Jimmy Sangster

If The Quatermass Xperiment marked Hammer Horror’s conception, this marks its birth. Dean Jagger plays a scientist battling a radioactive blob spewed forth from the earth’s core. Unlike the other blob movie (that came two years later), Jimmy Sangster’s screenplay—his first produced—plays more grown-up, remixing the Quatermass essence into an efficient thriller exploiting the era’s atomic-age fears. Engaging performances and gruesome makeup effects offset the budget-constrained miniature work. Love the pervasive hints of cold, from the ice in the mud to the foggy puffs of breath in every outdoor shot. The Scream Factory print looks great, though not as good as the Kino Lorber Quatermass.

Awaiting execution, Baron Frankenstein recounts how he created life from corpse parts—and how his partner’s sabotage turned genius into monster.

Howard Hawks’s recipe for a good movie comprised “three great scenes and no bad ones.” Hammer’s first entry in its Dracula franchise gives us exactly that.

Dr. Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) escapes the gallows and resumes his experiments while working in a hospital for the poor.

Sometimes a single scene can prove a movie’s undoing. Such is the case with The Snorkel, a thriller from Hammer Film Productions.

Anton Diffring kidnaps beautiful Hazel Court to blackmail surgeon Christopher Lee into performing an operation to keep him young.

Archaeologist defile the tomb of an Egyptian princess and face the wrath of her protector, an undead mummy.

A teacher falls prey to a vampire baron in the German countryside.

A British sea captain (Geoffrey Toone) tries to bring down a Hong-Kong crime syndicate.

A wheelchair-bound woman (Susan Strasberg) doubts her sanity after repeatedly seeing her absent father’s corpse around his French Riviera home.

A pirate (Christopher Lee) forces an escaped prisoner (Kerwin Mathews) to reveal the location of a remote settlement where he hopes to find treasure.

An irresponsible heir (Oliver Reed) and his sister are shocked by the return of their brother, long thought dead.

Haunted by visions of her deranged mother, a young girl (Jennie Linden) slips slowly into madness.

Two couples ignore multiple warnings and visit Castle Dracula.