British Hammer Film Productions developed an international reputation for low-budget yet lavishly-designed romantic chillers. Today, Hammer is most commonly associated with the career-defining roles of its leading men, namely Peter Cushing's Frankenstein and Christopher Lee in "Dracula."
Hollywood film stars such as Ursula Andress, and provincial English girls like Veronica Carlson and Continental beauties like Ingrid Pitt, would all become leading ladies under Hammer.
However, with George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" setting a new standard in the portrayal of explicit gore and others, like Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby", offering audiences a more artful and sophisticated horror experience, Hammer began to fall out of fashion in the 1970s.
The company resorted to amplifying the sexual content of their films, with the likes of "To the Devil A Daughter" featuring a young Nastassja Kinski in 
the role of an infrequently-dressed teenage nun.
By 1984, having departed from films to concentrate on television dramas, Hammer ceased production altogether. Now, after over 20 years, Hammer is set to make a return to the big screen with an English production of Swedish vampire tale "Let the Right One In" scheduled for release in 2010.
