The lost era of Hammer Horror

[burrunjor]

In the 1970s Hammer Studios suffered many financial problems which eventually crippled their studio and sadly led to many films that were quite far into production being shelved. Over the years the scripts for these films or stories or in some cases even posters have been available. One was even adapted as a radio play starring none other than Mark Gatiss.

Now personally I've always felt that had a lot of these films been made ironically they may have turned Hammers fortunes around and even helped shape the horror genre in some ways, but it was not to be. Of course the fact that these movies were never made means we can hold them up to a more idolized standard. 

Still consider the following. 

Nessie 




A planned collaboration between Toho (the makers of Godzilla) and Hammer, this movie that was described as Jaws meets King Kong would have seen the Loch Ness Monster mutated by an oil rig, grow to huge sizes, ravage the local area and travel the world, causing mayhem until the final battle that was to take place in the arctic and see Nessie destroyed in a fight with an Oil Rig. Apparently Toho were planning to build a gigantic animatronic for the monster. Sadly it never got anywhere though there are a few publicity shots of a smaller model used for the monster allegedly you can find online. 

The plot for this one sounds like standard monster movie stuff, but having the masters of giant monster flicks Toho doing their thing with Hammer's very British aesthetic could have been a really interesting mix and who knows maybe if it had been a hit, Nessie could have got her own series?

Zeppelin vs Pterodactyls. 




Nothing is known about this one other than the poster. Its possible it may have begun as a poster LOL. Still at the very least this one looks as though it would have been a fun Dinosaur/WW 2 mash up. 

Kali Devil Bride of Dracula



This one looks like it could have been a classic. After Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires they were going to do another Van Helsing sequel where he would have gone to India where Dracula had formed an alliance with Kali, a powerful vampire queen. The movie would have tapped into Indian vampire and demon myths and featured monsters like the Vetala that eat souls and live in trees and zombies with their eyes hanging out of the sockets as seen on the poster. Sadly it was shelved, but not only would this have made a great film, it could have honestly reshaped the genre. 

For all people mock Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires it was incredibly influential. Its success in the East led to a whole wave of Chinese/Hong Kong vampire films like the Mr Vampire series, Close Encounters of the Third Kind etc, that merged the Kung Fu and vampire genres together. They were huge in Hong Kong and the east and even developed a big following here to the point where western vampire films started to feature kung fu vampires like Blade/Buffy/Angel. On top of that the eastern vampires that were introduced to the GP via 7 Golden Vampires became a staple of vampire fiction, the other, more savage, ugly, feral, blood thirsty vampires compared to the wimpy western vampires (with the Turok Han from Buffy being a prime example.) 

With this in mind if this movie had enjoyed similar or greater levels of success in India, maybe it would have led to a wave of Bollywood vampire films based on Indian mythology and elements from those myths could have been incorporated into western vampire stories like the kung fu vamps did. I sadly haven't been able to hear the Mark Gatiss version yet. I'm sure it's good as Mark is in his element when it comes to vampires. 

Vampirella



This sounds like it would have been the best and decades ahead of its time if done right. This was an adaptation of the famous comic book character who was the first benevolent vampire super hero in all of fiction, long before Morbius, Blade or Angel. In the comics Vampirella was an alien who came from the planet Draculon where vampires ruled and there were rivers of blood. She was a renegade from their people who arrived on earth and was forced to rely on human blood from blood banks. She also faced other renegades from her world including Dracula who had arrived here to conquer it, as well as other monsters and demons.

This adaptation would have had her escape via magic from an alternate universe version of earth where vampires ruled and would have been a crossover with their Dracula series as Peter Cushing's Van Helsing would have been her mentor and father figure. Vampirella would have been played by Caroline Munro. 

I'd have loved to have seen Caroline Munro as Vampirella. She was let's be honest wasted as an actress. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying she was a brilliant actress. However she obviously had quite unusual good looks, a strong presence and a good physique. In time she could have improved. I mean it's the same with say Dolph Lundgren who at first wasn't much of an actor, but had unusually good looks, a strong physique and and presence and became a really good actor over time. Sadly Caroline was only really ever given tiny bit parts. Honestly I think she could due to her amazonian build have been a Lucy Lawless type. Remember Lucy Lawless is not a fighter or a champion in real life. Very few action stars actually are LOL (which is what makes the waste of Gina Carano all the more infuriating. It's rare getting men who can genuinely kick ass and give us a high calibre of fight scenes as a result like Jason Statham and Jackie Chan, never mind an actress.)

Anyway yeah I think if Caroline had come just twenty years later she could easily have been a Lucy Lawless, Famke Janssen type of leading lady that could have passed as a tough woman due to her build and improved her acting as she went on and got lots of really kick ass roles rather than always being a damsel or a love interest. Incidentally Caroline Munro was apparently really annoyed that she wasn't cast as Xena's mother LOL. She can always play Gina Carano's mother though as she looks like her too.

On top of that having a female superhero back then genuinely would have been a bold thing to do, (though still not unheard of.) Also a lot of aspects of Vampirella's story would become staples of modern vampire fiction such as,

A vampire that controls its thirst for blood and goes on to hunt other members of its kind as well as other monsters.

Vampires living alongside demons and other supernatural creatures. 

Vampires and the superhero genre being merged together. 

The hero vampire is mentored by ironically a famous vampire hunter, who is also a stuffy English man and who comes to love the vampire as the child they never had. This obviously is reflected in Abraham Whistler and Blade, it's also worth mentioning that Whistler is portrayed as a stuffy English man in his first appearance in Spider-Man TAS.)  Angel and Wesley also have shades of this, though obviously not the father aspect. 

Sadly however again it was not to be, though maybe that's for the best. Whilst it would have been a fantastic idea, there are rumours online that Caroline Munro quit the project before it was shelved as they demanded she get her clothes off. Much like with Gina Carano on Deadpool she told them to rightfully f*ck off. I'm not sure how true that is, but if it was then yeah it's just as well it never got made as it would have just been a sleazy, low rent version sadly. 

Vlad the Impaler

This would have been a story about the life of the actual historical figure that Dracula would have been based on. Christopher Lee was going to play it, and apparently despite his reluctance to be associated with Dracula, he loved the script which was written by Ice Warrior creator Brian Hayles. Sadly however again it fizzled out. 

That's all I have for now, but there are others. Feel free to list any ou know about and how you think these movies would have been? Lost classics, or desperate attempts by Hammer were we spared of?

[Ludders II]

There might've been a couple of fun films to be had, (Zeppelin vs Pterodactyls sounds like a blast) but I think Hammer were largely a spent force, creatively. They had stopped setting the standard for others to aspire to, and seemed to have spent much of mid to late 70s trying catch on to popular trends like martial arts to stay afloat.
Even as early as 1968 the writing was on the wall with Rosemary's Baby, which seems very modern by the standards of Hammer at that time, and then when The Exorcist came along 5 years later, it was even more groundbreaking.
Of course that's not to say that Hammer didn't make any good films in the '70s; I have a couple of favourites, even as late as 1976's To the Devil a Daughter, but I think slowly but surely they slipped into playing catch-up instead of leading the way. 
The above ideas sound more like the sort of thing that Amicus would've been doing. No doubt I would've enjoyed a couple of them anyway! 

[rushy]

I don't think Christopher Lee was ever reluctant to be associated with Dracula, he was just irritated by Hammer's poor quality scripts, blackmailing and lack of deference to the source material. And the fact that the British film industry typecasted him (which is partially why he moved to the USA).

It's not like he was ever embarrassed to be Dracula, or wouldn't have made even more of them if he thought they were good.

EDIT: I dearly wish Francis Ford Coppola had cast Lee as Dracula in his 1992 adaptation. Lee was still agile enough at that point, probably would have loved the authenticity of the production and would have made a much better lead star than Gary Oldman. The main reason I couldn't finish that film is because I found Oldman so underwhelming as Dracula. 

[Ludders II]

Oct 7, 2024 17:25:32 GMT rushy said:

I don't think Christopher Lee was ever reluctant to be associated with Dracula, he was just irritated by Hammer's poor quality scripts, blackmailing and lack of deference to the source material. And the fact that the British film industry typecasted him (which is partially why he moved to the USA).

It's not like he was ever embarrassed to be Dracula, or wouldn't have made even more of them if he thought they were good.

EDIT: I dearly wish Francis Ford Coppola had cast Lee as Dracula in his 1992 adaptation. Lee was still agile enough at that point, probably would have loved the authenticity of the production and would have made a much better lead star than Gary Oldman. The main reason I couldn't finish that film is because I found Oldman so underwhelming as Dracula. 

Much as I love Sir Chris, he did whinge about every single Dracula film he did from the first sequel onwards, but still went on to make 6 sequels for Hammer. lol
I had previously read several times how he thought his best Drac movie was the one he made with Jess Franco in 1970, but when I finally saw it, I was underwhelmed to say the least. To be fair, Lee himself was good, and he loved the fact that there was several passages of dialogue lifted straight from Stoker's original novel. And he delivered them so well, but unfortunately it's still a pretty mediocre film overall, IMO.

[rushy]

Oct 7, 2024 21:45:36 GMT Ludders II said:

Much as I love Sir Chris, he did whinge about every single Dracula film he did from the first sequel onwards, but still went on to make 6 sequels for Hammer. lol
I had previously read several times how he thought his best Drac movie was the one he made with Jess Franco in 1970, but when I finally saw it, I was underwhelmed to say the least. To be fair, Lee himself was good, and he loved the fact that there was several passages of dialogue lifted straight from Stoker's original novel. And he delivered them so well, but unfortunately it's still a pretty mediocre film overall, IMO.

He made those sequels because Hammer literally said they'd already sold the film to distributors with the idea that he'd be in it. And if he wasn't going to be in it, then many people (some of whom he knew personally) would go unemployed. It was emotional blackmail. I don't think he would have gone further than Dracula: Prince of Darkness. And personally, I don't think he should have. It was disgraceful.

I concur with you on the Franco film. It was pretty mediocre outside of the early scenes in Dracula's castle (which are the easiest scenes to nail anyway, because they're so naturally cinematic). But if I could somehow transplant Lee's performance from that into Coppola's film, I think it would be the perfect Dracula adaptation.

[rushy]

I think Lee's description of the film here is quite honest, though. He has no delusions that it was a better production than Hammer.

[Ludders II]

Oct 7, 2024 22:00:05 GMT rushy said:

Oct 7, 2024 21:45:36 GMT Ludders II said:

Much as I love Sir Chris, he did whinge about every single Dracula film he did from the first sequel onwards, but still went on to make 6 sequels for Hammer. lol
I had previously read several times how he thought his best Drac movie was the one he made with Jess Franco in 1970, but when I finally saw it, I was underwhelmed to say the least. To be fair, Lee himself was good, and he loved the fact that there was several passages of dialogue lifted straight from Stoker's original novel. And he delivered them so well, but unfortunately it's still a pretty mediocre film overall, IMO.

He made those sequels because Hammer literally said they'd already sold the film to distributors with the idea that he'd be in it. And if he wasn't going to be in it, then many people (some of whom he knew personally) would go unemployed. 

That was definitely the case with with some of the later ones, but not all of them.
I personally like Dracula Has Risen From the Grave and Taste the Blood of Dracula, but the last 3 were weak, even with the return of Cushing.
Lee in the Coppola film is a fascinating idea that has never occurred to me before. I like the film, even if the romance angle is overcooked, and whilst I don't dislike some aspects Oldman's performance, he lacks menace and physical presence. 
It's a bit of rip of the Dan Curtis production though. That was the first version to incorporate the romance, but it was much more subtle, and Jack Palance's Drac was much more ferocious. He was actually a lot better in the role than I expected, for a veteran of largely westerns and war films. Good actor.

[Ludders II]

Oct 7, 2024 22:02:27 GMT rushy said:

I think Lee's description of the film here is quite honest, though. He has no delusions that it was a better production than Hammer.

And he got to keep have the moustache, as written by Stoker, although he didn't get the beard. 

[iank]

Lee might have been a bit long in the tooth (no pun intended) to be macking on Winona at that time though.

[Ludders II]

Oct 8, 2024 6:30:38 GMT iank said:

Lee might have been a bit long in the tooth (no pun intended) to be macking on Winona at that time though.

Good point.