Retroplex Cinema Halloween Special! Hammer Films have been known for over 70 years now as the masters of horror A British Production company founded in 1934, they are best known for their "gothic" horror films but they have also made, science fiction, suspense, and thriller films also. Between the 1950's to the 1970's Hammer was the king of horror films. Hammer films had low budgets, but nonetheless appeared lavish, making use of quality British actors and cleverly designed sets. During its most successful years, Hammer dominated the horror film market, enjoying worldwide distribution and considerable financial success. This success was due, in part, to distribution partnerships with major United States studios, such as Warner Bros. Hammer Films still exist today all though under different owners and are still releasing films, most recently the vampire movie
Let Me In.
This Retroplex Cinema is going to take a look at the amazing poster art produced for many of Hammer's classic films. In the 1950's Hammer entered a partnership with Universal Studios, to make their own versions of the classic characters owned by Universal such as, Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy, and more. These versions today are considered classic and some horror fans prefer them over the Universal films due to their more graphic nature and slightly better special effects!
Posters were a very important part of Hammer Film's marketing campaigns. They would usually have several lavishly designed posters for each film designed by different artists to be used in promoting their pictures. The posters were often quite colorful, imaginative, fantastically designed, and are well sought after today. If a film did go into production then several initial poster designs would be prepared to show how the poster would look. During production some stills would be provided and a final design would be completed combining these reference stills and the initial poster design for a final release poster to be prepared. So below are several examples of Hammer Film posters for you to enjoy this Halloween. Take a look at them and reaqlize that most of these were hand painted and drawn back then, not digital like today's posters. These are truly classic! We also posted several more Hammer posters at our Facebook page so check them out!
