This beautiful over-sized coffee table book is a compendium of photos and memorabilia relating to the famous -- some might say infamous -- Hammer studios, who chiefly made horror films but branched out to other genres from time to time as well. Hammer studios made a name for itself with its new, bloodier versions of Dracula and Frankenstein, and made stars of such as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Some of the filmmakers most associated with the studio include Val Guest, Terence Fisher, and Jimmy Sangster, among others. The book is chock full of production stills, behind-the-scenes shots, annotated shooting scripts, posters, drawings, press books, letters, publicity kits, and all manner of esoterica relating to the studio. The book covers all of the output of the studio from the very early days (The Quatermass Xperiment) to more recent films such as The Woman in Black, providing a fairly complete history of Hammer. You can also read about Hammer projects that were announced or conceived but never came to fruition.
Verdict: A must for the obsessive Hammer enthusiast. ***.
This one looks like a winner, I will check it out!
ReplyDeleteIt's a heaping helping of Hammer horror!
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