Abstract
The 1953 BBC ‘thriller’ The Quatermass Experiment was remade as a film by Hammer Films (1955), and remounted as a live television production by Channel 4 (2005). The versions vary sonically in relationship with sound effect, music, and voice. These sonic configurations are significant in tilting the production from science fiction towards horror in the Hammer film, and the 2005 version represents both technological advances in sound design and attention to its two precedents. All versions are shaped by their medium’s historical context: the original TV production draws heavily on radio models; the film recalls both contemporary science fiction and James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein; and the 2005 version is in part meta-discourse on television as a medium and as text.
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References
Hutchings, P. (1993) Hammer and Beyond: The British Horror Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
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Stilwell, R.J. (2016). The Sonic Realm in The Quatermass Experiment: Medium and Genre and Sound. In: Greene, L., Kulezic-Wilson, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sound Design and Music in Screen Media. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51680-0_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51680-0_15
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