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1967 - UK Directed By: Vernon Sewell. Starring: Peter Cushing, Robert Flemyng, Wanda Ventham, Vanessa Howard, David Griffin, Glynn Edwards and Roy Hudd
Aka
The Vampire Beast Craves Blood
The Blood Beast From Hell
The Deathshead Vampire
Current Availability
The film is currently available on DVD in both a UK R2 version from DD Video or on US R1 DVD from Image Entertainment. There is little to choose between either version.
Recommended?
Not really, unless you're really in the mood to see an insipid, two-bit imitation of The Reptile. One for British horror completists only I feel.
Review
Ah Tigon! While never blessed with the reverence (or the financial impetus) of Hammer or Amicus, Tony Tenser’s small company nonetheless succeeded in burning an indelible mark upon the flesh of the British horror genre throughout the sixties and seventies. At their best Tigon Films were capable of producing films which offered a novel, bold and often shocking subversion of the genre as best evidenced in the tragic young Michael Reeves’ Witchfinder General (1967) – a bona fide genre classic that would outlive its maker, its star and its studio.
On the downside Tigon, whilst capable of brilliance, often sullied themselves via an unfortunate penchant for knocking out totally formulaic, cheaply made tat, which just rehashed tried and tested convention to a point of tedium, wasted the talents of their cast and served no purpose other than to clog up an already overcrowded marketplace. This regrettable shortcoming was never demonstrated better than in their interminable 1967 killer moth opus The Blood Beast Terror.
In the countryside of Victorian England some very strange (and highly clichéd) goings on are afoot. The dead bodies of young men are being discovered on the local heath. The corpses are drained of blood and are mutilated in an inexplicable fashion which baffles the local constabulary.
Enter Inspector Quennell (a slumming Peter Cushing) who arrives to investigate the deaths, accompanied by his sweet natured daughter Meg (Howard). Quennell’s enquiries soon lead him to the door of crazed entomologist Dr Mallinger (Flemyng) who, via a series of bizarre experiments, has succeeded in gifting his daughter Clare (Ventham) the ability to transform into a gigantic Deathshead moth. It turns our that the monstrous Clare is responsible (naturally) for the spate of killings.
Yet Dr Mallinger’s experiments do not end there, it turns out that the doctor is now in the process of creating a male creature as a companion for his daughter. In order to complete his male creation however, Dr Mallinger will require human blood and the Mallinger’s already have a target in mind – Quennell’s daughter Meg.
The Blood Beast Terror weighs in as perhaps one of the most tedious British genre efforts of its era. Peter Bryant’s script blatantly plagiarises the basic plot of the infinitely superior Hammer offering The Reptile, released just a year prior to this film. Both pictures present uncomfortably similar narratives in which a scientist meddles in a strange subculture resulting in their only child, a daughter in both instances, being transformed into a grotesque, deadly animal/human hybrid. However, although The Blood Beast Terror recycles the plot of The Reptile it rather inconveniently forgets to replicate the palpable atmosphere, effect or depth of the Hammer film.
Paul Ferris’ superbly spooky musical score proves one of the few points of merit as the contrived plot pads out sluggishly, more in the style of a stagy detective mystery as opposed to that of your standard British horror film. Vernon Sewell, a jack-of-all-trades filmmaker with no real eye for horror (his Curse Of The Crimson Altar (1968) was similarly nondescript) lends a typically bland, colourless hand to the proceedings, failing to conjure the kind of gothic atmosphere the material cries out for. Resultantly The Blood Beast Terror, despite its short running length, begins to outstay its welcome rather quickly. Adding to these woes is a dreadfully inadequate monster which, even taking into account the tight budget and limited technology of the time, proves totally unconvincing and manages to amplify the overall risibility of the film on a whole.
Peter Cushing, to his eternal credit, approaches his role with far more professionalism than such shoddy material probably warrants and gives his usual excellent performance, but even he is regrettably unable to lend any credibility to the film. He is not helped by the fact that, himself aside, the performances and scripting of certain roles only tends to work against the film. The Reptile was aided immeasurably by the novel stroke of presenting its monster and her father as ultimately sympathetic figures, a move which added an extra dimension to the film, absent from most of its ilk. By contrast here Wanda Ventham comes off as a wicked, nasty piece of work who seems to truly relish the killing and vampirism of her monstrous, alternate existence. At least Ventham has genuine presence though and makes the best of her limited role. The same cannot be said of Robert Flemyng, who gives a totally hammy, clichéd and overplayed mad scientist turn as the potty Dr Mallinger, his performance seeks only to lower The Blood Beast Terror into the realm of risible hokum. Looking at the supporting cast Vanessa Howard contributes a cloying, sickly sweet presence as Quennell’s daughter Meg and comedian Roy Hudd crops up in a brief but amusing comic role as a peckish, wisecracking mortuary attendant.
It is worth noting that Peter Cushing once commented that of all the many films to which he had lent his thespian skills, he personally regarded The Blood Beast Terror as one of the very worst. Looking back at film retrospectively it is sadly difficult for this reviewer not to second Cushing’s assessment for The Blood Beast Terror is indeed a poor addition to the British horror genre which singularly fails to stand out from the crowd. At best the presence of Cushing and the unintentionally cheesy air lent to the proceedings by the naff beastie and generic yet silly plot may pique the interest of die hard aficionado’s of British genre pictures. Otherwise however, The Blood Beast Terror is a dead loss. Directed with a flat hand, devoid of flair, thrills or suspense this as derivative and tiresome an exercise in by the numbers plagiarism as the British horror genre has to offer.
Also Try... The Reptile / The Ghoul (1975, Freddie Francis) / Curse Of The Crimson Altar / The Creeping Flesh.
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