The Blood Runs Cold Trivia Quiz

Answer: To promote the film's 'adults only' rating from the British Board of Film Censors

'The Quatermass Xperiment' (based on the television series 'The Quatermass Experiment') was retitled to highlight the film's X rating, signifying that it was 'suitable for those aged 16 and over'. The promotional posters were black and white, except for the large red X. Released in the United States as 'The Creeping Unknown', it marked Hammer's first success in the American market, and led to a number of sequels. The first planned sequel ran into problems with permission to use the Quatermass character, so was reworked to use different characters, and retitled to 'X the Unknown' (1956), again featuring a red X on the poster.

If you are interested in the plot of 'The Quatermass Xperiment', it runs something like this. The sole survivor of a space voyage has somehow been transformed by an encounter with aliens, and is transforming into an organism with the potential to produce spores that will destroy humanity. The process involves absorbing other animals/people that he/it encounters, as he becomes progressively less human. Quatermass tracks him down and saves the world.

Answer: The Curse of Frankenstein

'The Curse of Frankenstein' (1957) starred Peter Cushing as Baron Victor von Frankenstein, and Christopher Lee as The Creature. Peter Cushing was recruited from television work, where he had an established reputation; Christopher Lee was cast primarily for his height.

This was the first of many films that were to feature these two fine actors. 'The Curse of Frankenstein' was Hammer's first colour horror film, and it focused on Frankenstein rather than the creature, primarily to avoid copyright issues with the Universal Pictures 1931 film 'Frankenstein', which had featured Boris Karloff as The Creature.

Answer: The Horror of Frankenstein

'The Horror of Frankenstein' (1970) is both a remake and a parody of 'The Curse of Frankenstein', combining elements of horror and comedy. Ralph Bates plays the Baron, who inherits the title by murdering his father. Sent home from medical school after getting the Dean's daughter pregnant, he starts killing those around him to provide the body parts for the experiments that ultimately lead to the creation of The Creature, who proceeds to go on a deadly killing spree.

Unlike the Universal Pictures series, the Hammer Films' 'Frankenstein' movies focused on the common character of Frankenstein. In fact, David Prowse, who portrayed The Creature in 'The Horror of Frankenstein' and then again in 'Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell', is the only actor to have played that role in more than one film.

The picture of Peter Cushing used for this question is actually taken from another movie, 'Dracula'.

Answer: Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee played the iconic count, and Peter Cushing played the vampire hunter Doctor Van Helsing. Bram Stoker wrote the original novel on which the film was based and Bela Lugosi starred as Count Dracula in the 1931 Universal Pictures film. When the Hammer film was released in the United States, it was retitled 'Horror of Dracula' to avoid confusion with the earlier film. Neither film is particularly true to the original novel, which is described as having "inspired" each of them.

Censorship standards have clearly changed over the years. The original release was X-rated (meaning you had to be at least 16 to see it); the 2007 rerelease was rated 12A (meaning that it is not recommended for children under 12, who can only see it if accompanied by an adult).

Answer: Brides of Dracula

'Brides of Dracula' stars Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, but that is about the only connection this sequel bears to the original film. He is in Transylvania in pursuit of Baron Meinster, who is busily turning his mother, his fiancée Marianne and her roommate Gina into vampires. Van Helsing manages to save Marianne.

Bram Stoker's original novel had three female vampires, known as the 'sisters', who are often referred to as the brides of Dracula, living with Count Dracula. They appear in some versions of the Dracula story, but this movie changes the ambiguity of the relationship to make one of them clearly a romantic entanglement for the Count.

Answer: Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy

Universal Pictures produced 'The Mummy', starring Boris Karloff, in 1932. Hammer Films, however, chose to base their first 'Mummy' film on some of the sequels to the original film. (The Abbott and Costello film, released in 1950, was a spoof of the genre.) Peter Cushing portrayed the archaeologist John Banning, who accidentally revived Kharis (played by Christopher Lee), a high priest of Karnak who had been preserved by mummification.

After much blood-chilling mayhem and murder, the mummy was subdued.

Answer: The Hound of the Baskervilles

The first film version of the classic novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be filmed in colour, 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' features Peter Cushing as Holmes, Andre Morell as Dr Watson, and Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville, who has inherited a family curse due to the actions of an ancestor whose name he shares. A tarantula attack, lots of strange and suspicious behaviour, multiple attacks from wild hounds, and a drowning keep viewers on the edge of their chairs before Holmes finally offers his immaculate explanation.

The picture shows the dog's head on display in the Sherlock Holmes Museum (located at 221b Baker Street, London) to illustrate 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. There have been over twenty movies based on this novel, using dogs of several different breeds to portray the hound. The Hammer film actually used a brindled Great Dane, and its demonic appearance was achieved through a mask rather than the phosphorescent paint of the novel.

Answer: 'Taste of Fear' (US title 'Scream of Fear')

In 'Taste of Fear' (1961), Penny Appleby (Strasberg) returns home to look for her father, and keeps coming across his body, which disappears before anyone else can see it. Is she hallucinating, or is there some sinister plot going on? Christopher Lee, that stalwart of the Hammer franchise, has a small role as Dr. Gerrard, and has stated that he felt it was the highest-quality Hammer film he made, in terms of script, cast and direction.

Answer: The Curse of the Werewolf

The 1961 film 'The Curse of the Werewolf' was based on Guy Endore's 1933 novel 'The Werewolf of Paris'. The film moves the setting from late-19th Century France to 18th Century Spain. A child born out of rape (by a man who has changed into a dog because he was treated as such during a lengthy incarceration), and whose deaf-mute mother dies giving birth to him on Christmas day, Leon takes on the surname of the man who subsequently raises him, Don Alfredo Corledo.

He fights his taste for blood for years, but is driven over the edge, and eventually must be confronted and killed by his sorrowful adoptive father, who shoots him with a silver bullet made from the metal of a crucifix.

Answer: The Phantom of the Opera

Gaston Leroux's novel, first published in serial form during 1909 and 1910, has been the inspiration for a number of stage and film productions that make our blood run cold. Among the most notable are those featuring the Phantoms in this question. In 1925, Lon Chaney Sr starred in a silent film, notable for his self-designed makeup which you can see in the picture used for the question. Michael Crawford starred as the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version, both in the West End production when it opened in 1986 and in the Broadway show when it opened in 1988. In the 1962 version of 'The Phantom of the Opera', Herbert Lom played the Phantom, who was in actuality Professor Petrie, a composer who was thought to have died years earlier in a fire. While trying to destroy his own music which was being published under the name of another, he disfigured himself with nitric acid, and established his residence under the Opera House along with the dwarf who had rescued him and nursed him back to reasonable health. In the climactic scene of the film, he rescues Christine from a falling chandelier which then crushes him onstage during the first performance of the opera whose music has been reclaimed as his.

You may remember Lom more clearly from his performances as Chief Inspector Dreyfuss in the 'Pink Panther' series of films from the 1960s.