Critical Readings on Hammer Horror Films

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (PhD in Arts, PhD candidate in History) works as Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) - Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Argentina) and teaches courses on international horror film. He is the director of the research group on horror cinema “Grite” and authored a book about Spanish horror TV series Historias para no Dormir (2020). He has edited books on Frankenstein bicentennial, on directors James Wan and Wes Craven, and on the Italian giallo film and horror comics (Routledge). His forthcoming publications include an edited volume on Dario Argento and another one on Baltic horror.Matthew Edwards is an independent film scholar and primary school teacher from Cheddar, England. He has authored and/or edited various books on cult/horror cinema including Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad, The Atomic Bomb in Japanese Cinema; Klaus Kinski, Beast of Cinema; Twisted Visions: Interviews with Horror Filmmakers and Murder Movie Makers: Directors Discuss Their Killer Flicks. In 2023, he was nominated for a Rondo Hatton Horror Award for the best interview. He has also written for many magazines and contributed booklets for 88 Films on their Hong Kong film releases.

• IntroductionPart I: Hammer Horror before (and Beyond) Horror1. The Mystery of the Mary Celeste – Hammer’s First Horror2. The Quatermass AnXiety and the Evil Within: Re-emerging Victorian Ethos in Post-War Science-Fiction Narratives3. Hammer Studio’s Captain Clegg and the Genre Legacy of Swashbuckling Gothic Horror4. I Bette you I’m a Great Mother: Middle-Aged Women and Grotesque MaternityPart II: The Golden Age of Horror5- ‘A Sickness partly Spiritual, partly Physical’: Monster, Savant, Gender and Class in The Brides of Dracula (1960)6. “Give Me a Skin for Dancing In”: Female Grotesquery and Desire in The Witches (1966)7. Children of the Night: Vampiric Blood Lines, Reproduction, and Queer Futurity in Hammer Horror’s Karnstein Trilogy8. Let Horror Speak: Theodicy, Eschatology, and Rebellion in Hammer’s Dracula and Frankenstein Films9. House of Horror: Domestic Architecture and Eco-Gothic Slippage in The Reptile (1966) and Children of the Full Moon (1980)Part III: The Horror of Decadence and Resurrection10. Sinking Masculinity in Hammer’s Cycle of Mummies11. The Sun Has Finally Set: Hammer House of Horror as Postimperial Provincial Horror12. The Kick and/or the Crucifix: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires and the Kung Fu Craze of 1970s13. Postmodernity and Elevated Horror in The Lodge (2019)Part IV: Interviews14. The Satanist: An interview with David Wickes15. Visitor from the Grave: An interview with actor Kathryn Scott16. Revenge of the Runners: An interview with Brian Reynolds17. Run Like Hell: An interview with Hammer Film Production runner Phil Campbell18. Doctor Jekyll – An Interview with Joe Stephenson