Page 9 - Hammer Shock - Picture Palace Movie Posters

twice in 1972; the rending fingernails used for Asylum and the skull-nestling eyeball that advertised Tales from
the Crypt were deemed fine for newspapers but far too strong for loitering tube travellers. Another key
competitor was Tony Tenser's Tigon British company, which produced such uncompromising classics as
Witchfinder General (with grandiose artwork by Frank Langford) and its loose follow-up Blood on Satan's Claw,
the latter illustrated with striking simplicity by another important name, the Italian émigré Arnaldo Putzu. It was

Putzu who, in 1974, created a wonderfully dynamic composition for Hammer's bizarre 'Kung Fu Horror
Spectacular', The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires.

As a radically changing market and the gradual extinction of the British film industry took hold, Britain's horror
boom finally petered out in the mid-1970s. And in the process the wheel turned full circle. For the 1974 release
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Bill Wiggins, who had painted the classic Dracula quad some 16 years
before, was called back and nostalgically recombined all the old elements - the lurching fiend, the clawing
hands, the beautiful screamer.

All this, of course, is just scraping the surface: the scope of British horror in its halcyon period was huge, and
this collection of artworks does a tremendous job of indicating just that. So, if it's lovingly rendered post-war

symptoms of Derek Hill's 'sick society' you're after, then this sumptuous collection of poster art could hardly be
bettered.

Jonathan Rigby is the author of several books, among them English Gothic: Classic Horror Cinema 1897-2015, American Gothic: Six
Decades of Classic Horror Cinema, Euro Gothic: Classics of Continental Horror Cinema and Studies in Terror: Landmarks of Horror
Cinema.

info@picturepalacemovieposters.com 9