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The Blood Beast Terror
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (30th September 2024). |
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The Film
 A small village outside of England has been the site of six bizarre and brutal murders of young men, all completely drained of blood with superficial external injuries and fatal internal ones. Inspector Quennell (Curse of Frankenstein's Peter Cushing) thinks the killings are the work of a maniac; however, when a seventh body is discovered by coachman ('s ), the witness goes stark raving mad claiming to have seen a creature with red eyes and giant wings. Apart from the dismissive local doctor, Quennell's only scientific advisor is entomologist Dr. Mallinger (The Horrible Dr. Hichcock's Robert Flemyng) who hosts a weekly colloquy for his students at his country seat Clare House; however, Mallinger also dismisses the idea of a giant eagle strong enough to kill an able-bodied man. Mallinger has reasons to be evasive, however, as he is carrying out experiments with rare, large breeds of moths and his daughter Clare (Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter's Wanda Ventham) has a craving for the "warmth" of handsome men, arranging assignations on the local "lover's walk" where the bodies tend to turn up. When young entomologist Phillip Britewell (Galileo's William Wilde) turns up with live specimens from Africa of a particularly large breed of moth, he too attracts the attention of Clare and vice-versa. Bearing more than a passing resemblance to competitor Hammer's far superior The Reptile – along with the Sidney J. Furie quickie The Snake Woman shot back-to-back with Doctor Blood's Coffin in Cornwall in 1961 just as the aforementioned Hammer film was made back-to-back with Plague of the Zombies and both set in Cornwall but filmed on Bray Studio sets and Black Park exteriors – Tigon's The Blood Beast Terror feels like the company's attempt to ape Hammer horror, although it feels more like Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman a la Blood of the Vampire. With jobbing director Vernon Sewell working from a script by Peter Bryan (Hound of the Baskervilles), the film has some winning elements like the presences of Cushing and Flemyng along with Ventham's sexually-forward femme fatale who is less conflicted than her father and refreshingly does not fall in love with the young scientist (had Cushing and Flemyng swapped roles, the film might have also been seen as a spiritual cousin to The Creeping Flesh). On the other hand, the plotting is clunky and underdeveloped, with allowances made for the presence of "guest star" Roy Hudd (Up Pompeii) as an early example of a wise-cracking morgue attendant tucking into a meat pie around dead bodies. The film switches track midway and moves from Tigon's atmospheric dark and marshy Grim's Dyke House location – seen in The Curse of the Crimson Altar and The Haunted House of Horror – to another estate in bright, sunny Upper Higham for the second half of the film is undermined by the obvious redressing of the same studio sets used for both houses' laboratories and cellars (the production also seemed unable to stage a house fire for the climax so we instead get a literal burning bush). Vanessa Howard, who would make quite the impression in the later British psycho thrillers Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly and What Became of Jack and Jill?, is unfortunately quite annoying here as Quennell's virginal daughter who turns up to be victimized in the film's second half along with potential love interest, and potential moth food, David Griffin (Trog). The film also sports some particularly bad practical and optical special effects including some misaligned transformations and some night-for-night seemingly intentionally murky to making the "flying" less laughable. One interminably lengthy sequence has Mallinger's students and Clare putting on a play that seems like a cross between "Frankenstein" and the story of Burke and Hare (the commentary track reveals that producer Tony Tenser had been previously tried to mount projects Cushing including a Frakenstein one while Sewell would later direct Burke & Hare). Kevin Stoney (Murder at the Gallop) has a red herring role as Mallinger's scarred servant while Kenneth Colley (Performance) appears as one of Mallinger's students. 
Video
The Blood Beast Terror was released theatrically in the U.K. by Tigon themselves and in the U.S. by Pacemaker Pictures in 1969 under the title "The Vampire-Beast Craves Blood" in a version running eight minutes shorter presumably for double-billing (the film went back to its original title for the U.S. VHS release from Monterey Home Video but retained the shorter running time). The shorter U.S. cut with the British title first appeared on DVD in 2000 in the U.S. from Image Entertainment (as part of their "Euroshock Collection" line) as a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 transfer and in the U.K. in 2005 from DD Home Entertainment in 16:9 but cropped to 1.78:1. A 2K restoration in the 1.66:1 aspect ratio was performed in 2012 and made its Blu-ray debut stateside from Kino Lorber's Redemption Films line followed by a U.K. edition from Odeon the following year with a commentary track. Kino Lorber reissued the film in 2022 as part of their "Studio Classics" line featuring a higher-bitrate encode, SDH subtitles, and a new commentary. 88 Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from the 2K master. It was hard not to improve on what came before, but the newer transfer revealed the gorgeousness of some of the lighting and photography of Stanley A. Long who had moved up from making film for the army to both shooting and producing feature films including early sexploitation efforts like Primitive London and Secrets of a Windmill Girl which is only undercut by the listless editing that holds on shots too long. The graininess of some close-ups suggests that they were enlarged to vary the coverage. As with their recent Blu-ray of Night of the Big Heat, the day-for-night tinting is either baked into the source or into the 2012 restoration's grading so you really are not going to get any better views of the creature than before (especially in shots of the creature that appear to have been intentionally darkened). 
Audio
The original mono mix is presented in 24-bit LPCM 2.0 and conveys dialogue, effects, and the scoring of Michael Reeves-regular Paul Ferris (Witchfinder General) clearly without any distracting age-related defects. Optional English HoH subtitles are included. 
Extras
88 Films has not carried over either the Odeon or Kino Lorber commentaries but have produced a new audio commentary by editor Howard Lanning, moderated by author John Hamilton. Lanning. He reveals that the opening Africa sequence (shot in Surrey with local market traders as the black guides) was added later because the initial assembly of the film ran just over eighty minutes. Also added to the film were the Hudd scenes with the comedian provided a page of dialogue and told to improvise business. Consequently, Cushing was not prepared for Hudd's dialogue so many shots of Cushing were not usable. He also notes that director Sewell did not shoot a lot of coverage which is born out by Hamilton's criticisms about the pacing and Lanning's admission that they used everything they had. Hamilton notes that Cushing cited it as the worst film he had ever made while Lanning relates an amusing anecdote about how producer Arnold Miller wanted a role onscreen, first attempting to double as a corpse in the morgue before being ordered off by Flemyng who was inspecting on behalf of Equity only to get a single line as a police officer. Lanning also reveals that the creature was created by Roger Dicken who later created an awful puppet bat for Scars of Dracula and also worked on Alien.  In "To Cut or Not to Cut - Howard Lanning on The Blood Beast Terror and Witchfinder General" (24:26), the editor covers some of the same material but also recalls how Tigon's Tenser when he was at Cameo had picked up a film called Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? produced by himself and his brother Gerry Levy (The Body Stealers) leading to Tenser asking him to edit The Blood Beast Terror and five more films, as well as recalling how proud Sewell was of the monster design until he saw it on film. Lanning also discusses working on Witchfinder General, noting that he assembled the first cut of the film without Reeves' involvement since he was on location and that the director was hands-on after. He also discusses adapting to Reeves' fast cutting style and having to redub most of the location audio including the entirety of Robert Russell's performance since Reeves did not like his voice. "Terror at Grim's Dyke House - The Making of The Blood Beast Terror" (31:30) includes the recollections of actor Glynn Edwards (The Playbirds) who played Quennell's sergeant, make-up artist Rosemarie McDonald-Peattie (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave), production secretary Vivien Duret, standby carpenter Jeff Woodbridge, and focus puller Jim Alloway. The disc also includes the theatrical trailer for British theatrical trailer (2:26), the American "The Vampire-Beast Craves Blood" theatrical trailer (2:15), and a stills gallery (1:09). 
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible sleeve featuring new artwork by Sean Longmore and original poster art while the first pressing includes an O-ring slipcover featuring new artwork by Sean Longmore and booklet featuring notes by Andrew Graves & John Hamilton (none of which was supplied for review).
Overall
Tigon apes Hammer with The Blood Beast Terror which star Peter Cushing regarded as the worst film he ever made!
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