"Bray Studios (UK) Bray Studios was a film and television facility at Bray, near Maidenhead, Berkshire, England. The model and miniature filming for the film ""Alien"" was shot there, as well as ""The Rocky Horror Picture Show"". It is best known for its association with Hammer Film Productions and contained four stages, plus offices and workshops. Hammer originally leased country houses in which to shoot films, until the company eventually purchased Down Place on the banks of the Thames near Bray. After using every room and angle in its films, it later enlarged the house into the Bray Studios complex."
"(1931) and ""Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"" (1941). After World War II, emphasis shifted to films that more often drew inspiration from the insecurities of life, utilising new technology and dividing into three the subgenres of horror-of-personality, the horror-of-Armageddon and the horror-of-the-demonic. However, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the British company Hammer Film Productions enjoyed huge international success from Technicolor films involving classic Gothic horror characters, often starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, particularly ""Dracula"" (1958), which resulted in many sequels into the 1970s. The 1983 vampire film ""The Hunger"" provided a highly influential modernised and urbanised version"
"interest by horror film historians as one of the first documented British horror films and a very early experiment in a genre for which the British film industry would become renowned between the 1950s and 1970s. Although the likelihood of the film being rediscovered would appear remote, in view of its perceived historical value it is included on the British Film Institute's ""75 Most Wanted"" list of missing British feature films. Castle Sinister Castle Sinister was a 1932 British horror film produced, written and directed by Widgey R. Newman. Very little is known of either the film or the director,"
"Lavender Hill Mob"" (1951) and ""The Ladykillers"" (1955), but the company ceased production in 1958, after the studios had already been bought by the BBC. Less restrictive censorship towards the end of the 1950s encouraged B-film producer Hammer Films to embark on their series of commercially successful horror films. Beginning with adaptations of Nigel Kneale's BBC science fiction serials ""The Quatermass Experiment"" (1955) and ""Quatermass II"" (1957), Hammer quickly graduated to ""The Curse of Frankenstein"" (1957) and ""Dracula"" (1958), both deceptively lavish and the first gothic horror films in colour. The studio turned out numerous sequels and variants, with English"
"Sellers, Julie Andrews, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet and Daniel Day-Lewis. Hitchcock and Lean are among the most critically acclaimed of all-time. Hitchcock's first thriller, """" (1926), helped shape the thriller genre in film, while his 1929 film, ""Blackmail"", is often regarded as the first British feature film. Major film studios in England include Pinewood, Elstree and Shepperton. Some of the most commercially successful films of all time have been produced in England, including two of the highest-grossing film franchises (""Harry Potter"" and ""James Bond""). Ealing Studios in London has a claim to being the oldest continuously"
"were taken seriously at the time, in comparison to the trademark camp appeal of their later works. In a 2013 retrospective for ""The Guardian"", Michael Newton wrote:Shot in Eastmancolor, the first batch of Hammer Horror movies – Terence Fisher's ""The Curse of Frankenstein"" (1957), ""Dracula"" (1958) and ""The Mummy"" (1959) – are among the loveliest-looking British films of the decade... The early Hammer films offer a last gasp of British romanticism, the solid sets drenched in a soft brilliance of shadows, of greys, reds and blues; when these films stray into the far woods, it's always autumn there, never spring."
"thriller, """" (1926), helped shape the thriller genre in film, while his 1929 film, ""Blackmail"", is often regarded as the first British feature film. Major film studios in England include Pinewood, Elstree and Shepperton. Some of the most commercially successful films of all time have been produced in England, including two of the highest-grossing film franchises (""Harry Potter"" and ""James Bond""). Ealing Studios in London has a claim to being the oldest continuously working film studio in the world. Famous for recording many motion picture film scores, the London Symphony Orchestra first performed film music in 1935. The BFI Top"
"Tigon British Film Productions Tigon British Film Productions or Tigon was a film production and distribution company, founded by Tony Tenser in 1966. It is best remembered for its horror films, particularly ""Witchfinder General"" (directed by Michael Reeves, 1968) and ""The Blood on Satan's Claw"" (directed by Piers Haggard, 1971). Other Tigon films include ""The Creeping Flesh"", ""The Sorcerers"" and ""Doomwatch"" (1972), based on the TV series of the same name. A 1990s book by Andy Boot (""Fragments of Fear"") highlighted the importance of Tigon and Tony Tenser to the British horror genre but contained a number of factual errors,"
"commentary from producer Richard Gordon was released by Dark Sky Films on 15 June 2010. The DVD release is set for 15 June 2010 by MPI Media Group. The film was re-released on DVD and released for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK from Odeon on 10 August 2015. Horror Hospital Horror Hospital (also known as Computer Killers) is a 1973 British horror-comedy film starring Robin Askwith, Michael Gough, Dennis Price and Skip Martin. It was the penultimate film directed by Antony Balch. When attempts to break into the pop business leave him with nothing but a bloody"
"Terence Fisher Terence Fisher (23 February 1904 – 18 June 1980) was a British film director who worked most notably for Hammer Films. Fisher was one of the most prominent horror directors of the second half of the 20th century. He was the first to bring gothic horror alive in full colour, and the sexual overtones and explicit horror in his films, while mild by modern standards, were unprecedented in his day. His first major gothic horror film was ""The Curse of Frankenstein"" (1957), which launched Hammer's long association with the genre and made British actors Peter Cushing and Christopher"
"The Vault of Horror (film) The Vault of Horror (otherwise known as Vault of Horror, Further Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Crypt II) is a British anthology horror film made in 1973 by Amicus Productions. Like the 1972 Amicus film ""Tales from the Crypt"", it is based on stories from the EC Comics series written by Al Feldstein. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker, and filmed on location and at Twickenham Studios. It stars Terry-Thomas, Dawn Addams, Denholm Elliott, Curd Jürgens, Tom Baker, Michael Craig, Terence Alexander, Glynis Johns, Mike Pratt, Robin Nedwell, Geoffrey Davies,"
"horror movies of the 1950s and 1960s, many of them for Hammer Films. These include ""Corridors of Blood"" (1958), ""The Hound of the Baskervilles"" (1959), ""The Man Who Could Cheat Death"" (1959), ""The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll"" (1960), ""Devil Doll"" (1963), and ""The Black Torment"" (1964). His last film appearance was in ""The Three Musketeers"" (1973). His television appearances include ""The Avengers"", ""Maigret"", ""Richard the Lionheart"", ""Danger Man"", ""Doctor Who"", ""The Saint"", ""Rookery Nook"", ""Paul Temple"", ""Dixon of Dock Green"", ""The Tomorrow People"", and the miniseries ""Jesus of Nazareth"". Francis de Wolff Francis de Wolff (7 January 1913 –"
"These low-budget suspense thrillers, often in black-and-white, were made in the mould of ""Les Diaboliques"" (1955), although more often compared to the later ""Psycho"". This series of mystery thrillers, which all had twist endings, comprised: During their most successful period Hammer produced other, non-horror films, including: On 29 May 1968, Hammer was awarded the Queen's Award to Industry in recognition of their contribution to the British economy. The presentation ceremony took place on the steps of the Castle Dracula set at Pinewood Studios, during the filming of ""Dracula Has Risen from the Grave"". In the late 1960s, with the release"
"style of horror in general. After several years in retirement, Terence Fisher died in June 1980 at the age of 76. The following is a list of the theatrical films in which Terence Fisher received screen credit. Television productions are not included. Terence Fisher Terence Fisher (23 February 1904 – 18 June 1980) was a British film director who worked most notably for Hammer Films. Fisher was one of the most prominent horror directors of the second half of the 20th century. He was the first to bring gothic horror alive in full colour, and the sexual overtones and explicit"
"in colour"". Other British companies contributed to a boom in horror film production in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s. In television, the anthology series ""The Twilight Zone"" (1959-1964) has become a staple in horror fiction. Each episode presents a standalone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering ""the Twilight Zone"". Although predominantly science-fiction, the show's paranormal and Kafkaesque events leaned the show towards fantasy and horror. The phrase “twilight zone,” is used today to describe surreal experiences. Released in May 1960, the British psychological thriller film,"
"Mark of the Devil Mark of the Devil (, lit. Witches Tortured till They Bleed) is a 1970 West German horror film. It is most remembered for US marketing slogans devised by Hallmark Releasing Corp. that included ""Positively the most horrifying film ever made"" and ""Rated V for Violence"", while sick bags were given free to the audience upon admission. While not prosecuted for obscenity, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 during the video nasty panic. Count Christian von Meruh (Udo Kier) is a witch hunter and apprentice"
"Jimmy Sangster James Henry Kinmel Sangster (2 December 1927 – 19 August 2011) was a British screenwriter and director, most famous for his work on the initial horror movies made by the British company Hammer Films, including ""The Curse of Frankenstein"" (1957) and ""Dracula"" (1958). Sangster originally worked as a production assistant at Hammer Films, as well as being an assistant director, second unit director and production manager. After Hammer's success with ""The Quatermass Xperiment"", he was approached to write ""X the Unknown"", to which he replied ""I'm not a writer. I'm a production manager."" According to him, Hammer Films'"
"Nigel Wingrove Nigel Wingrove (born 26 October 1957) is the founder of the horror film company Salvation Films and the Redemption film label and creator of the online alternative female collective, the Satanic Sluts. He is also a film director and the only director to have had a film banned in the UK on the grounds of blasphemy. Wingrove founded the film distribution company Redemption Films (now called Salvation Films) in 1992, which was the first UK company to specialise in releasing obscure European films by directors such as Jean Rollin, Jess Franco, Dario Argento and Peter Walker. Redemption's logo"
"a script by Donne Avenell (based on the John Burke novelization). The cover of issue 2 featured a painting by Brian Lewis of the Baron being attacked by his creation. The Curse of Frankenstein The Curse of Frankenstein is a 1957 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions, loosely based on the novel ""Frankenstein"" (1818) by Mary Shelley. It was Hammer's first colour horror film, and the first of their Frankenstein series. Its worldwide success led to several sequels, and the studio's new versions of ""Dracula"" (1958) and ""The Mummy"" (1959), and established ""Hammer Horror"" as a distinctive brand of"
"set titled ""The Hammer Horror Series"" on 6 September 2005. This set was re-released on Blu-ray on 13 September 2016. The film was released on 28 November 2016 in the United Kingdom on a Region B Blu-ray disc. Nightmare (1964 film) Nightmare is a 1964 British horror film directed by Freddie Francis and written by Jimmy Sangster who produced the film for Hammer Films. The film focuses on a young girl in a finishing school who is plagued by nightmares concerning her institutionalized mother. Janet (Elizabeth Dear & Jennie Linden), a girl at finishing school who 6 years ago saw"
"That's Entertainment Records in the UK and Ireland in 1990 and then on Jay Records on cd in Europe in 2000. The Company of Wolves The Company of Wolves is a 1984 British Gothic fantasy-horror film directed by Neil Jordan and starring Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, Stephen Rea and David Warner. It was written by Angela Carter and Jordan. The film is based on the werewolf story of the same name in Angela Carter's 1979 short story collection ""The Bloody Chamber"". Carter herself co-wrote the screenplay with Jordan, based on her own short story and her earlier adaptation of ""The"
"Gainsborough Pictures in 1927. Also in 1920 Cricklewood Studios was founded by Sir Oswald Stoll, becoming Britain's largest film studio, known for Fu Manchu and Sherlock Holmes film series. In 1920 the short-lived company Minerva Films was founded in London by the actor Leslie Howard (also producer and director) and his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel. Some of their early films include four written by A. A. Milne including ""The Bump"", starring C. Aubrey Smith; ""Twice Two""; ""Five Pound Reward""; and ""Bookworms"". By the mid-1920s the British film industry was losing out to heavy competition from the United States,"
"has an interesting approach to its subject matter with it’s characterisation of the two leads and it’s attempts to humanise them as much as it can. However this is horror after all and what we have is a pretty feeble but traditional British horror flick where you don’t see the monster until the very end and when you do, you realise you’ve been had for the last hour and a half."" The Beast in the Cellar The Beast in the Cellar is a 1970 British horror film written and directed by James Kelley. The film was produced by Leander Films"
"the Polish director Roman Polanski. He founded his own production company Tigon British Film Productions in 1966, which made other mainstream films such as Michael Reeves' two features ""The Sorcerers"" (1966) and ""Witchfinder General"" (1967), as well as other horror films. After production of ""The Creeping Flesh"" (1973) concluded, Tenser resigned from Tigon. Following his last film as executive producer, ""Frightmare"" (1974), he retired from the film industry. With his much younger third wife, he settled in Southport in 1978; the couple later separated, and Tenser spent his last years in a care home opposite the house he had shared"
"controversial ""Freaks"" (1932), which featured characters played by people who had real deformities, frightened audiences at the time. The studio even disowned the film, and it remained banned, in the United Kingdom, for 30 years. Paramount Pictures' ""Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"" (1931) is remembered for its innovative use of photographic filters to create Jekyll's transformation before the camera. And RKO created the highly successful and influential monster movie, ""King Kong"" (1933). With the progression of the genre, actors like Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi were beginning to build entire careers in horror. Early in the decade also, Danish director"
"Studios in west London where he was a co-founder. Leslie S. Hiscott Leslie Stephenson Hiscott (25 July 18943 May 1968) was an English film director and screenwriter who made over sixty films between 1925 and 1956. He was born in London in 1894. He directed ""Alibi"" (1931), the first ever depiction of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, with Austin Trevor in the lead role. He directed a follow-up, ""Black Coffee"" (also 1931), also starring Trevor. During the 1930s, he became best known for his mystery films, also working on portrayals of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and A. E. W."
"their opening corporate logo. After a restructuring of Korda's UK operations in the late 1940s, London Films were now made at Shepperton. One of these was ""The Third Man"" (1949). The company's film ""The Sound Barrier"" (1952) won the Academy Award for Best Sound. More than 40 years after Korda died in January 1956, the company returned to active film-making in 1997 with Morgan Mason as the chief executive. London Films London Films Productions is a British film and television production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda and from 1936 based at Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire, near London."
"John Gilling John Gilling (29 May 1912 – 22 November 1984) was an English film director and screenwriter, born in London. He was chiefly known for his horror movies, especially those he made for Hammer Films, for whom he directed ""The Shadow of the Cat"" (1961), ""The Plague of the Zombies"" (1966), ""The Reptile"" (1966) and ""The Mummy's Shroud"" (1967), among others. Gilling left a job in England with an oil company at the age of 17 and went to Hollywood, where he worked at a number of jobs, some of them in the film industry, before returning to England"
"gangster drama ""Get Carter"" (1971) starring Michael Caine. Alfred Hitchcock returned to Britain to shoot ""Frenzy"" (1972), Other productions such as Richard Attenborough's ""Young Winston"" (1972) and ""A Bridge Too Far"" (1977) met with mixed commercial success. The British horror film cycle associated with Hammer Film Productions, Amicus and Tigon drew to a close, despite attempts by Hammer to spice up the formula with added nudity and gore. Although some attempts were made to broaden the range of British horror films, such as with ""The Wicker Man"" (1973), these films made little impact at the box office, In 1976, British"
"early 1930s, while the music hall tradition strongly influenced film comedy into the 1940s with Will Hay and George Formby among the top comedy stars of the time. In England in the late 1940s, Ealing Studios achieved popular success as well as critical acclaim with a series of films known collectively as the ""Ealing comedies"", from 1947 to 1957. They usually included a degree of social comment, and featured ensemble casts which often included Alec Guinness or Stanley Holloway. Among the most famous examples were ""Kind Hearts and Coronets"" (1949), ""The Lavender Hill Mob"" (1951) and "" The Ladykillers"" (1955)."
"Charles Hadcock, depicts a roll of film with the face of Frankenstein's monster engraved into the frames, and the names of his most famous films etched into a cast concrete base in the shape of film canisters. ""Horror in Hollywood: The James Whale Story"", a retrospective of Whale's artwork, opened at the Dudley Museum and Art Gallery in October 2012 and ran through to January 2013. James Whale James Whale (22 July 1889 – 29 May 1957) was an English film director, theater director and actor. He is best remembered for several horror films: ""Frankenstein"" (1931), ""The Old Dark House"""
"Bloody Horror"" and ""Women and Bloody Terror"" (1970). Howco Howco Productions later Howco International Pictures, was an American film production and distribution company based in South Carolina, specialising in low budget B pictures designed for double features. In 1951 Joy Newton Houck Sr. (born 10 July 1900, Magnolia, Arkansas died 8 July 1999, Texarkana, Texas), owner of 29 Joy Theatres in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, teamed up with producer/director Ron Ormond and J. Francis White, owner of 31 cinemas in Virginia, North and South Carolina, to contract with independent film producers to create product for their combined theatre chains. Their"
"most of the Japanese ""monster movies"" produced by Toho Studios, and Daiei Motion Picture Company (famous for their ""Godzilla"" and ""Gamera"" movies). They also broadcast all the best British horror films by Hammer Film Productions, like The Quatermass Xperiment - under the US title ""The Creeping Unknown"""", ""The Curse of Frankenstein"", """", ""The Phantom of the Opera"", ""The Curse of the Werewolf"", and ""The Hound of the Baskervilles"". Also Amicus Productions, and Tigon British Film Productions films such as ""Dr. Terror's House of Horrors"", and ""The House That Dripped Blood"". But what became most well known about ""Creature Features"" is"