How Hammer Horror Led To Doctor Who’s Most Popular Episodes

Hinchcliffe and the production team intended to encourage teenagers and young adults to follow the adventures of the new Fourth Doctor by incorporating staples of the dark and graphic content of Horror into the show’s formula, in the hopes of expanding the show’s appeal to the untapped age markets. But even Hinchcliffe knew that leaning too close to the more adult and gruesome could risk alienating another demographic.

The key to overcoming this obstacle whilst still aiming for their desired effect lay in the subgenre of Hammer Horror.

Hammer Horror refers to a series of well-known Horror classics produced by the British Film Company ‘Hammer Film Productions’. The films produced by Hammer are instantly recognisable and beloved by all age-ranges, and helped to popularise the works of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, and countless others in the public awareness. Hammer Horror played a crucial role in influencing some of the 1970s most memorable episodes of Doctor Who.

One of the most notable is 1976's The Brain of Morbius, where The Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith face off against the maniacal scientist Solon, who pledges themselves to crafting their master Morbius a new form from a mishmash of alien body parts. Obviously, intended to be a unique and engaging retelling of Frankenstein, where the warped scientist Dr Frankenstein creates a body from human corpses with their aide, in an experiment to create new life.

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