[Doc Faustus]

Hammer Horror is richer and more visceral than that of most of their contemporaries. Curse of Frankenstein was one of the first horror movies to show real gore and to not shy away from sexual situations. It was closer to the non franchise Universal horrors in its examinations of dark sexuality and aberrant behavior. They take a page from the Black Cat and the Raven, not from the Wolf Man or Son of Frankenstein. They take the gothic nonplace of Universal Horror and made it somewhere colorful, grim and much more perverse. Bela Lugosi's Dracula is a creature that sort of demures casually to his victims. Christopher Lee is a predator. He moves quick, he speaks abruptly, he flashes his fangs and he towers over his prey. It is dead certain what he is going to do with anyone he choses as his victim and it will have components not quite present in Lugosi. Lugosi plays up the Count aspect, Lee plays up the Dracula, the impaler, the barbarian. To learn more about this stuff I recommend the X List (I do not recall the author) and Joe Bob Briggs' Profoundly Disturbing. The X List is sort of trite, but Briggs really casts light on Curse of Frankenstein.