By the 1950s in American horror cinema, the popularity of the vampire and other gothic

monsters had began to dwindle. Instead, as America entered a new era of atomic threat, vampires

and werewolves were replaced by giant bugs and aliens from outer space.

But over in the UK, hammer studios were about to resurrect the gothic classic monsters in

a way audiences had never seen before. In 1957, hammer produced one of the very first British

horror movies in colour, the curse of Frankenstein. It starred Peter Cushing as the titular

star and Christopher Lee as the monster. Off the back of the huge success of this, hammer

followed it up with an adaptation of Dracula one year later. It too starred Peter Cushing

and Christopher Lee as the hero and villain. And from the moment the film began with a splatter

of impossibly red blood across Dracula's tomb, it was clear this was the dawn of an entirely

new era of gruesome Dracula movies, the likes of which we'd never seen before.

Join me as we continue exploring the evolution of the vampire and we discuss two early hammer

classics, Dracula and Brides of Dracula.

Welcome back to the evolution of horror. My name is Mike Munster and as ever I am your host.

If you're tuning in for the first time, then welcome in this podcast we explore and

dissect the history and the evolution of the horror genre by looking at a particular

sub-jummer as one series at a time. We are currently in the middle of our eighth season

exploring the evolution of the vampire movie. And this is part five. This episode is sponsored

by $20 Patreon subscriber Dark Lord Chuckles. It's an excellent name. And in this week's

episode as that intro suggested, we are going to be looking at two of the early hammer

horror Dracula movies. That's Dracula or the horror of Dracula from 1958 and Brides of

Dracula from 1960. Both of these conversations will be spoilerific, go and give both movies

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