Book Review: Marcus Hearn’s ‘The Hammer Vault’
The following review originally ran on Starpulse.com in 2011.
If you’re a film nerd who enjoys behind the scenes photos and colorful production art, then you’ll definitely want to pick up a copy of Marcus Hearn’s The Hammer Vault. Hearn’s glimpse into the British horror company Hammer Films packs plentiful eye candy.
The Hammer Vault follows Hammer from its rise to prominence in the late 1950s through its decline in the 1980s, while also touching briefly upon the corporation’s resurgence in the new millennium. Much like a scrapbook, The Hammer Vault contains photos, letters, script pages, posters, news clippings, and all sorts of memorabilia collected over the years.
Interspersed between the art is background on the filmmakers and their crusade to make each picture. You’ll find out about Hammer’s drama between the father and son team James and Michael Carreras, its battles with censors to preserve shocking scenes, and its financial collaboration with American distributors. Hearn even shares some of the Hammer’s film ideas that audiences never got to see, like Japanese-assisted monster epic Nessie.
Probably the most fascinating themes explored by Hearn’s book include some of Hammer’s secrets to success. Instead of stories set in modern times, the company stuck to gothic subjects like Frankenstein and Dracula. It was arguably the charismatic actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee though, which made these characters so iconic. Aside from gothic influences, Hammer used sex to sell, featuring a number of former Playboy playmates in lead roles and in saucy poster art.
Learning about Hammer’s marketing strategies provides amusing insight into how modern studios promote their films. Hilariously, companies today still engage in the same tactics: cheesy gimmicks, tons of sequels, and sensational taglines.
One of the key differences however is in the breadth of promotional materials Hammer and other studios gave to members of the press. There were aggressive instructions on cheap marketing ploys and the personal contact information of actors for reporters to use. Modern press kits on the other hand are almost entirely electronic, not nearly as insistent, and certainly don’t contain personal contact information. This writer can certainly vouch for that.
The Hammer Vault is perfect for your coffee table given its lovely collection of images and relatively small amount of text. Its wide format lends itself to showcasing all the great memorabilia; however its massive size and hefty weight don’t make it easy to read even when you’re laying down.
Sadly its layout isn’t conducive to reading either, with small bits of text crammed awkwardly toward the bottom middle part of the page. Hearn dwells a bit too much in the nitty gritty details, with his inner historian coming through. Concentrating more on anecdotes from the filmmakers, might have made for a more entertaining read.
As student of film who’s not well versed in old cinema, I had never heard of Hammer Films nor had I realized its impact on the industry. But after reading The Hammer Vault, I’m definitely interested in watching some of Hammer’s classics to educate myself on the horror genre. Dracula and Frankenstein, here I come.