The Blood Beast Terror (1969)

People are voting emotionally.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The acting in this movie is really good.

A Tigon production (as in an imitation of Hammer Films) that concerns a series of mysterious deaths in a small town. Men are being attacked but by what. An eagle? The eventual answer that emerges is a bit risible but the film directed by veteran Vernon Sewell is not bad but not that good either. The low budget shows though Stanley A. Long's cinematography is crisp and colourful. The monster make-up is ordinary.Robert Flemyng is suitably intense as Dr. Mallinger, Glynn Edwards as the police sergeant is solid as usual and Roy Hudd gives a hilarious cameo as a mortuary attendant. It also does have Peter Cushing as Inspector Quennell and as always he gives a good performance, even with such thin material to work with and it also has the beautiful Wanda Ventham as Clare, who does charming and strict both equally well. Who would not fall for her? Wanda Ventham never got enough lead roles which was a shame.There is an amateur play within the film which has a sort of Frankenstein type plot which must have amused Mr. Cushing and I'm afraid to say the play-in-the-film was just as entertaining as the film-around-the-play.

Despite the presence of (Sir) Peter Cushing - a Hammer legend with an iconic screen persona - this film is truly lamentable. 'The Blood Beast Terror' may have alliterative power but it certainly doesn't possess terror. From the faux genetic science in the clichéd vein of 'tampering with Nature (God's grand design)' to the pace less plotting and hammy acting; to the flimsy sets and appalling special effects, what the audience is ultimately subjected to is a film devoid of atmosphere, tension or 'scares'. And before I am accused of not placing the film into any kind of historical context, there are plenty of British and Non-British thrillers/horror films made during this period which do accomplish thrills and spills, even if purely on a psychological level: Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' (1960) and Robert Wise's 'The Haunting' (1963), for instance, or Polanski's 'Repulsion' (1966). Notably, Polanski returns again with 'Rosemary's Baby' in the same year as 'The Blood Beast Terror' and, again in the same year, the horror film is transformed by the sub-genre defining 'Night of the Living Dead' - with George A. Romero showing us seminally how horror truly acts as social commentary. My advice is stick to films which take the idea of genre filmmaking seriously - including those films which push the boundaries, like 'Repulsion'.

Peter Cushing stars as Inspector Quennell, a detective trying to uncover who it is murdering folks in his jurisdiction. Scales are left at the crime scene and the victims all suffered nasty lacerations where teeth had been gnawing, draining their blood, eating their flesh. Robert Flemyng is a mad genius, an expert in entomology and a geneticist who has somehow created a giant Deaths-head moth, who masks itself as a beautiful woman, Clare(Wanda Ventham), pretending to be his daughter, luring young men with her feminine wiles before returning to insect form and attacking them. While I didn't feel it was as horrible as many feel it is(..including Cushing, from what I've read), this creature feature doesn't even try to thrill the viewer with any surprises, instead director Sewel and writer Peter Bryan fashion this after many a monster movie. You have the detective searching for the causes behind grisly(..though, unseen)murders. We see the mastermind behind how the monster was created. We see how the unmasked monster operates. We see how the mastermind's own creation causes enough problems with her feeding habits that he must hit the road with the detective in steady pursuit soon making the startling discovery that a giant killer moth is doing in innocent men. Creature turns on creator. Creature's weakness for blood/flesh does her in eventually. Of course, this film provides Cushing's inspector with a cute daughter, Meg(Vanessa Howard), who will find herself in possible danger. Her potential boyfriend, William(David Griffin), a bug catcher will also face certain peril due to his killing a deaths-head moth for his collection. The film features lovely countryside setting with beautiful flowers of a variety of colors and shows how vindictive and cunning Clare is at spotting males, and maneuvering them away from the eyes of possible witnesses. This is no world-beater, but it's an adequate time-waster. I've seen much worse, but Cushing doesn't look very comfortable or inspired in this role, which is a very rare case in such a storied career. Roy Hudd, as a mortician, is a hoot always eating(..and offering snacks to Inspector Quennell and Sergeant Allan, played by Glynn Edwards when they are reviewing the bodies of victims)and grinning wide, cracking wise and often irritating his guests. The killer moth is basically a bug costumed stunt-person.

In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, dozens upon dozens of horror films were made in the UK and often starred Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee. Well, by the late 1960s, the well started to run dry, so to speak, and the best years were generally behind. Now of course there were a few exceptions (such as the original WICKER MAN), but generally the films made in this later period were pretty silly or repetitive and THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR definitely falls into the category of "pretty silly". While the acting, as usual, is good, the problem is that the mystery of all the deaths had a horrible payoff--with one of the stupidest monsters of the era. Now I could tell you all about it, but that might spoil the suspense--though I doubt it. The bottom line is that that is a rather dismal failure with the dopiest conclusion in monster history! Don't say I didn't warn you!