The Gospel of Gothic Horror Films

Just in time for Halloween! Originally appeared in the book, Mockingbird at the Movies, this list is a definitive guide to Hammer House of Horror films. For more, see also this early episode of PZ’s Podcast, a recording of a lecture he gave for the National Geographic Society. 

There was the French ‘New Wave.’ There was Italian ‘Neo-Realism.’ There was Ingmar Bergman. There was Andrei Wajda. There was Mikail Kalatozov. There was American ‘Film Noir.’ There was the John Ford Western. There was Lawrence of Arabia.

There was Hammer House of Horror.

Hammer House of Horror refers to the Gothic horror movies produced in England by Hammer Studios from the late 1950s through the mid-1970s. Combining cleavage for teenage (and other) boys, lots of gore, and unexpectedly high production values — such as sumptuous sets and gorgeous costumes and romantic, unforgettable music — Hammer Studios hit a nerve and made a ton of money.

But there was something else to their lurid, luxurious horrors. And you don’t have to look very close to find it.

With only a few exceptions, and notoriously their final film in the series, entitled To the Devil a Daughter (1976), the Gothic horror movies produced by Hammer Studios depicted a world in which the triumph of good over evil is assured. Good never fails and evil always does.

Moreover, the victory of good over evil is conveyed through the Cross of Jesus Christ in the hands of Christian practitioners, both likely ones (i.e., ministers and priests — and abbots, even — as well as anyone with the name ‘Van Helsing’) and unlikely ones (i.e., teenagers, housewives, doubting young people who still know the Lord’s Prayer, even a few hypocrites and puritans).

For a Christian, if you want to see your faith affirmed and validated in a mainstream (uh…) movie, Hammer horror movies are a real encouragement. Right down the line.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

This is Hammer’s Sherlock Holmes. It portrays the great detective, played by Peter Cushing, as a man dedicated to fighting evil with conscious catholic intent—‘catholic’ in the sense of everywhere at all times. Not only does Sherlock Holmes completely ‘one up’ the Bishop/entomologist, played by a fuzzy but not unkindly Miles Malleson, but he communicates an extremely sharp insight into the revenge plan of the villainess, played by the eyes-flashing Marla Landi.

What I like about this movie is the fact that Sherlock Holmes is only one step removed from Abraham Van Helsing.

The Brides of Dracula (1960)

Christianity connects a ‘low’ or realistic anthropology with a ‘high’ soteriology. That’s theological language for saying that in order for Good News to make sense, there has to be a bad situation in relation to which the Good News does make sense. An old way of putting this was to frame it as a question: Why did Jesus Christ have to die? Could He maybe have just gotten sick? An extreme ‘solution’ — Christ’s death — wouldn’t make sense if the problem for which it was the answer were not extreme also. The Brides of Dracula is about this. It absolutely in no way underestimates the problems that people get themselves in to. To say the least.

Baron Meinster is all about his mother. His mother is all about him. And she is most concerned to ‘protect’ her son from the pretty young teacher who has come to teach in the local private school.

On the other hand, Baron Meinster likes Marianne, and persuades her to free him from his mother’s literal shackles. Then he kills his mother — turning her into a vampire.

One thing leads to another, and it is not until Peter Cushing comes on the scene, as Doctor Van Helsing, that the proper cure can be found, for everyone.

Van Helsing throws holy water on Baron Meinster’s face, thus disempowering him; and then, most Christianly, maneuvers both the Baron and the windmill in which they have been wrestling in such a way that the Baron is caught in the cruciform shadow of the arms of the windmill by the light of the silvery moon. Baron Meinster burns to death.

The Mockingbird quotient here is high: Incest and Freudian attractions/repulsions, lust and innocence and moth-to-the-flame, too. The local priest is more or less useless: he doesn’t have enough faith! And the desperate reality of the situation comes to the point of but one way out: incineration by a giant improvised crucifix.

Hammer never quite equaled the combination of swashbuckling Christianity and earthy sensualism that seems to saturate every minute of The Brides of Dracula.

Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

Although Curse of the Werewolf is also saturated with Christian images, it is not my favorite Hammer film.

Let’s begin with the images: Leon the baby, who will grow up to be Leon the werewolf, is born on Christmas Day. He is the result of a sort of parthenogenesis, which is to say his mother, an innocent and sweet serving girl, is ‘overshadowed’ by a cruelly treated traveling minstrel, who has been so long in prison that he is utterly non compos mentis. When Leon is baptized — and please, let’s hear it again for private baptisms on Saturday afternoons — public baptisms on Sunday morning are starting to get old — the water in the font is troubled. There is almost the feeling that Leon is an anti-Christ.

Later, between the power of the Cross, the sanctity of the church bell tower, and the silver bullet in his kindly uncle’s rifle, Leon is killed; and the spell over his life, ended.

The problem with Curse of the Werewolf is its despairing ending. There is no good solution for Leon, played sympathetically by Oliver Reed, other than his violent death. Even the love of a good woman, played by Catherine Feller, whom Leon comes very close to murdering, is not enough.

I had to include Curse of the Werewolf in this guide, because if I didn’t, someone would get up and say, “Wait, you’ve left out the most apparently Christian of them all.”

But it’s not.

You come out of the movie with a boulder in your stomach.

One important postscript, by the way: The musical score for Curse of the Werewolf was composed by Benjamin Frankel. It is usually described as ‘serialist,’ that is, as an example of the 12-Tone technique pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg. All my life I’ve heard this about Benjamin Frankel’s score, which is wonderful. But I’ve also listened to some of Schoenberg, and can’t quite grasp the connection between the two. I’m sure a connection is there, but remember, just because a critic says it’s there, doesn’t mean it is there.

Kiss of the Vampire (1963)

This one was known in America as Kiss of Evil, just as a few other great Hammers were given different titles for purposes of distribution in America. The alternate titles matter almost nothing today, because the DVD versions of these movies usually take the English title. What I am saying is that movie enthusiasts, and I am one, who like to make fine points in relation to the differing titles of these movies from fifty years ago, are only showing off when they do.

Kiss of the Vampire is an excellent movie.

For one thing, the villain, Dr. Ravna, is played by Noel Willman. Noel Willman was from Ulster, Londonderry, to be exact, so he should get our vote! (Gosh, I love the Northern Irish.)

Secondly, the climax of the movie is one of the Eight Wonders of the World. In it, the extremely Christian vampire hunter, Professor Zimmer, summons a colony of bats to destroy the vampire coven who are worshipping up in Dr. Ravna’s castle. The bats are a little what we used to call ‘fakey’ — the Woolworth’s kind, in other words. But with a little matte work, a nice model of the castle, and some modest animation over the matte, the saving and purging attack comes off.

The music for Kiss of the Vampire, which was composed by James Bernard, is outstanding. It includes one of the high points of all Hammer soundtracks, a Romantic and hypnotic sonata for piano that Bernard nicknamed “The Tooth Concerto.”

Captain Clegg/Night Creatures (1962)

Of all the Mockingbird Hammers, this one is the most friendly to the Christian Church as an institution. Or maybe I should say, it is the most friendly to the Church of England’s official representatives.

Peter Cushing, who plays The Reverend Doctor Blyss, acts the very h___ out of this role. The idea is that Dr. Blyss, the vicar of Dymchurch on Romney Marsh, is really a reformed buccaneer who escaped execution years ago with the help of his trusty friend Mipps, played by the ubiquitous and always welcome Michael Ripper.

Not only has Dr. Blyss become the loved and admired pastor of his cure, Dymchurch village, but he uses his former skills to help his flock stay solvent during hard times. In other words, Dr. Blyss helps his people smuggle wine and fine liquor from France — but without violence. The vicar is a reformed criminal, about ninety-five percent. He is a marvelous, affectionate character, and Peter Cushing is perfect as Dr. Blyss.

The scenes that take place in church will warm the heart of any sincere churchman of almost any denomination. Dr. Blyss’ kindness to all sufferers, and also the very deep affection in which he holds his daughter, who lives quietly and anonymously in the village and is also stunningly beautiful, makes him a most appealing and good man.

Dr. Blyss also knows to swing from a chandelier in church, from the pulpit, no less; and Peter Cushing did all the stunts himself.

When the vicar’s past finally catches up with him, you want to say, “No, he’s too good.” And when Dr. Blyss is buried, in Captain Clegg’s grave, by the entire mass of his warmly affectionate parishioners, it is a pure expression of the pastoral bond that almost every sincere minister has known at least once in his or her years of service.

Jesus Christ is not exactly a character in Captain Clegg/Night Creatures. But one of his more human and sincere representatives is.

The Devil Rides Out/The Devil’s Bride (1968)

If there is a crown jewel in the Mockingbird list of Hammer horror favorites, it should be The Devil Rides Out.

This is because The Devil Rides Out, which is based on a novel by Dennis Wheatley, instantiates almost point for point the reality of what Christians sometimes call ‘spiritual warfare,’ and it leaves almost nothing out.

First, The Devil Rides Out understands that Satan works by deception, and hypnosis. With the exception of Mocata, the devil’s high priest, played to wicked perfection by Charles Gray (of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame), all of Satan’s ‘adepts’ are under a kind of acute spiritual hypnosis which prevents them ever from seeing where it is all leading, i.e., to their deaths. Mocata’s sycophants, most particularly Simon Aron, a key figure in the book, whose hypnosis starts the story going, are entirely deluded. One by one, their delusions are unmasked, with the result that they die horribly. Wheatley obviously did not believe in ‘free will’ when it came to the power of Satan over the pliable human will. These people are not living; they are being lived.

Second, the movie (like the novel) understands that Satan is defeated by two wholly good conduit-objects: the Bible and the Cross. And I don’t mean the Cross as a purely theological reality, but the Cross as a physical object that can be hurled at the Enemy. When the Duc de Richleau, together with his young (preppy) American friend, Rex Van Ryn, charges into the Devil’s Sabbat on Salisbury Plain, the Duc hurls the Cross at the devil incarnate; and the devil incarnate flees instantly away in a puff of smoke. (Something exactly like this happens in Stephen King’s novel The Shining.) Dennis Wheatley, and also Christopher Lee, who plays the Duc de Richleau, have taught me how to throw a crucifix when you’re in a tight spot. Dear reader, we all need to take lessons! See The Devil Rides Out.

Third, the movie depicts a humble and spiritually minded woman as the savior of the day. At the impressive climax of The Devil Rides Out, Marie, the mother of little Fleur, who is about to be sacrificed to Satan by Mocata, truly rises to the occasion. She remembers the inscription on her mother’s pendant Cross. It goes like this: “He who loves without desire / Shall have power given in his darkest hour.” In what might be the finest Christian moment in all of Hammer horror — but wait! I forgot about Dracula Has Risen from the Grave — the words spoken by Marie cause a bolt of lightning to come down and engulf the Satanists’ space in consuming fire, as a huge golden Cross, etched into the wall of the room where they have gathered, appears. All are consumed, save Fleur, her mother, the Duc de Richleau, and their three friends.

The reason this movie is so outstandingly Christian, in what I think is the most noble way, is that it does not for a moment soften the power of the book. Richard Matheson, who was sympathetic to religion but not an orthodox Christian, adapted Dennis Wheatley’s book for Hammer. It is the perfect adaptation.

Whenever I show this movie to friends — usually on Halloween when Turner Classic Movies seems to like to run a nice print of it — they are speechless. How did it ever get made? And in 1968? I close my eyes, put one finger to my lips, and say the Benedicite.

Roads Not Taken

I discern three ‘hinge points’ or forks in the road within a Christian trajectory of themes and substance in Hammer films. Whether these hinge points were a result of changing social attitudes, which is a common explanation, especially in relation to religion; or whether they reflected changing personnel as older craftsmen on the set began to retire or do other things; or whether they reflected exigencies related to the market or target audience, which were a function of changing attitudes in the surrounding culture, these hinge points exist between the films.

Parallel to shifts in the religious landscape of the ongoing Hammer universe would be shifts in the portrayal of sex and the portrayal of violence. There was more nudity and more sex in Hammer films as time passed; and the violence became more explicit — though the gore had always been explicit.

But in terms of a basically Christian view of the world, Hammer did not change fundamentally until their last film, To the Devil a Daughter (1976). That movie is a near 180-degree departure from almost all their earlier productions. Dennis Wheatley, the author of the source novel, became sick over it, and almost all of Hammer’s traditional fan base left the theater sickened.

What I am saying is that the Christian ‘narrative’ in the Hammer output remained pretty constant until 1976, after which the project basically collapsed.

Here is the first hinge point, which ended up as a stunning and surprising reaffirmation of the positive role of Christianity in the struggle of everyday people against active, preying evil.

First Hinge Point: Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)

This was directed by Freddie Francis, and I don’t find it as convincing as the earlier Terence Fisher Draculas. Is it the soft focus that seems to ‘ring’ the frame when Dracula comes on the screen? Is it the obvious attempt to portray a ‘hippie’ or rock-singer-type hero in the setting of nineteenth-century Transylvania? Is it the rather affect-less performance of the female lead? I just find this movie to be hard work.

But the story contains three jaw-dropping Christian elements. The first is the character of the gone-to-seed and entirely weakened parish priest, the one who looks like Larry of The Three Stooges, who becomes Dracula’s bondservant. It is an unpleasant depiction of a priest who has not only lost his calling, but has taken on a conspiratorial role in service of the Prince of Darkness.

On the other hand, this priest, who is nameless in the film and played by an actor named Ewan Hooper, recants his recantation! At the end of the movie this priest “Turns the Beat Around” (Vicki Sue Robinson), and assists the somnambulant teenage couple to rebel against their Dark Lord. At the end of Dracula Has Risen from the Grave this priest recites The Lord’s Prayer as the vampire count is staked by means of a crucifix and destroyed ‘forever.’ It is a powerful religious moment.

The second specifically Christian element in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave refers to the young ‘hippie’ hero’s loss of, then recovery of, his Christian faith. Paul, played by Barry Andrews and looking like a member of The Who, is a devil-may-care lad who is sincerely in love with Maria, played by Veronica Carlson. But when it falls to Paul, and Paul alone, to hammer a stake through the heart of Count Dracula, he loses his nerve. He can’t do it — or rather, he can’t do it successfully. Why? Well, we learn that Paul is no longer a believer. He has become an agnostic, and is therefore unable to prevail against the vampire.

At the end of the film, when Dracula has been impaled upon the golden altar cross and Ewan Hooper is reciting the Pater Noster over the death of Death, Paul, restored to Maria, is moved. The last image of the movie shows Paul crossing himself. Wonderful religious music, by James Bernard, accompanies Paul’s return to … well, I hope you don’t mind me putting it this way: Paul’s return to the Lord.

The third Christian element in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is the unyielding and unbending character of the Monsignor, Maria’s uncle, who defines the word ‘steadfast.’ At first you think, well, this Catholic priest is sure taking a hard line in relation to Maria’s carefree boyfriend, Paul. But then you begin to see that the Monsignor, played by Rupert Davies, has his eyes open. He understands that Maria and Paul do not know what they are doing, and are quite vulnerable to whatever comes along. And it is Count Dracula who has come along.

When Maria is kidnapped by Dracula, Paul becomes worthless, and the Three-Stooges priest is a positive accomplice on the other side. It falls to Maria’s priest-uncle to save the day. It is he who “saddles his ass” (Gen 22:3), shoulders the giant altar cross, and makes the long journey up the mountain to the castle. That man is someone whom you would want to have on your side.

In the end, the Monsignor of Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is an ideal priest.

The movie as a whole is an awesome affirmation of Christianity and its prime symbol. I call it a hinge point because it presents the possibility, in the character of Paul, of a person’s losing their faith. Moreover, it presents a Christian priest who, because he is spiritually asleep, ends up arming and re-arming the devilish foe. Thank God the priest recovers his nerve at the end and is able to turn back into what he is.

Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)

In the same general sensibility as Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Taste the Blood of Dracula plays off the younger generation’s rebellion against the hypocritical Christianity of their parents, only to deploy Christianity, at the end, against the true enemy — which is not their parents, repellent as their parents, especially their fathers are, but, of course, Count Dracula.

What happens here is that we see Victorian or Edwardian fathers leading a double life, consisting of church on Sunday mornings and prostitution Sunday evenings. These are rather slimy characters who terrorize their wives and hold their children as hostages to their own guilt. It is a classic depiction of what is now called the ‘religious right.’

However, there is also a devilish aristocrat at work, Lord Courtley by name, who succeeds in bringing Dracula back to life in a deconsecrated church. Dracula then attaches himself to the beset and addled young people, who live in big houses.

The only way out turns out to be the timely deployment of a gleaming Cross, with a little help from the sun and from a stained glass window through which the sun bursts through with triumphant purging light. James Bernard wrote some of his most poignant and also redemptive music for this movie. The teenagers are saved — hard to call them teenagers in their laced boots and layered corsets, but that’s what they are — the fathers all pay for their sins, and the Prince of Darkness, “we tremble not for him.” He is pulverized in the direct light of the Lamb.

Second Hinge Point: Twins of Evil (1971)

Twins of Evil I would call the second hinge point in the slightly evolving attitude of the Hammer films in relation to Christianity. Here it is not the formalist lay hypocrites who are shown up by true religion, but the actual and sincere protagonists of religion. Twins of Evil is a frontal assault on Christian self-righteousness. It depicts the Puritans, in particular, as active agents of evil and mayhem. And yet …

Gustav Weil, played by Peter Cushing, is the worst sort of caricature of a Puritan. He leads a group of men called The Brotherhood in midnight rides around the countryside, hunting for young women who in The Brotherhood’s opinion are possessed by the devil. In that country, being possessed by the devil means you have consorted with the depraved Count Karnstein. One poor farmer’s daughter after another is dragged from her house and burned at the stake on the spot. The situation is horrible.

And yet … Gustav Weil is right about Count Karnstein. Weil understands instinctively that Count Karnstein is satanic mechanic for the whole region, and the true source of every evil.

Weil has two nieces who are identical twins living with him and his wife. These girls are young and nubile and therefore perfect objects for the attentions of Count Karnstein. One of the twins is (willingly, I am afraid) corrupted by the Count, and becomes a canker sore in the bosom of Gustav Weil’s own house.

Weil, who is wrong about everything but also right about the main thing, leads The Brotherhood in an attack on Castle Karnstein. The problem is, one of his nieces is the vampire consort of the Count, but the other niece is pure and good. Which is which?

Twins of Evil is the second hinge point in this Christian trajectory within Hammer horror, because the appalling self-righteous villain, Gustav Weil, happens to be right about the nature of the evil he is fighting. Thus at the climax, Weil ‘redeems himself’ by giving his own life for his good niece, even crossing himself as he expires — having basically vanquished Count Karnstein. Gustav Weil was right in his core instincts about the evil influence, but he went about fighting it in the wrong way.

Never once does Twins of Evil ‘relax’ in its basic idea that Count Karnstein is wicked and must be destroyed. A more contemporary treatment might, while justly skewering the religious fanatic Weil, create some sympathy for Count Karnstein. He is, for example, handsome and apparently irresistible to women. But there is no “Sympathy for the Devil” in Twins of Evil. Weil and The Brotherhood are bad, but Count Karnstein is worse. So the movie is a hinge point, but not a reversal. By no means a reversal.

Whew!

Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)

This is a notorious movie because of its overly stylized attempt to sound hip. The supposedly cool ‘brat pack’ of twenty-somethings and younger who are the stars are continually using supposed hippie slang that makes you want to hide under your bed.

Curiously, Dracula A.D. 1972 has aged well. Today, the movie is delightful, or at least something like that. It is gorgeously filmed and has some ‘set pieces,’ like the Black Mass in a deconsecrated church and the beginning chase out on Hampstead Heath, and the final confrontation of Dracula and Van Helsing, that are full of exactly the right kind of atmosphere, and conviction.

And when you realize who it is that is singing with the band during the ‘high society’ party near the beginning, it is impossible not to vote for Dracula A.D. 1972.

But again, all the hippies and occult dabblers in the world can’t take away from the anchor world view of the movie, that Count Dracula is implacably evil and predatory, and that the only way to get rid of him is the old-fashioned way: the Cross and a solid stake through the heart, preferably accomplished in the shadow of a church.

Religious skepticism in this world is window-dressing and theater. It is not reality. Even the awful Johnny Alucard, Dracula’s henchman, realizes this. He seduces would-be free-thinkers, taking full advantage of them.

Then he murders them.

P.S. I saw this movie, the first movie I ever actually saw in a movie theater in England, in 1973, during a visit to the most Gothic of all Church of England seminaries, the College of the Resurrection at Mirfield, Yorkshire. We were guests at High Mass, after which my friend took me to the movies. I’m surprised I am still alive to tell the story.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

With the greater freedom and the license to show more nudity, to make the gore ever more up-close, and to bring into the script the person of Satan, Hammer studios seemed to be veering ‘left’ in their approach to the material.

But they hadn’t, and they didn’t.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula, with its supposedly accurate satanic sacrifice at the start, and its intense spirit of rebellion, especially in relation to boys and sex, that the heroine, played by Joanna Lumley, evinces to her own great cost, appears to be another container of contemporary permissiveness and revolt. But it’s not. Far from it!

In fact, The Satanic Rites is a complete re-affirmation of an old and mighty Story. Count Dracula takes advantage of academics, cabinet ministers, and an army of para-military young men — not to mention the harem of female vampires who reside in the basement of his house, in their coffins.

There is only one way to kill him: let Professor Van Helsing loose to use his ancient Christian magic. Which he does: Van Helsing lures the Prince of Darkness (grim, we tremble not for him) to an open grave outside a(nother) deconsecrated church, entrapping him within a hawthorn bush, the symbol of Christ’s Crown of Thorns. Van Helsing then rams a stake through Dracula’s heart and he crumbles to dust.

Again, changes in the environment of the story are apparent. But there is no change in the substance of it.

Third Hinge Point: Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires/The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula (1974)

Many of us love this movie.

I took a trip to Hong Kong once in partial hopes of visiting the pagoda where the 7 Golden Vampires live. (It was part of movie set, in fact, and turned out to have been torn down long ago.) The movie is that good. (Uh…)

The premise of Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is that a Chinese Buddhist priest went over to the dark side during a visit to Transylvania towards the end of the nineteenth century. He became actually possessed by the spirit of Count Dracula.

The priest then returned home, bringing Count Dracula with him, carrying Count Dracula inside him; and founded a vampire cult of seven ‘Golden Vampires.’ They all wear golden masks, and have golden bats attached to chains around their necks. Dracula, who looked like a Chinese priest on the outside but was the Hungarian vampire on the inside, succeeded in terrorizing a nearby village, especially the young girls of the village. He and his seven Golden Vampires used the young girls of the village for their supply of blood.

Fortunately, Dr. Van Helsing came to lecture at a Chinese university, and his lecture was heard by a young man who was from that village. The young man persuaded Van Helsing, together with Van Helsing’s son and a pretty German woman, to accompany him to his village and try to free the village from the 7 Golden Vampires. They traveled in the company of six young Kung Fu experts — making a total on their side of ‘7 Brothers’ — hence the American name for the movie, The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula. There is also one sister, who is herself skilled in karate.

Together, Van Helsing, his son, the 7 Brothers, and Miss Buren took on the 7 Golden Vampires and their high priest, which meant, ultimately, that they took on Count Dracula. But in China.

Daffy as it sounds, it is a wondrous movie in many ways, and is filled with several ‘set pieces’ that you can watch again and again, especially the initial attack on the village by the Golden Vampires and the courageous resistance of one man, the father of one of the unfortunate girls who has become part of the vampires’ blood supply, who, with the help of a statue of The Buddha, manages to destroy one of the Golden Vampires.

As I write this, it sounds absurd. And it is absurd. But it’s also wondrous.

The point for followers of a persistent Christian ‘trope’ in the Hammer output during its entire history, is that Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires manages to become a hinge point to a religious future for the vampire movie that is both universal and buoying. Let me explain:

During the journey to their remote village, Professor Van Helsing sits them all down, the 7 Brothers (and their one sister), and teaches them how they can destroy the vampires they will soon face. He says this: “In Europe, vampires are repelled by holy symbols like the Cross. Here,” he says with emphasis, “it will be the symbol of the Lord Buddha.”

I think this is one of the most benign and memorable lines in any vampire movie. What Van Helsing is saying is that the power of evil must be destroyed by the power of good, and that it can only be destroyed by the power of the good.

But the symbol for the wholly good is conditioned culturally. It is the Cross in the West, a statue of The Buddha in the East.

While an orthodox Christian, and I am one, would like to say that the Cross and only the Cross works against a vampire, Hammer Studios has sustained the central insight while broadening it out a little for the secular world. The director Roman Polanski did not believe this, and his entertaining parody of a Hammer film, entitled The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), specifically rebuts it. That movie — and its ethos has triumphed in the despairing culture of the present day — contends that the power of evil is greater than the power of good; and that a thousand crosses, and garlands of garlic, are insufficient to keep the Count Krolocks of the world from taking over.

Yet as late as 1976, Hammer was contending for an older view. Instead of regretting Van Helsing’s broadening out of the arsenal a little in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, Christians should give that movie credit. After all, it was made in Hong Kong, funded by the Shaw Brothers, and was intended to provide a new vehicle, within Western distribution, for Kung Fu movies. Why shouldn’t they have desired a little respect?

So ‘we,’ in the person of Professor Van Helsing, gave it to them. Yet the “Song Remains the Same” (Led Zeppelin): Only religion and the power of God can suffice against the flood of evils and Evil that forever invades the world.

Conclusion

There are always going to be a few hardcore fans who will now at this exact moment stand to attention and bring up Scars of Dracula (1970) and Vampire Circus (1972). And they will be right!

They will say that the opening ‘church’ sequence of Scars is by direct implication hostile to the Church, for all the unfortunates who take refuge in the parish church are attacked without mercy by vampire bats under the command of Count Dracula, and neither their faith nor their sanctuary is able to save a single one of them.

That hopeless passage at the beginning of Scars of Dracula is indelible. As a Christian fan, I offer no defense of it and no apology for it. It is a nihilistic and despairing moment in the oeuvre and I have no idea how it got made. I think it is almost in the same category as the birth of the devilish baby to the tied-and-bound (and willing) mother in To the Devil a Daughter.

Vampire Circus is another downbeat Hammer. It is one of my favorites, because of the music and the lurid ‘eye candy’ atmosphere of the whole. Yet almost everyone gets killed by Count Mitterhaus and his returned lover and minions. It is true the Cross still ‘works,’ but not well enough, or at least not often enough. Vampire Circus is good to look at, but there is a different sensibility in the creative team that made it.

And don’t get me started on Demons of the Mind (1971). (Note that even there, at the fiery conclusion of Demons of the Mind, the mendicant fanatical priest was right! Like Gustav Weil.)

What I would like to say in conclusion is this: With a few exceptions, the conflict-structure of the world according to Hammer is a Christian one. Again and again, the power of goodness is locked in a struggle with the powers of evil. The powers of goodness always win.

Moreover, the form and physical symbol of the power of goodness is the Christian Cross. There is no dissonance in most Hammer films between that Cross and the arresting images of pulchritude that these movies glory in. There is also no sugarcoating of ‘man’s inhumanity to man.’ In the world of Hammer, evil is not banal!

But nor is the Good just a good idea or a nice college try. Good is in direct encounter with the Crucifix of Jesus.

From The Devil Rides Out, which is the apogee of these movies, to Twins of Evil, which appears to be the end of the line but is not, the Illustrated Sacrifice of Christianity is the One Thing Needful when you have no other. Even in the farrago that is Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, God and His messengers get the Last Word. They can’t lose.

Mockingbird fans everywhere should be on their knees tonight, giving thanks for the miracle, which we did not deserve, of Hammer Films.