Blurb:

Analysis of the techniques used in the scoring of the Hammer horror output concluding that Hammer’'ss use of dramatic sound effects and powerful orchestrations in the vampire films dramatize a monstrous presence and threat chiefly conveyed through symbolic power and suggestion rather than graphic dismemberment and/or depictions of gore. While Hammer’s composers were not responsible for any significant musical innovations, their development of a series of scores (managed and maintained by house music directors) created a musical reference bank for future horror-film composers. In Hammer’s diegeses the world is essentially rendered: Dracula’s dramatic, exciting darkness against the forces of light, reason and restraint. Returning to the cultural frame that prefaced this chapter, it is perhaps not overfanciful to read Hammer’s post-war films – and particularly their routine victories of the forces of good over evil – as a cathartic ‘replaying’ and purging of the traumas of the war years.