When I was a boy, I was very interested in the classic Universal monster movies. I had a huge poster of Lugosi as Dracula walking down his castle stairs on my bedroom wall. I had the Revell Monster Model Kits for both Karloff’s Frankenstein and Chaney’s Wolf Man on my dresser. I considered these totems respectfully, as I did my collection of fossilized shark’s teeth.

I had seen the movies, and their interest to me was more as amazing, historic artifacts than movies. I realized they were important, certainly, but as movies . . . Well, my pre-teen mind couldn’t help but be secretly disappointed that they were in black and white and fairly screamed "old-fashioned." Hell, my house was the first one on the block to have a color TV! I wanted modern, godammit! So naturally, the horror films that left me rooted to my seat on Saturday night Creature Features were the 2nd generation of horror films from an ambitious, little studio that filmed everything in glorious, vibrant, Eastman Color!

Yes, I paid my respects to the B&W pioneers at Universal; but I loved the films of Hammer – the studio that dripped blood in a red so wet it nearly dripped off the TV screen.

Hammer, a small and struggling studio in England by the mid 1950s, mounted what amounted to a last ditch effort to stay afloat: They decided to remake a classic horror film, since a well promoted horror film nearly always made money. They decided to not take any chances – they would remake the most famous monster movie of all time. Thus, in 1957, The Curse of Frankenstein was born; casting Christopher Lee, who was soon to become Hammer’s house monster, as the creature; and Peter Cushing, who would become Hammer’s creature killer or creator, as Baron Frankenstein.

It was an immediate and rousing success, putting Hammer Studios on the map in a genre – horror - which would soon come to define the studio for history. The studio and director, Terence Fisher, got it right the first time, establishing in Curse of Frankenstein what would soon become the company’s basic movie template.

The following are the characteristics that made Curse so wonderful, all of which would be repeated many times over during Hammer’s glorious history and would forge a style that would be known as Hammer Horror (yet, strangely, all the principals of this film: Lee, Cushing, and Fisher; preferred the term "fantasy film&):

Gothic atmosphere: Hammer wanted desperately for their remake of the classic, Frankenstein, to have a classic feel befitting the original. They very wisely decided against filming a "modern update," choosing instead to drench their production in atmosphere – 18th century Gothic atmosphere, to be precise. Men in waistcoats and sideburns, castles on gloomy mountains, and huge wooden doors thirty feet high were the telltales; not to mention large breasted women with flaring red lips and sturdy push-up corsets.

Christopher Lee as the Creature: Curse of Frankenstein was the first movie where Christopher Lee played a monster and his makeup for Curse was innovative (even if controlled by time and budget) and wonderfully revolting. His creature was closer to the Shelly’s original concept than was Karloff’s, and truly looked like a jigsaw of cadavers. Karloff’s monster had more soul, sure, but Lee’s had more creep and seemed much more viscous (although Lee’s acting is not without pathos). Lee would in a few short years recall another Karloff role, the Mummy in Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), but he would become best known for his tall, lean, hellish take on Count Dracula in several Hammer classics.

Peter Cushing as Creature Destroyer/Creator: This film marks the first Hammer Horror appearance of Peter Cushing. With his elegant manners and bony, aristocratic face, he was a natural to become Hammer’s Victor Frankenstein. His take on the doctor was totally original. His doctor was not only "mad," he was also an obsessed egomaniac and cheerily evil. Cushing would go on to play the doctor three more times for Hammer, his character always silkily twisted and serpentine. Along with these roles, he would also play Dracula’s arch rival, Van Helsig, chasing Christopher Lee across the dark castles ruins and misty moors of Hammer’s Gothic England in several Hammer productions; so many, in fact, Cushing and Lee became fast friends and remained so until Cushing’s death in 1994.

To sum up: For horror fans, this is a film that is nearly as historically important as its (slightly) more famous predecessor. And, hey, it’s in glorious, Hammer color!