The Rivals: On Hammer’s Coat-Tails

Abstract

The till-ringing success of Hammer Films led other studios to enthusiastically emulate the studio’s money-making ethos and lurid ad campaigns. In a similar fashion to the way in which the noun ‘Penguin’ became synonymous with paperbacks at a certain period, so ‘Hammer Horror’ became a generic description (and remains so to this day), whether or not a particular film was produced by that company. Such confusion would hardly have been a cause for concern among the company’s rivals, who did their very best to emulate (and replicate) as many aspects of the Hammer template as they could.