Tom Weaver has argued that the Hammer costumers were directly inspired by the release of their CREEPING UNKNOWN on the double bill with BLACK SLEEP. I've countered that as early as CREEPING UNKNOWN's UK release (before UA bought it to pair with BLACK SLEEP), at least one canny critic-- Paul Dehn-- compared Richard Wordsworth's Caroon to Karloff in FRANKENSTEIN. Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg may well have smelled monsters in the air (or heard something on the grapevine) before the trades announced Columbia Screen Gems had bought the old Universal horrors for TV; thus their approach to financier Eliot Hyman and his forwarding Subotsky's crappy Frankenstein script to Hammer. Howard Koch, who produced BLACK SLEEP, kept moving in the same direction with FRANKENSTEIN 1970 and PHAROAH'S CURSE before hitting the big time with his partnership with Frank Sinatra.

It was just time for monsters.