Why is Hammer so popular? Hammer Film Productions put the genre of British horror on the map with such controversial thrillers as The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula and went on to become the most influential film factory in the history of horror cinema since Universal. Its colourful string of sumptuous looking (on remarkably low budgets), groundbreakingly graphic Gothic horror, crime and adventure films with an erotic flare struck the first blow to the walls of screen censorship and created a style of genre filmmaking that is still emulated today in such films as Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, and the Hughes Brothers' From Hell.

What's in it? An informed history of the company that began as a distributor called Exclusive Films in the 1930s, then moved into making low budget, second-billed suspense films and mysteries under that banner up until the 1950s. After adopting the name Hammer - after one of the company's founders - they hit box office pay dirt with a big screen adaptation of the classic BBC serial The Quatermass Xperiment in 1956.

The Pocket Essential Hammer Films takes an in-depth look at the classic Hammer movies from the cult favourites to overlooked and underrated gems. Here you'll find in depth profiles of the creative talent who shaped the a Hammer stylea behind and in front of the camera and became icons to a generation of filmgoers and filmmakers; appendices that include a complete Hammer filmography (including the studio's forays into episodic television and documentaries about the studio), plus a checklist of the best Hammer web sites in the Internet.