Hammer’s Dracula is now a beloved British institution

Hammer’s 1958 Dracula is being re-released

To some, the spectacle of heaving bosoms, goblets and hideous bloodshot eyes might simply signify an average night out in Boujis. For the rest of us, however, these are the amusingly persistent leitmotifs of Hammer Horror — together with brightly lit Transylvanian inns, horses clattering through Home Counties woodlands, huge fangs and glass paintings of distant castles.

Cinema horror these days is largely to do with gruellingly repulsive scenes of realistic torture — from the Hostel films to the Saw series. So how is it that the now-antiquated scare devices of a gimcrack British outfit of the 1950s and 1960s remain so extraordinarily pervasive?

This Halloween, that original Hammer Dracula (1958), directed by Terence Fisher, is to get a special celebratory screening at the National Film Theatre — followed by the film being re-released in cinemas nationwide. The British Film Institute has lovingly tarted up the old print, bringing out a freshly vibrant colour and giving James Bernard’s brilliant pulsing musical score extra oomph.