Allen
Eyles, Robert Adkinson, Nicholas Fry: The House of Horror. Lorrimer
Publishing. Various Editions.
The House of
Horror was one
of the first books about Hammer Horror. As such at least the early editions
have historical value. The text primarily consists of two or three sentence
summaries of all the films with very little background info. The book is
richly illustrated and the early editions incorporate a gallery of Hammer
Glamour pictures (some of which I now have autographed).
Newer editions exchange those galleries with an essay about modern day
non-Hammer Vampire movies written by Jack Hunter which is neither here nor
there. As such those later editions actually have *less* to offer for the
Hammer Fan.
In the subsequent years many more superior books about the subject have been
written, so at the moment this is for completists only. If you need to have
a copy of the book try and find some of the older editions from the 1970s
and 80s.
Robert
Marrero: Horrors of Hammer. Florida: RGM Publications 1984.
Although a labour of
love this self published book is possibly the least interesting of all
Hammer books released. The text for my liking concentrates too much on
synapsis and when it comes to actual info it is often prone to errors. It
concentrates entirely on Hammer’s horror output and has tons of black and
white photos of those productions.
Peter Hutchings:
Hammer and Beyond – The British Horror Film. Manchester and New York:
Manchester University Press 1994.
Look at the name of the
publisher and you can guess what you’re in for: This is a very academic and
dry book analysing the impact British sociological changes had on the
development of British horror movies, in particular those made by Hammer.
It’s not a terrifically good book and often
suffers from overinterpretation and is littered with trendy women’s lib
demagoguery: “By showing the vampire as a vampire-rapist who violates and
destroys her victim, men alleviate their fears that lesbian love could
create an alternate model, that two women without coercion or morbidity
might prefer one another to a man.” Hardly a book that you’ll want to
cover in one sitting. It now commands ludicrous second hand prices on
Amazon that I won't even gratify with a link.
Tom Johnson,
Deborah DelVecchio: Hammer Films – An Exhaustive Filmography. Jefferson,
North Carolina and London: McFarland 1996.
This is one of my two
favourite books on Hammer and an absolute Must Have for every serious Hammer
fan. It’s by McFarland which translates as “very pricey, but in depth” and
covers every single movie Hammer ever made with extensive reviews. This
includes a plethora of info on some of those rare earlier pictures that
otherwise are often overlooked. My own copy is well thumped. True, it’s not
a cheap purchase, but you only live once and can’t take anything with you.
So save a few bucks and live on bread and butter for a few days if you need
to, but do buy this book!
Denis Meikle: A
History of Horrors – The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer. Lanham (Md) &
London: Scarecrow Press 1996.
This book has probably
as many admirers as it has critics. In a lot of ways this is by far the best
researched book on Hammer on the market. It also covers aspects that not
many other books track and offers an enormous insight into Hammer as a
company as opposed to a film studio. This is a book keeper’s book about
Hammer’s history and as such can be quite dry at times. The biggest issue I
have with this book is that the author really doesn’t seem to like its
subject. At all! I am not a great admirer of fan prose and expect some
critical distance, but for crying out loud: Why waste valuable time of
your life
researching a subject that you can’t stand. Reading through the chapters it
is hard to imagine that Meikle could even come up with a Top 5 of Favourite
Hammers seeing that he is so critical of most of their films.
Howard Maxford:
Hammer, House of Horror – Behind the Screams. London: Batsford 1996.
An excellent general introduction into Hammer’s history and films,
also containing a bunch of nice photos. Recommended.
Marcus Hearn, Alan
Barnes: The Hammer Story. London: Titan Books 1997.
Next to McFarland’s
Hammer Filmography this is my other favourite book on Hammer Films. Written
by the writers and editors for the excellent, but short lived Marvel Hammer
Horror Magazine this is a fanboy’s delight with excellent introductory
chapters about Hammer’s Horror movies, favourite actors and actresses,
directors and forays into other genres and choke full of beautiful colour
and black and white photos. The book has proved so popular that it has since
been reprinted in different formats. This is a Must Have on your shelf.
Wayne Kinsey:
Hammer Films – The Bray Studio Years. London: Reynolds & Hearn 2002.
This is another Must Have for the Hammer collector. In my estimate it trails
only very shortly behind the McFarland book and The Hammer Story and
the only reason why it does so is because it just concentrates on Hammer’s
time at Bray and as such excludes a lot of interesting movies especially
from the studio’s later period. The films that this book does cover,
however, have never before been better researched elsewhere. Wayne Kinsey is
author/publisher of Hammer magazine The House That Hammer Built and
for this book managed to fall back on a lot of research he had already
carried out for his magazine. A follow up book dealing with the non-Bray
Hammers is due out shortly, My recommendation: Buy Hammer Films – The
Bray Studio Years after you already have read a general introduction
into Hammer’s history.
John
McCarty: The Pocket Essential - Hammer Films. Harpenden (Herts): Pocket
Essentials 2002.
"Pocket
Essentials” is a very popular series of cheap books dedicated primarily to
Film Directors and Genres, but also to history, literature or other areas of
general interest. They usually are below 100 pages in length and as such
never intend to be anything more than introductions into the subject matter
at hand.
Still, there differences between the various entries: Where its
Hitchhiker’s Guide e.g. is only the second book ever to deal with the
phenomenon of Douglas Adams’ famous Sci Fi series and offers an excellent
look at all of its incorporations, Hammer Films is one amongst a
multitude of books about the company and even as an introductory read has
little to offer. Nearly half of its content is nothing more than a lengthy
filmography with only some very rare lines of comments hidden amongst the
cast and crew credits.
The remainder of the book offers a very short and selective history of the
Hammer studios and 1-page reviews of their most interesting – according to
the author - and famous movies. Some of the opinion is bordering on the
asine. On (Horror of) Dracula he e.g. writes: “It is Van Helsing,
much like Dr Frankenstein, who is the real villain of the piece.” Huh?
The book borders on the seriously eccentric when it recommends Hammer
related websites without accompanying URL!
Still, it is a
cheap oeuvre and currently seems to get off-loaded by a lot of book stores
for even less than its initial cheap price. So it won’t break the bank and
as such probably does belong into every Hammer Library even if it’s just for
completeness sake.
