Hammer’s 1958 Dracula was their follow-up to the hugely successful The Curse Of Frankenstein, and together they set the template for “Hammer horror”.

Director Terence Fisher is once again at the helm, and his steady hand delivered a new take on gothic horror. Notable in particular is how Christopher Lee’s Count sweeps down the stairs to introduce himself as a gracious host, a world away from the creepy figure created by Bela Lugosi in the 1930s Universal horrors. Its not long, however, before the fangs come out and the blood starts flowing!

It’s one of my all-time favourite movies, and the best of the many horrors starring both Lee and Peter Cushing. I once had a UK 1960s re-release quad for this, but I sold it at auction years ago, and have been kicking myself since.

I had been wanting to find some first-release paper for this for years, but the UK quad is a). incredibly rare and b). hugely expensive, as are the wonderful French posters by Guy Gerard Noel. The US one-sheet and the Belgian posters meanwhile I don’t particularly like.

Then I came across this Spanish herald, which I bought as a late birthday present to myself. For a herald, it was relatively expensive, but it has a great image of Dracula and is now part of a very small collection of 4 great early Hammer heralds I have framed on my office wall.