A Messy List of My 10 Favorite Hammer Horror Films

On October 29, 2020January 1, 2021 By Ryan HarveyIn movies

I’m not a fan of making Top 10 Lists because setting anything in stone—unless you’re a gorgon—is only asking for regrets later. Favorites are fluid, and personal tastes fluctuate. But readers like lists, as do search engines, so for my Happy Halloween post, I’ve put together a sloppy list of my favorite horror movies from Hammer Film Productions during their original years.

Hammer movies are my horror brand. They’re what I think Gothic horror should be. They’re my constant companions each October. And here are ten, listed alphabetically so I won’t get into fights with myself over ranking, that I think represent the best of the studio during its grand era.

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The Devil Rides Out: The Classic Hammer Movie

On October 5, 2020December 12, 2020 By Ryan HarveyIn movies

Now that I’ve examined Dennis Wheatley’s 1934 occult thriller The Devil Rides Out, I can get to the main event: the 1968 movie version, which is quintessential October viewing.

The Devil Rides Out is one of the best movies to come from the Hammer House of Horrors. It was not an enormous success on its first release, either in Great Britain or the US, where 20th Century Fox retitled it The Devil’s Bride out of concern that the original sounded like a Western. The movie’s reputation grew despite of—and possibly even because of—its antique and quaint approach to Satanic thrills, which dated the film from almost the moment it came out. The Devil Rides Out arrived before an onslaught of Satanic-themed horror movies hit theaters, such as The Exorcist and The Omen. Compared to them, the Hammer movie seems tame and quaint with its 1929 setting and fully clothed “orgies.”

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The Devil Rides Out: The Novel by Dennis Wheatley

On October 4, 2020October 5, 2020 By Ryan HarveyIn books

For me, October is “Hammer Country”—the season of watching Hammer Films’ Gothic horror classics from the 1950s–1970s. Since we finally have a North American Blu-ray release of The Devil Rides Out (1968), that’s the first film from their catalogue I want to examine this October.

But since The Devil Rides Out is based on a best-selling and influential novel, I’ll take a literary horror detour first and look at Dennis Wheatley’s 1934 thriller before moving on to the film.

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