HORROR 101 with Dr. AC: PETER CUSHING AND THE HAMMER FRANKENSTEINS!!!

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) d. Terence Fisher (UK)
THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1958) d. Terence Fisher (UK)
THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1964) d. Freddie Francis (UK)
FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN (1967) d. Terence Fisher (UK)
FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969) d. Terence Fisher (UK)
FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL (1974) d. Terence Fisher (UK)

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With over 130 film and television credits to his name, there are plenty of options by which fans can celebrate horror icon Peter Cushing’s 111th birthday on May 26. For our part, we’ve elected to showcase the half-dozen features that made Cushing (and his myriad onscreen creations) immortal: Hammer’s Frankenstein series!

It’s impossible to overstate the historical significance of 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein, a relatively low-budget British horror offering that not only launched Hammer Studios onto the international radar, its success paved the way for a second golden age of Gothic horror cinema, this time with a distinctly English accent and in full, vibrant color. As the titular Baron von F. (who would become the focus – and the “monster” – of the series as opposed to his creation), Cushing displays a fanaticism and wit as sharp as his scalpels, fiercely pursuing his ghoulish goal of creating life from dead tissue.

While co-star Christopher Lee is given fewer opportunities to imbue his resurrected monstrosity with the same sympathetic shadings as Boris Karloff, his portrayal proved memorable enough to secure the title role in Hammer’s Dracula the following year. Terence Fisher, also to become a mainstay at the “studio that dripped blood,” directs with skill and style, and Jimmy Sangster’s screenplay, which by law could not resemble the 1931 Universal classic, demonstrates an economy of setting and characterization within its melodramatic confines.

The enormous financial success of Curse, both at home and abroad, spawned five sequels (which occasionally surpassed the original in quality and depth), as well as a blackly comic, non-Cushing prequel, and inspired countless European and American efforts for years.

Tonight, AC and his awesome panel of fans (Jon Kitley, Aaron AuBuchon, Eli LaChance, Ian Simmons) celebrate the Hammer Frankensteins, a fond look back at a series that still endures five decades after its final installment hit screens in 1974.