A monstrously good creation

The Curse of Frankenstein launched Hammer Films' era-defining reign of gruesome, gothic horrors in the Fifties. Now the British psycho-terror has been resurrected on screens to thrill a new generation

- Tom Fordy

HAMMER Films liked to shock its audience. So, in November 1956, when the British studio was promoting The Curse of Frankenstein - starring Peter Cushing and now restored in 4K for a collector's box set and a recent cinema re-release it staged a press event at the dank, gloomy Brooks Wharf warehouse in London.

Some 200 guests attended the gimmicky PR stunt. They drank blood-themed cocktails and huddled by a prop casket and gurgling laboratory equipment, awaiting an industry-changing reveal - the unveiling of Christopher Lee as Frankenstein's terrifying creation.

It was superb showmanship from Hammer Films, which soon became known for lurid gothic horrors with bright-red blood and heaving bosoms.

For extra dramatic effect, a scream echoed around the warehouse before a set of iron doors opened to reveal Lee as the creature, with actress Hazel Court draped in his manacled arms. There was a burst of flashbulbs as the 6ft 5in Lee towered over reporters. His monster makeup was a mishmash of mortician's wax, rubber and cotton wool.

This was not the flat-headed, neck-bolted monster made famous by Boris Karloff in 1931. The threat of a lawsuit had prevented Hammer from recreating any aspects of the Universal Studios classic. This was something more stomach-churning a stitched-together abomination. Lee recalled the creature being described as "a road accident".

Baron Frankenstein had created more than a monster. He also helped create the formula that made the Hammer horrors of the late 1950s and 60s many filmed in and around Bray Studios, an old mansion near Windsor - some of the best horrors in the world. The formula was quite simple, says Marcus Hearn, coauthor of The Hammer Story - "Death, colour and sex."