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In 1980, the Hammer Horror brand was on the decline. The legendary film studio, best known for a string of monster films that included Christopher Lee’s Dracula, Peter Cushing’s Doctor Frankenstein, and much more, had faded away due to financial decline, and it seemed the glory days of a game-changing movie studio were firmly in the past. But as it so often did, Hammer proved that it could claw its way back from the grave, this time by embracing the storytelling power of television.
Created by Roy Skeggs after years of false starts for Hammer on the television front, Hammer House of Horror was devised as a way to tell contemporary stories with a classic Hammer feel. Though the period costumes and elaborate castle sets were gone, the blood, sex, and humor Hammer fans had grown to love would still very much be present, and while Dracula wouldn’t be stalking the series, House of Horror would provide a home to a number of other monsters ranging from witches and werewolves to serial killers and sinister cults.
While it is perhaps not as well-remembered as the monster films from the studio’s glory days, 40 years after its debut Hammer House of Horror still stands as a testament to Hammer’s versatility, scrappy determination, and willingness to go all-out for a good horror yarn. To celebrate four decades since the anthology’s premiere, we revisited every episode (all available on Amazon Prime) and ranked them according to the highly scientific Cushing Scale, named for Hammer’s greatest legend, Peter Cushing.
"Visitor from the Grave" (Episode 11)
Several Hammer House of Horror episodes follow the “person is driven mad by events they can’t explain or control” formula, but “Visitor from the Grave” is by far the most unpleasant. The story of a woman (Kathryn Leigh Scott) who kills an attacker in her house and then seems to see his shambling corpse all around her, it’s meant to build to a kind of ironic humorous twist, but ultimately just manifests as a bunch of people being inexplicably and often gratingly nasty to a woman in distress. The humor doesn’t land, and the horror is mean-spirited.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"Growing Pains" (Episode 4)
Creepy kids are very often a winning formula in horror, and they work well in at least one other Hammer House of Horror episode, as we’ll soon see. “Growing Pains,” though, is a case of both too much going on in a single episode, and not enough simple horror pleasure to be found in the core concept. The episode follows a married couple who adopt a young boy after the death of their son, and the boy’s detached and peculiar demeanor soon leads to strange happenings around the house. It feels like something that should work better than it actually does.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"The Mark of Satan" (Episode 13)
Here we have a case of an amazing episode title attached to a subpar episode that never seems to rise to the potential of its premise. The story follows a mortuary worker who finds that the number nine seems to be recurring in his daily existence so often that it suggests a dark pattern. His growing obsession with the number soon points toward a dark conspiracy, and while Peter McEnery does a convincing job in the lead role, the actual horror of it all comes too little too late.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"Charlie Boy" (Episode 6)
Several different cursed objects make their way into Hammer House of Horror at various points, but only Charlie Boy gets to be the star of his own episode. The title refers to an African fetish similar to a voodoo doll, which a couple picks up after the mysterious death of a family member who was the fetish’s previous owner. Throw in a little mystery, a little familial resentment over money, and the next thing you know more people start mysteriously dying, all with a connection to Charlie Boy. You can probably see where this whole thing is going right up to the final ironic twist. That doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining, but it also means the entertainment only takes you so far.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"The Thirteenth Reunion" (Episode 2)
The contemporary setting of Hammer House of Horror meant the legendary studio could aim its darkly comic horror eye at all sorts of things, and in the case of “The Thirteenth Reunion,” the target was diet fads and health farms. The story follows a reporter (Julia Foster) desperate for more substantive work, who decides to check out an intensive new weight loss method and finds herself suddenly roped into a dark secret that builds to one of several ghoulishly humorous twist endings in the series. The ending itself is rather effective, but the time it takes to build to it makes the payoff feel a little wanting. It’s the kind of episode that feels like it could use a few more minutes just to twist the knife.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"Rude Awakening" (Episode 3)
Hammer Horror is deservedly famous for being a place where distinguished English actors could get absolutely bonkers with fun genre stories, and “Rude Awakening” might actually be the best example of that in all of Hammer House of Horror. The episode stars the great Denholm Elliott as a realtor who struggles to maintain a grip on his sanity as he goes through a series of strange dreams involving a house in the country, his secretary and mistress in a state of constant evolution, and voices insisting that he’s killed his wife. The story itself is more interested in strange twists than an actual narrative arc, but Elliott’s wild performance makes the whole thing worth it.
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"The Two Faces of Evil" (Episode 12)
One of the more successful instances of horror invading simple English family life in the series, “The Two Faces of Evil” follows a married couple and their son as their holiday is interrupted by a mysterious hitchhiker who causes their car to crash. After the accident, the mother (Anna Calder-Marshall) grows increasingly convinced that something is very wrong with her husband, and it turns out she’s absolutely right. Featuring a convincing lead performance, some truly gruesome flashback sequences, and a climactic sequence that’s terrifying in its simplicity, this episode is a solid example of how the Hammer dynamic could translate to a story we might not have seen Hammer attempt in its feature film heyday.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"Children of the Full Moon" (Episode 8)
As the title suggests, this is the werewolf installment of Hammer House of Horror, and though it takes a while to rev up, it does prove to be a fairly satisfying monster story. Yet another example of horrific events colliding with modern British life, the episode follows a couple who find their car breaking down near a mysterious country house, where a kindly woman looks after a large brood of friendly but strange children. You can probably guess their secret just from the title (and the rather effective cold open) but that doesn’t stop the episode from exploding into an effective lycanthropic nightmare by the time it’s all through.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"Carpathian Eagle" (Episode 9)
Women who are as beautiful as they are deadly are a time-honored part of Hammer Horror tradition, and that tradition gets a modern spin with “Carpathian Eagle,” an episode that serves as a worthy companion to films like Countess Dracula. Though it’s ostensibly the story of a police detective (Anthony Valentine) investigating a series of strange murders, the real stars of the episode are the women behind the deaths, including a scene-stealing turn from Siân Phillips as an old woman shedding light on her family’s dark past. It’s a merging of a lot of different Hammer hallmarks into one very entertaining episode. Plus, be on the lookout for a young Pierce Brosnan.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"Witching Time" (Episode 1)
The Hammer House of Horror approach was always a blend of classic Hammer period horror fun with more modern stories, so it’s fitting that the very first episode of the series involves a literal time warp. Patricia Quinn stars as a witch who manages to magick her way out of being executed in the Middle Ages, only to end up in the same place in the present day, where a lonely composer (Jon Finch) falls prey to her charms. It’s basically the story of a Hammer cinema character from the 1970s walking out of one of those films and into the 1980s, with everything that entails, and Quinn is plainly having a blast as the series’ lead-off villain.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"Guardian of the Abyss" (Episode 10)
My personal favorite Hammer horror film is The Devil Rides Out, which deals with Satanic rituals and occult pandemonium in full Technicolor glory, so I must admit a certain partiality when it comes to the cult episode of Hammer House of Horror. That said, “Guardian of the Abyss,” the story of various parties vying for control of an antique scrying glass that just might be a doorway to a demonic presence, is one of the most classically Hammer tales in the whole series. It’s just a fun, creepy, straight-ahead occult horror story in the grand Hammer tradition, even if it does drag slightly in places.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"The House That Bled to Death" (Episode 5)
Perhaps the most famous episode in Hammer House of Horror, thanks to its delightfully over-the-top centerpiece scene, is also one of its very best. “The House That Bled to Death” follows the classic “family buys a house with a dark past because it’s cheap” formula, then twists it in wonderfully ironic ways that fit the darkly comic aesthetic of some of the best Hammer stories. What starts as a seemingly straightforward haunted house narrative soon morphs into something much more impish and playful, and while the scene that gives the episode its name might be the most effective gore moment in the whole series, what comes after is arguably even more fun.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
"The Silent Scream" (Episode 7)
It’s both fitting and touching that the best episode of Hammer House of Horror — a series designed to keep the Hammer name alive after its film heyday had passed — is the one led by the studio’s greatest and most devoted star. There are no dark castles or cobweb-spun laboratories in “The Silent Scream,” but the great Peter Cushing still gets to go full mad scientist as a former Nazi concentration camp guard who torments a man just released from prison (Brian Cox) with a new system of imprisonment that he designed himself. Both Cushing and Cox turn in powerhouse performances, and Cushing’s clear glee at being able to play a Hammer villain one last time gives the whole piece a sense of real fulfillment. Plus, as a pure horror story, the tension here is more effective than anywhere else in the series.
CUSHING SCALE SCORE:
Matthew Jackson is a pop culture writer and nerd-for-hire whose work has appeared at Syfy Wire, Mental Floss, Looper, and Uproxx, among others. He lives in Austin, Texas, and he’s always counting the days until Christmas. Find him on Twitter: @awalrusdarkly.
