Interlude……..
Infamous for re-drawing the horror movie landscape, Hammer production studios resurrected the legendary core of 30’s horror titles – Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and the Werewolf and bequeathed unto them new life and in particular with regards to Dracula – a sexual / sensual rebranding, by the late 50’s and early 60’s the company had become a leading brand in the horror cinema market simultaneously making household names of its two leading players – Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Matthew Sweet’s continually excellent ‘sound of cinema’ casts an affectionate ear to the symphonic soundtracks that graced the Hammer legacy. Here you’ll find yourself mesmerised by the ethereal shimmering gothika of Hammer’s in house composer James Bernard’s ‘Dracula’ score from 1958, his frankly stately treatment for ‘She’, the edge of the seat terror technique of ‘the curse of Frankenstein’ and his legendary backdrop for ‘Dracula has risen from the grave’ – yep the bit were the fanged one returns from the beyond to wreak all manner of sucking savagery. Elsewhere there’s the divinely lilting floral pageantry that graces the mid section of the very Hitchcockian sounding ‘curse of the werewolf’ composed by Benjamin Frankel whilst billed as a space western, fans of Julie Driscoll might want to check out the Don Ellis penned theme from ‘moon zero two’ whilst dare we neglect to mention the primordial sparse minimalism of Tristram Cary’s tense shredding classic ‘quatermass and the pit’. Alas no ‘Dracula AD 1972’ with its snazzy hippy chic score from Mike Vickers – in our much humbled opinion one of the best ever to adorn a Hammer feature. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b067x53g
the sunday experience 