You’d think combining Hammer Horror’s visual flair with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous ghost story would be a match made in gothic heaven. After all, The Hound of the Baskervilles is the only Sherlock Holmes tale that flirts with the supernatural. And Hammer? Hammer built its house on blood, capes, and fog machines working overtime.
But instead of a blazing inferno of atmosphere and dread, what we get in Terence Fisher’s 1959 adaptation is a damp campfire where Peter Cushing reads Victorian Yelp reviews about moors while a papier-mâché dog sniffs around behind a bush, waiting for its cue.
Let’s start with the basics. Sherlock Holmes, played by Peter Cushing, is introduced with all the clinical charm of a man who eats chalk for breakfast. He’s got the intellect, yes. He’s got the cheekbones. But his Holmes is more fussy aristocrat than brilliant eccentric. You can practically hear his monocle screaming to jump ship. Cushing is a brilliant actor, no doubt—but here he’s stuck playing Holmes like he’s been diagnosed with stage-four smugness.
And then there’s André Morell as Dr. Watson, who, to his credit, doesn’t play him like a bumbling oaf (as most adaptations do). But in this version, Watson is so dry he might as well be powdered and stored in a tea tin. The man’s idea of urgency is asking, “Oh dear,” when someone’s just been mauled to death by a dog-shaped pile of fur and glue.
The story sticks loosely to the book. Sir Henry Baskerville (Christopher Lee, looking like he wandered in from a Dracula set with his tie still done up) inherits the cursed Baskerville estate, complete with a family legend about a demon hound haunting the moors. One by one, those with the Baskerville name drop dead—or just dramatically faint. Holmes investigates. Watson walks around looking concerned. There’s a swamp. There’s a tarantula. There’s an ominous butler. The usual.
But the scares? Oh, dear reader, the scares. You’d be more frightened by a misdelivered pizza than anything this movie throws at you. The titular hound—a beast that’s supposed to terrify generations—shows up looking like someone dressed a St. Bernard in a shag rug and told it to “growl like you mean it.” There’s an attempt at glowing eyes. There’s a smoke machine. There’s also laughter in the theater, I guarantee it.
Instead of horror, we get long scenes of people staring off into the fog, contemplating whether the moors are slightly more sinister at dusk or just chilly. Terence Fisher, usually reliable for creating mood with shadows and dread, directs this like he lost interest halfway through and decided to make a tourism video for wet British countryside. The pace plods. The tension wilts. And the so-called “horror” is as toothless as the hound.
Let’s talk about that moor. It’s in every third scene. The camera pans across it like it’s a character—just a lot of damp grass and vague fog. It’s like the film forgot it had a plot and decided to show us nature’s least interesting landscape in slow motion. If you’ve ever wanted to see Sherlock Holmes watch a patch of mist for fifteen uninterrupted seconds while violins softly whimper in the background—this one’s for you.
The supporting characters are a mixed bag of ham and croutons. We’ve got the surly stableman who glares a lot, a shifty-eyed neighbor who clearly attended the “How to Be Suspicious 101” acting class, and a housekeeper who looks like she’s been waiting for a better script to come along for twenty years. Everyone seems vaguely guilty but mostly bored, like they’re all in a whodunnit-themed escape room and forgot the door was open the whole time.
Even Christopher Lee, normally a towering presence of doom and elegance, is criminally underused. He’s not the villain. He’s not the hero. He’s not even allowed to brood in candlelight properly. He just kind of wanders around, faintly annoyed, like he ordered Dracula and got Diet Holmes instead.
And let’s not forget the finale. The big showdown. The part where the truth is revealed, the villain unmasked, and the hound finally lunges from the darkness to devour its prey.
Except, well, the truth is meh. The villain is a damp squib. And the hound? Oh, that hound. Its final appearance is less terrifying attack, more sad dog-on-a-string moment, capped off with a whimper and some disappointing yelping. Holmes waves a pistol. The villain falls into a swamp. The hound goes out with a whine. Curtain falls. Applause optional.
It’s all so underwhelming. You can feel the potential here, clawing at the coffin lid. Hammer could have made this terrifying—a real haunted house murder mystery dripping with atmosphere and blood. But instead of leaning into horror, they tried to respect the literary roots too much, and in doing so, forgot the bite.
Sure, the production looks decent. The sets are well-dressed. The costumes are sharp. And the cinematography is rich in that warm, waxy Hammer color palette. But it’s lipstick on a bored bulldog.
Final Verdict: 2 out of 5 Leashed Demons
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) should have been the crossover of the century—Sherlock Holmes meets gothic horror. Instead, it’s a film where the scariest thing is Peter Cushing’s inability to blink. The hound is a flop, the mystery is limp, and the fog out-acts half the cast.
Watch it if you’re a Hammer completist. Or if you want to see how even Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing can’t save a movie when the villain is a mop on four legs. Otherwise, just read the book. It’s scarier. And the dog has dignity.
