Three more Hammer films get the remake/re-imagine treatment

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Any true fan of old-school horror ought to delight in the resurgence of Hammer Films. Not only are they responsible for some of the most entertaining works of the genre’s past, they’re current slate of high profile outings are nothing short of impressive (at least, the talent they’ve attracted in making such films as LET ME IN, THE RESIDENT & THE WOMAN IN BLACK). Well, according to our horror brethren at Bloody-Disgusting, three more Hammer films are set for remake, or as Hammer CEO Simon Oakes puts it, set for re-imagining. But which three films? Scope it…

According to Oakes: KRONOS, QUARTERMASS & DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE are the newest titles up for re-envisioning. I stress re-envisioning, because Oakes is hell-bent on putting “remake” labels to bed:

“Almost none at all, in the sense that we would never remake. We might re-imagine,” says Oakes. “You know, one of the first questions I was asked when we bought the company was, ‘Are you gonna remake all of those old Hammer films?” And I said, “well, why would you do that?” Because in a sense they almost were of their time. They sort of almost became old-fashioned as they came up to the end of that period of time when they were making those pictures. Because at the same time that Dracula A.D. was being made, The Omen was being made. And think about that difference in terms of style [between the old Hammer films]…and the “urban myth” movies.”

True ’nuff. Dude’s got some points there. But why revisit KRONOS?

“We’re gonna do Kronos, yeah…[but] what would he be like today? What would he look like today? The great thing about him, of course, is that he’s a vampire, but not a vampire. He has all the traits of a vampire, he never ages, [but] not a vampire. So there are so many things you can do with that. So we have some characters in here that we are going to sort of reboot, and those are two of them.”

And for QUARTERMASS?

“Doing a new Quatermass movie, doing a new Kronos movie. You know, not remaking the same film…but saying, “what would the Kronos movie of 2011 look like, or Quatermass of 2012?” Maybe some of these characters should live in television as well, particularly Quatermass, which I’m thinking about at the moment. What I love about Quatermass is that he was the government’s chief scientist. Science is cool. Everyone’s into science, you know? So what would he be doing now? In the original Quatermass…he was sort of like a classic character, like a “Bourne” or a “Bond”, who had two masters, if you like. Both of which are trying to fuck with his head. One are his masters, which in Bourne’s case is the C.I.A., or MI-6 in Bond’s case, and [by] the same token, the enemy, they’re fucking with him. And they end up being this person who’s sort of alone.”

Dude presses on:

“And that’s what Quatermass was always like, he was always prescient. He was always ahead of his time. A lot of Tom Kneale’s [aka Nigel Kneale, the creator of the Quatermass films] work was about the damaging of the environment, and he used the alien thing as a sort of metaphor to say what we’re doing to our planet. Which is quite interesting. I met him shortly before he died – and I’m friendly with his widow – and it’s amazing…so there’s a lot of rich material in there that we can re-think. But the issues he’d be dealing with in 1957, compared to what they would be today. That’s the thing. That’s where we have to use our imagination.”

But that’s hardly the end. Oakes, while tighter lipped about it than the others, stated a DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE re-imagining is also in the works. Click HERE to read the rest of the story.

Ellie Torrez, star of the 2002 version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE!