My 13 Favorite Hammer Posters
The eeriest fright show in town!
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October is here and that means horror movie fans will dig into the libraries of our best and most iconic horror studios and production companies: Universal, Amicus, Troma, A24, (gulp) Blumhouse, and, of course, England's eternal Hammer Film Productions.
Hammer took the most famous creatures and monsters, from Dracula to Frankenstein to werewolves to invisible men to phantoms to mummies to zombies, and made them fresh, sexy, and, since the Universal Monsters had become a bit stale by the '50s and '60s, scary again.
In his 2010 book The Art of Hammer, Marcus Hearn writes, "Although many of the Hammer horrors are now regarded as classics, their commercial success was rarely accompanied by critical acclaim...given that contemporary reviewers regarded Hammer with such scorn, it is not surprising that connoisseurs of popular culture paid little attention to the company's posters."
Well, just as Hearn does in his book, let's give these posters some love. Using the options he presents in the book, I've chosen my favorite 13 (because it's Halloween!), in chronological order.
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Mummy (1959)
For starters, what a fantastic double feature. This is what Hammer is known for, their reimaginings (long before we used that word!) of the most iconic horror staples. We will get to some of the other genre stuff or deeper cuts later, but if you’re going to a Hammer double bill, this is what you’re going to see.
And on this particular poster, on top of their great imagery (I love this Mummy/flashlight bit), I love that they are emphasizing this as a complete experience only if you see both: DOUBLE THE HORROR, DOUBLE THE SUSPENSE.
The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)
A running theme through many of my picks will be the great taglines, especially because it seems to be a completely lost art in modern marketing. While so many posters now will just have the five leading actors’ heads floating in space, we used to write things like, “His terrifying secret - his hideous obsession made him…THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH.” Between that and the Jekyll and Hyde-inspired imagery (including two women paired with both sides of his two-sided face), you don’t even need to see Christoper Lee’s name at the bottom!
Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (1960)
I am absolutely in love with this stranger danger poster. It’s way better than the theatrical poster (largely because I think the colors are so great), and the figure of the man reminds me of these neighborhood watch signs that were on my street growing up. Did anybody else have these? I think you could replace all of those signs with this poster and still keep that text ALL SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORTED TO POLICE DEPARTMENT.
By the way, I have this movie on DVD in a Hammer pack, but haven't watched it yet. Should I put it at the top of my Halloween watchlist?
Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960)
Hammer didn't just make scary movies, instead using their resources for genre movies of all kinds. This poster for a Robin Hood tale (directed by Hammer Hall of Famer Terence Fisher, who directed a good majority of their most popular movies) posits what is no doubt a swashbuckling tale. The colors are bold, the scene is expansive, and we get flashes of both the Megascope and Technicolor logos - which surely means the movie lives up to all this hype, right?
Scream of Fear (1961)
This is why I miss text on posters. We just don't get stuff like "THIS IS POSITIVELY THE ONLY PHOTOGRAPH WE CAN SHOW YOU!...BECAUSE WE REFUSE TO REVEAL THE STORY'S SHOCKING QUALITIES!" anymore. When people refer to "the good old days," this is what they are talking about.
And then there's more.
"IMPORTANT! For maximum thrill...we earnestly urge you to see this motion picture from the start!"
This stuff is so good that it's easy to overlook the super trippy imagery!
Captain Clegg (1962)
This reminds me of the ghost pirates in whichever Pirates of the Caribbean movie that was. (Was it all of them?) The blue and white contrast is so ghostly and I love how it plays with shadows.
Anyway, now all I can think about is a Hammer version of Pirates of the Caribbean. Maybe Peter Cushing in the Jonathon Price role?
Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) and The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
The top of this poster says that young boys will receive vampire fangs and young girls will receive "zombie eyes" when they come to this Dracula/zombie double feature. I just have to ask, is there something inherently masculine or feminine about these things? Like, can't the kid just get whatever they want? It reminds me of being a kid and getting a Happy Meal and the question "Boy toy or girl toy?" piping through the drive-thru intercom.
The Reptile (1966)
I've spent a lot of inches in this piece talking about the artists' beautiful images and the catchy taglines (and we write these pieces, like this one and this one, to celebrate those things), but at the end of the day, a poster's job is to sell you the movie.
And I want to see The Reptile because of this poster. Yes, it has all of those great elements, but I want to see whatever that freaking thing is (look at it!) up on the big screen as soon as possible. One, please!
One Million Years B.C. (1966) and She (1965)
I’ve already bought my ticket, I don’t need anything more to sell me on this movie.
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
This is one of my favorite movie posters of all time. Here's how much I love it:
When I stumbled upon this book, I said to myself, "If it has the poster for Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, I'll write the piece."
When Letterboxd gave Patron-level members the ability to change posters, this was the first one I changed.
When I watched this movie last year for Halloween and didn't love it, I just wrote about the poster anyway.
I mean, look at it! This is sexy Dracula, with the scandalous black-and-white giving way to the sensually pink bite-mark band-aids. This is Dracula for people who bonk.
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
So if that’s sexy Dracula, this is clearly bloody Dracula. I love that this red-stained and blood dripping poster leaves just enough room for Christopher Lee’s iconic fang-toothed monster and his next terrorized victim.
If I would tweak one thing, however, it’s that I don’t feel like the tagline is finished. It needs a second line. So I would like to humbly submit: DRINK A PINT OF BLOOD A DAY…AND KEEP VAN HELSING AWAY!”
I know it’s not perfect, but do you have anything better?
Vampire Circus (1972)
I love posters that just show like ten different stills from the movie. Well, I'm assuming they're in the movie because I haven't seen it, but this makes me want to! I want to see the tamer duke it out with that lion person, I want to see why that guy is on fire, I want to see that freaky clown, and, most importantly, I want to know everything about what makes a vampire circus a vampire circus.
Please tell me all of these things are in the movie...
Man About the House (1974)
Hammer's well had run pretty dry by 1974 and this feature film based on a sitcom was one of the last movies they made. I don't know a single thing about this movie and I wouldn't say that the poster has particularly sold me on watching it, but I just love the fact that this advertisement looks like those JibJab flash videos we all made like 10-15ish years ago. Remember those? You would upload a picture of your dad's face and your uncle's face and then JibJab would superimpose them on elf bodies and they would dance around Santa for your Christmas e-card?
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