Hammer Horror: Paranoiac

1961's Hammer entry Paranoiac doesn't feature a conventional villain at all. In fact, it's a bit hard to determine who's the protagonist and who's the antagonist. Oliver Reed brilliantly plays an angry young man swinging out of control, but it would seem that he could be the (anti)hero of the thing. You don't know for sure until the final real.


Hammer Horror is notable in that it avoids schlock. You would expect elements of camp, which are completely absent from the better ones. That's certainly true here. Paranoiac deserves to be regarded in the rarafied critical air of Psycho. And like Psycho, the less you know going in, the better.

Hammer Horror: The Curse Of Frankenstein

Another tremendous Hammer offering was The Curse of Frankenstein. In a bit of role reversal, Christopher Lee played the sympathetic monster and Peter Cushing portrayed Dr.Frankenstein. Unlike Universal's version or even the original novel, Cushing as Frankenstein was an awful, demented bastard. A twist of obvious brilliance, because really, wouldn't it be a pretty ghoulish entity that would stitch corpses together and presume to create life in such a manner?

Every bit of suave sophistication Christopher Lee brought to Dracula was completely absent in the misbegotten creature he portrayed here. The scene in which he has first gotten loose -a stumbling, horrifying thing that looks every bit like you would imagine living death- is one of the most fantastic depictions of a monster you could ever find. Although the make up is obviously dated, it's all in the way that Lee moves, utilizing his training as a mime.

Great Hammer photos (like the one above, for example) can be found here.

Hammer Horror: Horror of Dracula

When it comes to classic Horror films, some will always swear by Universal. That was the studio that gave us Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster. But for my dime, my heart belongs to Hammer.


The key to Hammer was that they managed to hire great actors, real Shakespearian thespians looking for quick and easy work in the off seasons. To them, the stage was the thing, and anything else was slumming. Movies weren't so interesting to them, but as true dramatic actors, playing literary characters in genre movies was a smooth proposition. That's Christopher Lee to the right as Dracula. True to Bram Stoker's vision he played the Count as something of a gentleman, practicing a brand of evil that is almost subliminal.

You can buy Horror of Dracula here.
A great documentary about Hammer is viewable for free here.

Happy Birthday, Chuck

If there were no Chuck Berry, there would've been no Rocko.

Marv Tarplin and Tracks Of My Tears

Here's Smokey Robinson on the dearly departed Marv Tarplin.

JD McPherson and Histyle Records

I've talked a bit before about JD McPherson and his album on Histyle Records, which you can buy here. Check out the new video:

And click for more on Histyle and Jimmy Sutton.