Hammer Films' Psychological Thrillers, 1950-1972

Download or read book Hammer Films' Psychological Thrillers, 1950-1972 written by David Huckvale and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hammer Film's is justly famous for Gothic horror but the company also excelled in the psychological thriller. Influenced by Henri-Georges Clouzot and Alfred Hitchcock, Hammer created its own approach to this genre in some of the company's very best films. This book takes a chronological, film-by-film approach to all of Hammer's thrillers. Well-known classics such as Seth Holt's The Nanny (1965) and Taste of Fear (1961) are discussed, together with less well known but equally brilliant films such as The Full Treatment (dir. Val Guest, 1960) and Michael Carreras' Maniac (1963). The films' literary ancestry, reflection of British society and relation to psychological theories of Freud and Jung, architectural metaphor, sexuality, religion, and even Nazi atrocities are all fully explored.