One of Hammer's truly great achievements - reworking of the Frankenstein story with the inimitable Hammer touch. Terrific use of colour, light and shade almost bordering on expressionist territory and an amazing soundtrack as well.

Cushing and Lee joined hands for the first time so memorably in what was to become one of the great teams of movie history. A horror classic through and through.

The late 50's saw a fledgling British film company explode onto the scene with Curse, their overnight sensation. The savaging it received at the hands of critics as "disgusting, vile, sickening and obscene" only helped to arouse an intense public curiosity in the film and it proceeded to set the box office ablaze.

Curse became a monstrous box office success in the UK and, a few months later, similar success followed in America. Hammer Studios brought a refreshing, neo-gothic style of horror to audiences, shot in the most vivid Technicolor to highlight the red in each and every drop of blood - and plenty of it there was too.

The next decade was to be an enormously profitable one for Hammer as Michael Carreras and Terrence Fisher churned out a series of superb, chilling, thoroughly atmospheric horror films one after the other, each a considerable success at the box office. Universal warned that they would press charges if Hammer's monster resembled there own.

They didn't have to, Hammer's monster was quite unique and a raging success! Critics piled on their numerous objections to the film in the boldest of type, but that only served as perfect advertising for the film. The more the critics warned people to stay well away from such a depraved creation, the more the public thronged cinemas to get their share!

Reports of women passing out in scores at the famous "unmasking" scene led to nurses being deployed at the effected cinemas! Curse had put horror into a new realm and audiences were queuing up in droves to experience horror's shocking new wave. Hammer had evidently just scored the perfect bulls-eve. The Studio's master director, Terrence Fisher, who quite clearly possessed a unique creative talent, was the force behind the production. With an uncanny eye for painting a deceptively beautiful pastel world of horrors and a rare talent for being able to conjure an atmosphere of creeping terror, of a tantalizing, lurking presence. A submerged, but very real evil.

The two lead actors, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were catapulted to overnight fame by their superlative performances and such was the incredible chemistry between them that they were to team up together on countless subsequent occasions, especially with Hammer at the helm.

Cushing played the obsessed, driven scientist bent on playing God by creating life through his own means. His performance as the epitome of obsession is quite simply flawless. Lee was introduced in this film as the creature and despite not having a syllable to utter throughout the film; his menacing presence resonates throughout the film. His posture, the awkward gait and body language is perfectly monstrous. His every nuance and expression a perfect vision of pathetic insanity and anguish.

The weaving and shifting background score succeeds in heightening the tension to an extreme, a typical Hammer feature. All these ingredients, the garishly vivid Technicolor, the gothic sets, the sinister atmosphere, the swirling mist are all a part of the great Hammer tradition and The Curse of Frankenstein is one of its finest examples. An unmissable treat for admirers of the genre. Brilliant.