Don Sharp, a veteran film director who had never watched a horror movie until Hammer Films â" the English studio described, usually admiringly, as dripping cinematic blood â" enlisted him in the mid-1960s to help revivify its presentation of Gothic terror, died on Sunday. He was 89.
Hammer announced the death, but did not give a cause or a location.
To aficionados like Martin Scorsese, Hammerâs vampires, monsters, werewolves and exposed bosoms were the perfect escape, particularly in Technicolor. The joke that Hammer started with a title and a lavish poster and then figured out the story was pretty much true.
But the acting mattered, particularly that of Christopher Lee, known for his Dracula and his Frankensteinâs monster, and Peter Cushing, whose roles included Baron Frankenstein. And so did the directing, especially that of Terence Fisher, who is credited with creating the Hammer style of dramatic terror, awash in physicality, sexuality and color, in the 1950s. ...
More (w/photo):
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/movies/don-sharp-director-dies-at-89-revived-hammer-horror-films.html
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