Before there was Silver Pictures, before there was Blumhouse, and before there were any of these other specialty horror production […]
Before there was Silver Pictures, before there was Blumhouse, and before there were any of these other specialty horror production companies – A24, Lionsgate, Neon, MUBI – there was Hammer Films. Hammer was one of the earliest horror specialty labels, and while Universal had its own Universal Monsters – Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and the rest – Hammer Films carved out its own lane by directly reimagining those same monster properties, with a string of gothic horror films highlighted by Christopher Lee as Dracula.
While some of our younger readers might not know much about this company, this was a massive deal throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Hammer released a string of incredible films, including The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), which made 70 times its production budget, The Mummy (1959), and the forever iconic Horror of Dracula (1958).
Interestingly, for us gore hounds who constantly talk about horror films being butchered by the MPAA in the eighties, one of the most famous cases actually goes back much further: Horror of Dracula, the Hammer production that lost over 3 minutes of footage deemed too violent, too bloody, and too sexual. It was quite literally scaring audiences and causing them to pass out. The only place it was ever seen was Japan, during the film’s original 1958 theatrical release, and it’s been considered missing ever since.
In a new article today over at Deadline, Hammer Films’ new owner, John Gore of John Gore Studios, made a massive announcement: not only have they recovered that missing footage, but they’ve restored the film in 4K and plan to re-release it in theaters this Halloween season!
In the interview, Gore reveals exactly what was cut from the film starring Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. A little bit of horror history that most fans have been waiting decades for.
:
