Hammer Film Productions - Tribute and Parody

Tribute and Parody

The initial success of the Hammer Horror series led to a number of tributes and parodies:

• Carry On Screaming! (1966) pays tribute to the Hammer Horror films in particular as well as satirising the horror film genre overall.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) has many locations, sets, and props that were used by Hammer Horror films. The "pretty" monster is, perhaps, a reference to The Revenge of Frankenstein (though no ulterior motive by Baron Frankenstein is present in the Hammer film).
• Bloodbath at the House of Death uses Hammer Horror films as inspiration for its setting.
• The British TV series Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible (2001) featured spoofs of Hammer Horror films. Particularly noteworthy in this regard was the episode entitled "Lesbian Vampire Lovers of Lust".
• Singer Kate Bush immortalised the range of films in her song, "Hammer Horror", referencing The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dracula and Frankenstein.
• British rock band Maxïmo Park paid tribute to the series with their song "Hammer Horror", from their B-sides collection Missing Songs.
• The dark feel of the Hammer Horror films were the inspiration for the atmosphere used in the comic-horror, Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
• In the DVD commentary of Sleepy Hollow, director Tim Burton credits Hammer horror films as a primary influence for the film. Sleepy Hollow featured Hammer veterans including Michael Gough and Christopher Lee.
• The faux trailer for Don't featured in Grindhouse was intended to be a spoof of the Hammer Horror series.
• Tom McLoughlin claims that Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was heavily influenced by the Hammer films.
• Tale of the Mummy, a 1998 low-budget mummy film by Russel Mulcahy, is a tribute to Hammer's mummy pictures with a cameo role by Christopher Lee and a scene which references to the poster art of Hammer's 1959 mummy adaption.
• The parody serial "The Phantom Raspberry Blower", in British comedy sketch series The Two Ronnies, was highly evocative of the Hammer Horrors, particularly the Dracula series of films.
• Much of the dark side of the BBC comedy series The League of Gentlemen written by and starring Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss is based on the Hammer Horror films of which they and co-writer Jeremy Dyson are great fans.
• In 2010, Mark Gatiss devoted a large part of the second episode of his BBC documentary series A History of Horror to Hammer Horror films, including interviews with key Hammer figures.
• The British black/death metalgroup Akercocke have drawn considerable influence from the Hammer House of Horror, adopting in their earlier works the tropes of devil worship and sexuality present in the 1980s series and going so far as to base an entire album (Choronzon) on the episode 'Guardian of the Abyss'. On the VCD included with Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone, guitarist/vocalist Jason Mendonca briefly discusses the Hammer influence on Akercocke's lyrical content, a theme which is discussed in greater detail in a Friday, July 13, 2007 BBC Radio 6 Music interview with Bruce Dickinson.
• The British radio dramatist Marty Ross has acknowledged a debt to Hammer with regard to his two serials for BBC Radio 7; Ghost Zone, influenced by Hammer science fiction such as The Damned and the Quatermass films, and Catch My Breath, influenced by the likes of The Kiss of the Vampire and The Brides of Dracula.