Hammer Horror had its share of classic movies, but what are its most memorable monsters? Hammer Horror movies began their run in earnest with 1955’s The Quatermᴀss Xperiment, a chilling sci-fi tale that became an unexpected smash. Soon after, they sourced another unexpected box-office hit with the first of their Christopher Lee Dracula movies.

The Horror of Dracula not only made Lee a star (and unexpected Sєx symbol), it also set Hammer’s Gothic Horror formula in stone. The British production company would become a major name in the genre for the next 20 years, pumping out low-budget chillers that featured more spicy content and violence than the average horror film of that era.

Sadly, Hammer’s style became quite creaky by the 1970s, and they even made Lee’s Dracula into a Bond villain with the star’s final sequel, The Satanic Rites of Dracula. Hammer Horror’s run came to an end in 1976, and while they had plenty of duds, the company left behind a rich legacy of horror greats too.

The Brides of Dracula (1960) – Baron Meinster

The Brides of Dracula is the only sequel that omits Lee’s bloodsucker entirely, though it does bring back his foe Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Instead, this first sequel focuses on Baron Meinster (David Peel), a vampire who escapes his mother’s captivity and proceeds to ᴀssemble a group of vampire brides for himself.

While Lee is missed, The Brides of Dracula is still one of the better follow-ups. Cushing and the supporting cast are great, but it’s Peel who stands out. Meinster is at once pathetic, petty and creepy, and is in many ways a more complex villain than Lee’s Count. It’s almost a shame he only appears in the one entry.

X The Unknown (1956) – The Blob

Hammer was eager to follow the success of The Quatermᴀss Xperiment with a follow-up, with X the Unknown originally designed as a direct sequel. However, it was retooled after Quatermᴀss creator Nigel Kneale refused to allow his character to appear. That doesn’t stop X the Unknown from being a gem from Hammer’s early days.

The story involves an investigation into an unseen creature that melts its victims and is hungry for radiation. The finale reveals it’s a blob-like creature from the depths of the planet that can squeeze into any locale and grow to an enormous size. It’s one of Hammer’s most unique monsters and all the better for its origin never being fully explained.

The Mummy (1959) – Kharis

Christopher Lee’s brooding screen presence and lanky height made him perfect for monster roles. Lee played Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster AND The Mummy for Hammer, with this 1959 chiller featuring some incredible makeup for the тιтle monster. This outing sees Lee’s Kharis rise from the grave to take revenge after the tomb of an Egyptian Princess is opened by academics.

Even now, the visual of Lee’s lumbering Kharis is unnerving. The monster feels like the Terminator of his day, barely slowing down when stabbed or sH๏τ, and Lee imbues the tragic creature with menace and pathos. It also feels like Hammer’s take on the concept was the one recycled for the beloved 1999 Mummy remake.

Countess Dracula (1971) – Countess Elisabeth

Horror cinema began to change during the late 1960s thanks to Night of the Living ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and Rosemary’s Baby. As a result, Hammer found itself struggling to keep up and decided to spice up their Gothic horrors with lashings of gore and other spicy elements. Countess Dracula is one of the better examples of this trend.

This outing cast the late, great Ingrid Pitt as Countess Elisabeth, who takes to bathing in the blood of virgins to maintain her youth and beauty, with the film loosely based on the real-life legend of Elizabeth Bathory. Countess Dracula is very much a showcase for Pitt, who is mesmerizing in the тιтle role.

Elizabeth is a nasty character, but Pitt still makes her an oddly likable character – even as she’s committing evil deeds. She’s one of Hammer’s most human villains too, but it can’t be said she doesn’t earn her lonely fate by the end of Countess Dracula.

Quatermᴀss and the Pit (1967) – The Martian “Devil”

Quatermᴀss and the Pit is the best of Hammer’s Quatermᴀss film series, which involves an alien spaceship being uncovered in the London underground. Inside are the corpses of the alien race responsible for mankind’s evolution, and this species’ tendency towards violence and racial hate has also been inherited by human beings.

Quatermᴀss and the Pit has some terrible special effects, but it’s still one of Hammer Horror’s best movies. It’s filled with fascinating concepts and chilling sequences, and posits that humanity’s capacity for violence is a vicious monster in itself.

Like X the Unknown, Quatermᴀss and the Pit’s villain is largely unseen and is visualized during the finale by the ghostly visage of an alien “Devil.” It might be a more abstract foe, but given the bloodshed it’s whipping up by causing a riot in London, it’s one of the more dangerous creatures in Hammer’s library.

The Devil Rides Out (1968) – Mr Mocata

The Devil Rides Out is an undersung cult classic and features a rare heroic leading role for Christopher Lee. The film is one of Hammer’s last great horror offerings, and involves Lee’s Duc de Richleau trying to save a friend from a Satanic cult led by the sinister Mr Mocata (Charles Gray).

Gray will be an actor familiar to James Bond fans for his portrayal of Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever, but The Devil Rides Out is easily Gray’s most chilling performance. He plays the character with icy calm, with director Terence Fisher putting Gray’s piercing stare to fantastic use.

Mocata is a true servant of the devil and has hypnotic powers, which he uses several times throughout The Devil Rides Out. Despite his demonic powers, Mocata is a flesh-and-blood human, which makes his commitment to black magic all the more unnerving.

The Quatermᴀss Xperiment (1955) – Carroon

The Quatermᴀss Xperiment is the movie that kicked it off for Hammer, though they would quickly change course to Gothic chillers after Dracula. Still, this black and white monster movie holds up shockingly well, and involves the return to Earth of an astronaut named Carroon (Richard Wordsworth).

It’s quickly discovered Carroon has been taken over by an alien organism, which has absorbed Carroon’s fellow astronauts into his body. In an early instant of body horror in genre cinema, Carroon starts to mutate out of control, even absorbing a catcus into his own flesh.

The enтιтy within soon forces Carroon to absorb people, with The Quatermᴀss Xperiment’s biggest weapon being Wordsworth’s performance. Wordsworth silently conveys the horror of an innocent man being taken over by a power he can’t understand and forced to kill innocents. By the end, Carroon becomes a creature that threatens the entire planet.

The Frankenstein Series – Dr Frankenstein

Peter Cushing was adept at playing heroes and villains, with Dr Frankenstein being one of his greatest parts. On the surface, Frankenstein’s goals are noble; namely, bringing the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ back to life and conquering death. Where the character is lacking is his complete absence of morals or respect for, well, anything.

While Frankenstein shows flashes of humanity in entries like the underrated Frankenstein Created Woman, he becomes more of a monster as the saga progresses. Cushing invests Victor with enough dry humor and cunning to make him likable, but his casual cruelty and refusal to learn from his mistakes result in many deaths.

The Dracula Series – Count Dracula

Lee became a star thanks to the original Dracula, and while he resented the typecasting the role would lead to, he might just be the great screen version of the Count. Even in the weakest of the series, Lee is magnetic in the role. Lee’s menacing, charming and pretty darn H๏τ, even when he has barely any dialogue.

It speaks to Lee’s innate charisma that his Dracula is so compelling, as he largely hated making the sequels. He longed to make a direct adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel and felt the producers essentially blackmailed him into making the later films so Hammer’s crew people would get a payday.

None of this reluctance translates to the screen, and even in maligned entries like Scars of Dracula, he’s bringing the goods. Lee’s Dracula remains Hammer Horror’s most famous monster, and there’s a reason popular culture can’t shake the image of Lee in the role.