THE WRITING AND PERFORMING duo Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, famous for their work on the BBC series 'Number 9', 'Psychoville' and 'The League of Gentle Men' . . . together once made advanced plans to revive the 1980s anthology series #HammerHouseOfHorror for TV – but the idea never came to fruition. In an interview with film critic and writer Muriel Grey back last year, Shearsmith revealed that both he and Pemberton once wrote two scripts for a proposed Hammer tv series, describing one of them as ‘one of the most horrible things we’ve ever written’. In the interview, Shearsmith is vague about why the project didn’t take off, citing only ‘various reasons’, but he did reveal one of the more cringe moments, that certainly . . didn't help, plant the seed to a fruitful and rewarding shared relationship . .
THE ORIGINAL 'Hammer House of Horror' series ran for 13 hour-long episodes on ITV in 1980. It featured such stars as our own, Peter Cushing, the terrific Denholm Elliott and quite frightening Diana Dors . . the series is now seen as something of a gem, as it covered quite a few traditional and new horror genres, which was a different for Hammer, who filled the 1960's and 70's with traditional Dracula/ Vampire, Frankenstein, Mummy and Psycho-thriller movies. Shearsmith in an interview with Muriel Grey last year, revealed what was their plans to revive Hammer films and interestingly, when they were discussing holding meetings with producers . . . who didn’t know their topics! He said:
‘WE VERY NEARLY – don’t know if I should say this – brought back 'Hammer House of Horror: Hammer, and me and Steve had lots of meetings about that and, er, it all fell apart through various reasons.
‘WE WROTE TWO SCRIPTS, the pilot, which was really good, actually one of the most horrible things we’ve ever written, It was a sort of Monkey’s Paw thing and I was telling them "it’s a W.W. Jacobs thing. And the execs at the others side of the desk said "Sorry, who’s that, what’s that?"’
'RIGHT THERE, we thought,‘Oh for **** sake! That’s hard to let go! "You’ve not heard of that reference at all? You KNOW Alfred Hitchcock? Yes??"
WELL OBVIOUSLY, they didn't and that was the end of that. Who the 'men in suits' were at the meeting that day, we have no way of knowing. Hammer had slipped through the fingers, mouths and heads of several interests after Roy Skeggs' original 'House of Hammer' series in 1980. So it went very quiet, for a while, until May 2007, when the company name was sold to a consortium headed by Dutch media tycoon John de Mol, who announced plans to spend some $50m (£25m) on new horror films. The new organization also acquired the Hammer group’s film library, consisting of 295 titles. At this time, Simon Oakes would step in as Hammer's CEO, bringing with him four new Hammer productions and the huge success of Hammer films.. plus associates...'The Woman in Black' starring Daniel Radcliffe. The film was based on the chilling novel by Susan Hill – was a long-time hit on London's West End stage. 'The Woman in Black' earned $45m around the world during it's first ten days after opening, topping the box office in the UK and enjoying one of the most successful openings in the US ever!
OAKES in several interviews at the time of his arrival announced, “Hammer is a great British brand — we intend to take it back into production and develop its global potential. The brand is still alive but no one has invested in it for a long time.” Indeed, along with 'The Woman in Black' Hammer and it's partners have produced several films, including 'Let Me In' (2010), 'The Resident' (2011), and The Quiet Ones (2014). All have made some box office, a lot of promotion, but we are still waiting for a chilling cracker, in the style and success of 'The Woman In Black'. The last two years, we've had a few whispers and one or two press release promises. We are also wondering what ever happened to the sniff of a idea towards a remake of Peter Cushing's 1957 Hammer film, 'The Abominable Snowman', back in 2012? It's gone quiet . . .
THE SUCCESS of 'The Woman in Black' was no fluke, it no doubt took some tough skills of negotiation, planning and a great script, to land a winner like that. Which makes me think, obviously the power-suited, fax fiddling dodo's of the past have left long ago, and maybe now would a good time for two guys to retread their steps, back to Hammer... Mr O could probably do with some good ideas? You never know, remember Hammer was once famously known as the 'Studio that Dripped Blood', and only for a short time as the 'Studio that Housed DRIPS!'. Indeed, their name is Hammer, and they could 'bid you welcome!'
