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When I was a teenager, I used to cajole my Mum into coming to the pictures with me to watch the horror films. If you look at the poster below for DRACULA, you'll see that it advises: "don't dare see it alone", and you have to remember I was only thirteen at the time! They were "X" rated in those days, the late 1950s, and our local cinema showed films six months after the main cinemas in the city. It was what was commonly known in those days as a fleapit, but it was able to show cinemascope films and, of course, glorious technicolour. I remember seeing THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER and THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, both with Vincent Price, but my favourite horrors were Hammer productions. Looking back, I have no idea how I would have known these films were made by a company called Hammer, because, just as with books, it doesn't really matter who makes films, as long as they're good. Furthermore, it's often easier to remember who distributed the films than who makes them, or even who the director is. Who knows which company makes the Harry Potter films, rather than remembering that they're distributed by Warner Pros? But Hammer Films were iconic for some reason.

You always knew you were going to see a Hammer film, and yet, at thirteen or fourteen, I doubt I would have paid that much attention to the small print in the credits. I imagine it stuck in my mind because when the curtains parted and you got the BBFC certificate out of the way, up would come the words "HAMMER FILMS PRESENTS"... I don't remember ever being challenged about my age, even though I would have been a good five years below the legal age at which one could watch an "X" rated film. I saw them all. Horror dominated my life for a time, in the form of Dennis Wheatley books featuring satanism, Dracula by Bram Stoker, and the films. FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA, THE MUMMY all left an indelible mark on my consciousness, my ability to choose my preferred form of entertainment, and prepared me for the greatest horror writer, no, the greatest writer of the twentieth and now the twenty-first century - STEPHEN KING. But this article isn't about Stephen King, it's about Hammer Films.

Because Titan Books, an iconic publisher itself, champion of nostalgic reprints of DAN DARE, CHARLEY'S WAR and other brilliant comic strips from the 1950s and 1960s, is also champion of Hammer Films, with four beautiful books by author Marcus Hearne. THE HAMMER VAULT is my nonfiction book of the month - I touched upon it in the December issue, but it is so good I felt I had to carry it over to this issue. It's the latest volume in Hearne's excellent survey and history of the most important contributor to Britain's place in the cinema industry, eclipsing even the efforts of Ealing Studios. I'm not going to start with THE HAMMER VAULT, but with the history of Hammer. The picture below shows Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith.

MARCUS HEARN: THE HAMMER STORY

Titan Books HB

Fifty years ago, Hammer Films released their very first horror movie, The Quatermass Xperiment. The now-legendary British company went on to make such classics as The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula (and their many sequels), making international stars out of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, changing the face of horror cinema, and inspiring a generation of Hollywood filmmakers, including the likes of George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton. Now, for the first time, Hammer have given their active backing to an authorised history of the company, and have provided unlimited access to their archives. The Hammer Story provides a film-by-film dissection, dripping with rare promotional material and previously unpublished photographs.

MARCUS HEARN: HAMMER GLAMOUR

Titan Books HB

Over fifty years ago, with the release of The Curse of Frankenstein and Christopher Lee’s iconic performance in Dracula, Hammer ushered in a whole new era of blood and barely-restrained cleavage in glorious colour, mixing sex and horror with a style and panache that made the small British company world famous. 

Bursting at the seams with rare and previously unpublished photographs from Hammer’s archive and private collections worldwide, and featuring many new interviews, Hammer Glamour is a lavish, full colour celebration of Hammer’s female stars, including Ingrid Pitt, Martine Beswick, Caroline Munro, Barbara Shelley, Joanna Lumley, Nastassja Kinski, and of course Raquel Welch (who can forget her fur bikini in One Million Years B. C.?).

MARCUS HEARN: THE ART OF HAMMER

Titan Books HB

THE AUTHORISED COLLECTION, WITH HUNDREDS OF HAMMER FILM POSTERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Hammer is almost as well known for the way it promoted its films as for the films themselves. The legendary British production company supported each new release with eye-catching posters that have become classics of their kind.

This is the first collection of these iconic posters, with nearly 300 examples drawn from Hammer’s own archive, and private collections worldwide. Some are well remembered, most are extremely rare.

The Art of Hammer is a testament to the company’s pioneering mastery of film promotion, and a celebration of movie art at its best.

MARCUS HEARN: THE HAMMER VAULT

Titan Books HB

This remarkable journey through the Hammer vault includes props, annotated script pages, unused poster artwork, production designs, rare promotional material and private correspondence. Hundreds of rare and previously unseen stills help to create a rich souvenir of Hammer’s legacy, from the X certificate classics of the 1950s to the studio’s latest productions. 

Written and compiled by the official Hammer Films historian Marcus Hearn, and featuring exclusive contributions from the actors and filmmakers associated with the company, this is the most lavish book ever published on the legendary House of Horror. 

STEPHEN KING: 11.22.63

Hodder HB  PERFECT GIFT WHAT IF you could go back in time and change the course of history? WHAT IF the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11/22/63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless . . . King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of Elvis and JFK, of Plymouth Fury cars and Lindy Hopping, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake's life - a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
With extraordinary imaginative power, King weaves the social, political and popular culture of his baby-boom American generation into a devastating exercise in escalating suspense.