Christopher Lee talks horror films of today

Although his name is synonymous with horror, Christopher Lee says he doesn't have much desire to see pictures that fall under that genre these days.

The 87-year-old, who helped Britain's legendary Hammer studios breathe new life into the horror genre in the 1950s, says he rarely watches horror films.

"I find it quite nauseating what they do," Lee told CNN. "The blood is all over the screen like an avalanche -- the mutilation -- dreadful things, and I just don't enjoy that."

The veteran actor, who played Count Dracula and Frankenstein in a series of Hammer movies from the 1950s until the 1970s, says it's "obscene" how much is displayed in horror films today.

"What you don't see is far more frightening than what you do see," said Lee, who considers Roman Polanski's 1968 supernatural thriller "Rosemary's Baby" the scariest film he's ever seen.

That may explain his attraction to upcoming psychological chiller "The Resident," his first Hammer film in more than 30 years. Starring Hilary Swank and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the movie is about a young doctor whose landlord develops a creepy obsession with her. Lee was a perfect fit for the film, which takes on a nightmarish quality in a nod to the noir style of Alfred Hitchcock, director Antti Jokinen says.

"He has that presence that a movie like this needs because a single look can be the scary atmosphere that you need," Jokinen told CNN.

Hammer Films is set to make its return with The Resident, starring Hilary Swank, and Let Me In, the remake of Let the Right One In.

source via bd