# Hammer House of Horror (1980)

> A 1980 British horror anthology in which each self-contained episode unleashes a different dark tale of witches, ghosts, werewolves and human monsters.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/39530

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 13
- Episode runtime: 53 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: horror, mystery
- Created by: Roy Skeggs
- Network: ITV1
- Cast: Patricia Quinn, Dinah Sheridan, Eleanor Summerfield, Norman Beaton, Nicholas Ball, Jeff Rawle, Brian Cox, Robert Urquhart
- TMDB rating: 7.5/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080231/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: simple
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: eerie, foreboding, gothic, grim, sardonic

## What critics say

Audiences rate the British horror anthology positively, valuing its atmospheric, self-contained chillers despite uneven per-episode scares.

## Synopsis

Hammer House of Horror (1980) is a British horror anthology series created by Roy Skeggs for ITV1. Each of its thirteen fifty-three-minute episodes stands alone, with its own cast and its own dread, so there is no continuing protagonist to follow from one story to the next. Instead, viewers meet a fresh set of characters who stumble into witchcraft, werewolves, haunted houses, devil worship, voodoo, or the quieter horrors of confinement, cannibalism and serial killers. Actors such as Patricia Quinn, Dinah Sheridan, Eleanor Summerfield, Norman Beaton and Brian Cox appear in individual episodes, each playing a character whose ordinary life gives way to something terrible. The engine of every episode is a slow tightening of circumstance: an isolated household, a sinister secret, an inheritance or a dark bargain that cannot be undone. The series is built in the gothic tradition of Hammer Films, with candlelit interiors, rain-soaked English settings and a tone that is eerie, foreboding and often grimly sardonic. Its mood is one of creeping unease that breaks into sudden violence. Fans of Tales from the Crypt, Night Gallery and The Twilight Zone will find the same appetite for morality-tinged, self-contained horror stories in which the final shock matters more than any continuing mythology.

## Shows like Hammer House of Horror

- [Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (2006)](https://ember.film/tv/4125)
- [Masters of Horror (2005)](https://ember.film/tv/3300)
- [Tales from the Darkside (1984)](https://ember.film/tv/1302)
- [The Twilight Zone (1985)](https://ember.film/tv/1810)
- [The Living and the Dead (2016)](https://ember.film/tv/57865)
- [The Hitchhiker (1983)](https://ember.film/tv/9632)
- [Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)](https://ember.film/tv/71344)
- [The Storyteller (1988)](https://ember.film/tv/5030)
- [Night Gallery (1970)](https://ember.film/tv/4103)
- [Monsters (1988)](https://ember.film/tv/5931)

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