What's your fave, Hammer or Universal?
 

And what's your favorite movies of the two? That's a tough one. I gotta go with Universal, but I could easily be persuaded to chang my mind.

The Wolf Man and Bride Of Frank as best Universal; Horror of Dracula and Curse of the Werewolf over at Hammer(honorable mention to Vamp Lovers and Twins of Evil).

My favorites from Universal would be The Wolf Man and Dracula.

My favorites from Hammer would be Captain Kronos and Horror of Dracula.

Hard to pick between the two studios, but I'll go with Hammer. They did introduce cleavage after all.

I love them both but Hammer has to be my all time favourite .
From the use of colour , the terrific British cast , right down to the aformentioned cleavage , these are the movies I come back to time and time again .

Top Five Universal ( in no particular order )

Frankenstein
The Mummy
Bride Of Frankenstein
Dracula
The Wolfman

Top Five Hammer ( almost an impossible task for me but here goes , again in no order )

Dracula a.k.a. Horror Of Dracula
Twins Of Evil
The Mummy
Quatermass And The Pit
Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell

Hammer gets my vote, although Universal produced some fantastic films too.

My vote is for Universal. I have a soft spot for old Hollywood.

My favorite Universal horror picture is 'Son of Frankenstein' with Basil Rathbone.

Even though this is Karloff's most limited performance as the creature, the added depth and absurdity of Legosi's Igor makes up for it. Igor goes throught the whole movie with a literal broken neck! He was previously hanged and no one can figure out how he's still alive.

The best, most unsettling aspect for me though is Rathbone as the son of Frankenstein. His feelings of guilt mixed with responsiblity and allure concerning his father's work.

Other Universal favorites are;

The Mummy (Karl Freund)
Frankenstein (James Whale)
The Black Cat (Edgar Ulmer)

Which is not to say I'm not a big Hammer fan too.

My favorite (though not a gothic horror picture) is Val Guest's 'The Abominable Snowman'.

I think Guest did a better job of suggesting horror withought seeing much than Wise did in 'The Haunting".

Other Hammer favorites are;

Plague of Zombies (John Gilling)
Quatermass 2 (Val Guest)
These are the Damned (Joseph Losey)


EYEBALL

I never cared much for Hammer.

Hammer, of course. Favorites?

Taste The Blood Of Dracula
Frankenstein (Chris Lee as the monster was funny as hell)
Dracula Has Risen From The Grave
The Ghoul
And a bunch of other ones that I cant remember the name of. LOL

PS I cant believe anybody liked Horror of Dracula. I thought it was the most boring of all the Dracula films, maybe even the most boring Hammer film, period.

Chris Lee gave Dracula a much needed transfusion of hotter blood. He was miles away from any other screen Dracula at the time, and every other Dracula that has come after has to tip the top hat. He was like a demon incarnate.

Plus, how can you call Horror slow with the great score and the swashbuckling fight at the end between Lee and Cushing.

Dracula Prince of Darrkness is SLOOOOW.

I can't pick a favorite of the two.

These days I'm watching more Hammer than Universal... recently I've re-watched Twins of Evil, Prince of Darkness, and saw the Ghoul and Quatermass and the Pit for the first time.

BUT... for sheer quality it's very hard to top Universal's Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and the Black Cat. The Wolf Man is great but something about Lon Jr. irks me. He redeems himself in Spider Baby but that's much later.

Lon is great in Spider Baby, but I just like him in everything. I thought his dopiness actually added something to the Larry Talbot character.

An interesting tidbit---according to the new Lugosi bio by Arthur Lenning, a drunken Chaney once punched an ailing Lugosi just before the latter's Ed Wood years. Strange.