James Bernard; Composer for Britain’s Hammer Horror Films

James Bernard, who composed the eerie musical scores for Britain’s beloved “Hammer horrors,” a series of low-budget gothic vampire and monster movies made by the Hammer Film Co. from the 1950s to the ‘70s, has died. He was 75.

Bernard died Thursday in a London hospital, according to his only survivor, a sister.

During his nearly half-century career, Bernard composed scores for such classic Hammer films as “The Curse of Frankenstein” (1957), “Horror of Dracula” (1958) and “The Devil Rides Out” (1968).

The composer’s only Academy Award, however, was not for his music. Bernard shared an Oscar in 1951 with Paul Dehn for best motion picture story for “Seven Days to Noon.”

Born in India in 1925, Bernard was educated in Britain at Wellington College, where he met his hero, the visiting composer Benjamin Britten.

Impressed with the 17-year-old’s compositions, Britten kept in touch with Bernard during his years with the Royal Air Force and then encouraged him to study at the Royal College of Music.

After a year assisting Britten on the opera “Billy Budd,” Bernard wrote music for a series of plays, through which he met conductor John Hollingsworth.

It was Hollingsworth, musical director for Hammer Films, who brought Bernard into the horror movie business.

“In the end, I did more than 20 scores for Hammer,” Bernard told the London Guardian in 1997. “They were sophisticated people. They always wanted scores properly, symphonically written by good composers. It didn’t matter how advanced or discordant the music was, provided it worked for the film. . . . The directors didn’t want to know a lot about the music, which was wonderful, because it meant they didn’t butt in.”

Bernard admitted that many critics considered his horror film scores “lowbrow” but said the work was lucrative and enjoyable.

He participated in a 1994 television documentary, “Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror.”

Bernard continued working into his 70s. In 1997, he was asked to compose new music for “Nosferatu,” one of the granddaddies of all vampire films, when the 1922 silent movie was restored and presented at the London Film Festival.

His last work was the score for “Universal Horror” in 1998, a documentary of Universal Studios’ horror films of the 1930s and ‘40s.

“I suppose I’d have liked to write symphonies,” Bernard once mused, “but since I was a boy I’ve been mad on film and theater, and writing for them was what appealed to me most. It may sound smug, but I think the music I’ve done for films has had a good, long life. I’d rather have done that than write a piece for a prom that was performed once and then forgotten.”