Hammer reopens House of Horror for teen film fans

Hammer films, once renowned for its gore-splattered classics such as Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein, is back in production nearly 30 years after its last horror film and is ready to frighten a new generation of cinemagoers.
In its heyday, Hammer was the cinematic equivalent of a repertory theatre, launching the careers of Christopher Lee, as Count Dracula, and Peter Cushing, as Baron Frankenstein.
A team of investors, including Charles Saatchi and Neil Mendoza, former chairman of Warner Music, has acquired the company and is underwriting six films to be made over the next five years, targeting young audiences.
Hammer is developing the scripts with Pictures in Paradise, an Australian company led by the British-born Chris Brown, who yesterday said: "A lot of people have tried to talk with Hammer about re-makes, but I'm interested in working with them to create horror films in the 'new gothic' style, and that's what they've found interesting; that's their roots, their trademark. But we're not talking about making slasher films."
Terry Illott, Hammer's chief executive, said: "This deal gives us a terrific opportunity to deliver highly commercial, low-budget, horror movies for a worldwide teenage audience."
Founded in the early 1930s, Hammer began life with The Mystery of the Marie Celeste, (1935) starring Bela Lugosi, who was Universal Studio's original Dracula.
In its heyday it was the most successful British film production company in terms of both output and box office success. Oliver Reed, an expert at acting threateningly, appeared in 11 Hammer films, including the eponymous beast in Curse of the Werewolf.
David Prowse, later to play Darth Vader in Star Wars, was the monster in 1970's Horror of Frankenstein.
The Hammer "women" were also noted as dangerous characters, especially Ingrid Pitt as a bisexual vampire in The Vampire Lovers.
Others whose careers were launched in bodice-ripping gore were Shirley Anne Field (These Are The Damned), Stephanie Beacham (Dracula AD 1972), Joanna Lumley (The Satanic Rites of Dracula) and Susan Strasberg (Taste of Fear).
Martin Scorsese, the director, recalled: "In my early teens I went with groups of friends to see certain films. If we saw the logo of Hammer Films we knew it was going to be a very special picture, a surprising experience, unusual and shocking."
Lee, 81, said The Curse of Frankenstein, his first Dracula, with Cushing as Dr Van Helsing, was made for just £70,000 at Bray Studios in Windsor in 1957.
It had him as a more urbane vampire than Lugosi and his entrance is with such style and warmth that, critics say, his eventual unmasking is even more startling.
Hammer was also renowned for its film of The Quatermass Experiment, a six-part science fiction thriller broadcast live by the BBC in 1953. Its last release was the kung fu horror film The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires in 1974.