Hammer's decline in the 1970's

[robk]

I've read many articles about Hammer saying that a reason for the studio's downfall in the '70's was that horror was being redefined by films like The Exorcist, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Jaws.
Granted, Hammer did put out some good stuff in that period like Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, but if it'd put out stuff like the aformentioned non-Hammer films, they say the studio would've lasted longer.

[Corpse Candle]

The studios died because they could not adapt the the change in climate with the genre. Despite still having a well of talent auidences were starting to flok to the U.S made horror around this time.

There was a taste for gore and blood and with the rise in slasher films (which irnoicly can take it's roots just as much from the U.K as the U.S) Hammer films seemed to be a little too tame.
I would like to say that this shouldn't not put anyone off looking at Hammer 1970's canon Twins of Evil is one example.

Don't forget other Smaller British studios were chipping away at Hammer too Amicus,British Lion,Tigon,Tyburn.
I think Hammer ran out of steam in the end and couldn't complete just part of the cycle really.

[robk]

Originally posted by Corpse Candle


There was a taste for gore and blood and with the rise in slasher films (which irnoicly can take it's roots just as much from the U.K as the U.S) Hammer films seemed to be a little too tame.



Well, Scars of Dracula, Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, and To the Devil...a Daughter are all rather bloody(and the latter two contain nudity, as well).

[miceland1]

Rent To the Devil a Daughter. there is a great extra in which they discuss the problems they had with that film. In the extra all the people who made that film said it was the death of Hammer.

Yes, it had a lot to do with the more sensational films comming out of America at the time too.

Hammer was in the right place at the right time. It was great while it lasted but unlike Dracula, Hammer could not last eternally.

[Zing!]

This is from wikipedia:

Final years of film production (late 1970s)

"In the latter part of the 1970s, Hammer made fewer films, and attempts were made to break away from the then-unfashionable Gothic horror films on which the studio had built its reputation. Neither The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, a co-production with Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers which attempted to combine Hammer's Gothic horror with the martial arts film, nor To the Devil a Daughter, an adaptation of the Dennis Wheatley novel, were very successful. The company did, however, have some surprising commercial success with the film version of the ITV sitcom On the Buses, which was popular enough to produce two sequels, Holiday on the Buses and Mutiny on the Buses. Hammer's last production, in 1979, was a remake of Hitchcock's 1938 thriller The Lady Vanishes, starring Elliot Gould and Cybill Shepherd. The film was a failure at the box office and all but bankrupted the studio."

I didn't realize The Lady Vanishes was Hammer's last film, as I was always under the impression that 'To The Devil A Daughter' was their last.