

They made films such as ‘Dracula’ & ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ which was in 1958. After this success they decided to make more films like this as this made them money, and they did not care what films they made.

Before Hammer Horror, most horror films were about politics not showing blood and guts, so therefore showing blood and guts interested the younger generation who would only go to the cinema to see something very extreme.

They were very careful with money, making films very short and commercial, and gave the audience the same thing each time, showing a lot of cleavage, blood and guts.

So therefore the key to Hammer Horror’s success has been showing the audience something different that Horror can be a lot more scary, however by showing the same thing over and over, and not changing the audience lost interest.

In this modern day and age, horror films have evolved tremendously from the first ever horror film made in “1896”. Horror films that have made been made in the 2000s usually contain some aspects of realism and fear but goes to the far extent of facing you with the most brutal result of that. In order for hammer to survive this time round, they must be able to appeal to todays audience, have originality, and have uniqueness. Todays horror audience have seen it all and current horror films are very similar. Hammer house horror want to prevent previous failings in the past, this can be achieved without repetition. If a new theory is discovered they need to develop it and not abuse it.

To thrive in this, it will be essential to innovate new disturbing ideas with the purpose of entertaining the audience and making them feel involved.

A piece of technology that has proven to be successful and now has been recently introduced into the horror industry is the use of “3D effect”. 3D effect gives a film dimension and draws in the audience. The film “my bloody valentine” used this technique in the cinemas and was a triumph. This then lead onto the making of saw3D which is out this month. If hammer where to invest their money into this type of technology I believe it may work in their favour.

The desired effect of a successful horror can be also achieved with low budget techniques, such as the ones used in the film “paranormal activity”. Hand held cameras, one setting and a film crew was all it took, it made the audience believe it was real and they felt as if they were there. Both high budget and low budget techniques can give hammer the methods to improve their stability and it can give them the upper edge in the horror industry market.