This past May marked 50 years since Hammer’s release of Terence Fisher’s still impressive The Curse of Frankenstein (1957).  Starring Peter Cushing and featuring Christopher Lee as “The Creature,” this picture arguably ushered in an international Silver Age for the genre.  Now Titan Books has issued a new edition of The Hammer Story: The Authorized History of Hammer Films, first published a decade ago, just in time for Halloween.

It’s actually hard for me to review this gorgeous coffee-table book, as its images, even its overall aura, are causing me to regress more than a little bit.  In some ways, this impressively researched volume by Hearn and Barnes, who have also collaborated on titles about Tarantino and the James Bond franchise, is like a theme park for horror fans:  you want to run from one ride to another, without a plan of attack or any kind of self-restraint.

The Hammer Story’s wonderful design, which shows off fascinating lobby cards, posters, stills, rare photos and the like on every one of its spreads, serves a dual purpose.  First, it does the job of any good coffee-table book, which means that it makes you want to keep returning to it for its visual treasures.  But through its rich colors, clean design, and pervasive sense of style, it also manages to convey with its artfulness the very signature of Hammer itself:  the voluptuousness of horror.  And I’m not just referring to the obvious here—the many Hammer starlets on display in these pages.  Rather, I mean an approach to horror that can be seen in high production values and an impeccable attention to detail:  the dark romanticism of swirling capes, the heavy drape of the fabrics, and colors that are vibrant without being gaudy.

  Leafing through this book makes horror seem like the greatest adventure a moviegoer—or filmmaker—could ever embark on.  Indeed, perhaps it’s nostalgia at work, but The Hammer Story gives off an almost innocent air, which shows how much the genre, and popular entertainment in general, have changed over the last few decades.  This is a book that helps the reader recall an era when horror could be naughty without being subversive.

The other way that The Hammer Story reflects its subject matter is in its intelligent, literate text.  Not to say that all Hammer flicks had such brilliant scripts (The Satanic Rites of Dracula, anyone?).  However, the line-by-line writing in many of the memorable Hammer films, even when the plots were ludicrous, always made horror more “real” to me by virtue of its seeming more “grownup.”  And Hearn’s and Barnes’s prose is no less adult and un-fanboyish, managing to be thorough and scholarly without being dry and academic.  To be sure, even those who are not single-mindedly devoted to horror per se could learn a lot about the industry and film history in general by reading this study of the rise and fall of a great studio.  (In fact, while the focus is on horror, there are several sections that serve as nice reminders that Hammer also produced war movies, thrillers and comedies.)

In addition to giving readers a sense of Hammer’s overall legacy, the text does a great job of providing an expository history of each individual film from inception through release and critical reaction.  Regarding the latter, the authors are particularly honest and unapologetic, often reproducing reviews that savaged the lesser Hammer efforts, which appeared with increasing frequency as time went on.

So if you’re looking for a gift for a horror fan, or for a new item for your own wish list, you could not go wrong with The Hammer Story.  This is a book that belongs on the shelf right next to the Phil Hardy.