|
Synopsis: A cabbie
travelling a lonely stretch of road outside London hears a horrifying
scream in the woods. Pulling up his horses, he grabs his lantern and
goes to investigate, finding a young man whose throat has been torn
open. Suddenly, a huge winged creature dives at the cabbie, who recoils
in terror…. At his house, doctor and entomologist Professor Carl
Mallinger (Robert Flemyng) lectures on insects to a group of university
students. Unseen by Mallinger, Detective Inspector Quennell (Peter
Cushing) slips into the back of the room. When the lecture concludes,
the students are served refreshments by Mallinger’s daughter, Clare
(Wanda Ventham), while Quennell asks Mallinger some questions about
another student of his, who was recently found murdered. The questioning
comes to an abrupt halt when Clare screams in terror and faints, the
victim of a practical joke involving a rubber spider. Mallinger angrily
orders the students from his house. Quennell himself is also called out
by Sergeant Allen (Glynn Edwards), who tells him that there has been yet
another attack – the sixth – and that the still-living victim is outside
in a carriage. Quennell asks Mallinger for help. The doctor tells
Quennell to stand well back and leans into the carriage….only to
straighten again with the news that he was too late. At Scotland Yard,
Quennell learns that the cabbie who found the latest victim has gone
mad, and can only babble frantically about a strange creature with
wings. Quennell and the coroner visit the morgue to inspect the victim’s
injuries. They find that his throat was torn open, as if by an animal,
yet surprisingly little blood was spilled. The next morning, Sgt Allen
oversees a search of the heath. The only discovery is a number of flat,
shiny objects that the police cannot identify. Quennell takes some of
these to Mallinger’s house. He asks the Professor whether an eagle could
have been responsible for the recent killings, and when Mallinger
dismisses the idea, asks him if he can identify the objects found on the
heath. Mallinger agrees to try, reaching out for the whole packet.
Quennell stops him, offering instead a single specimen for examination.
When Quennell has gone, Mallinger goes down into the basement of his
house. There, he dons protective clothing before unlocking a door at the
far end of the room. As he enters, he is greeted by a strange, harsh
cry…. At the local police station, naturalist Frederick Britewell
(William Wilde), just returned from Africa, asks directions to
Mallinger’s house. There, Clare makes herself agreeable, inviting the
young scientist to attend some home theatricals the following evening.
Mallinger himself is delighted with the enormous chrysalids that
Britewell has brought him, but reacts in fury when his visitor touches
one of his experiments. The following evening, after the play, Clare
invites Britewell to take a walk in the garden. Teasingly insisting that
he cover his eyes, she runs from him into the woods. Britewell follows
eagerly – only to be confronted by a monstrous winged beast, which
instantly tears at his throat….
Comments: At the conclusion
of this film, as he stands staring down at the smouldering remains of
its titular beastie, Police Sergeant Allen is moved to inquire
helplessly of his superior, “What will we tell them? They’ll never
believe this at the Yard!” To which that superior, the equally
gobsmacked Inspector Quennell, can only reply sadly – and with more
truth than, perhaps, screenwriter Peter Bryan ever intended – “They’ll
never believe it anywhere!”
There was a part of me that was sorely
tempted to take this review no further than that quotation, which sums
up The Blood Beast Terror as well as anything could, not to
mention about as well as it deserves. But there was another part of me,
a much larger part, that was compelled to make public confession of the
fact that I have for The Blood Beast Terror a quite unwarranted
degree of affection. Don’t get me wrong: my judgement isn’t so blind
that I’d try to tell you that this is by any standard a good
film. What I would say, though, is that in spite of all its
shortcomings, it does possess a certain daffy charm, chiefly by virtue
of the fact that its story – which centres upon a mad scientist, his
lepidopterous daughter, and the kind of “science” that could make Bela
Lugosi weep with envy – makes no sense whatsoever.
Wait a minute! I hear some of you exclaim.
Did you say – his lepidopterous daughter? Yes, indeed, gentle
reader: this film’s monster, the “Blood Beast” of its title, is nothing
less than a gigantic, rampaging, vampiric….were-moth.
Yes.
There are a few positive things
about The Blood Beast Terror, I guess – Peter Cushing’s
performance, the unusually realistic nature of the police investigation
subplot, the determined sex reversal of its main story – but let’s face
it, with a monster that idiotic, the thing was doomed from the outset.
Even Cushing himself considered this to be his very worst film. (A bit
harsh, in my opinion: personally, I’d vote for The Uncanny.)
The Blood Beast Terror
begins courageously enough. Brazenly defying those people (i.e. my
colleagues and myself) who insist that the use of stock footage in a
film’s opening sequence is one of the major cinematic warning flares, it
not only serves up some wholly unconvincing shots of a stork, a monkey
and a macaw, it inserts them into “real” footage that manages to be even
less convincing, as a short stretch of a patently English river
struggles heroically to make itself look like a portion of Darkest
Africa. (Hang on – a macaw…?) Out on the water in a canoe are two
no doubt hugely embarrassed extras playing at being “native bearers”,
and a young man dressed in a I’m-British-so-dirt-can’t-touch-me gleaming
white explorer’s suit and pith helmet. The explorer directs his bearers
to paddle towards shore. Once on land, the young man immediately glances
down into a tree stump and finds therein two large chrysalids, which
just happen to be what he came all the way to Africa to find. Luck, hey?
One jarring cut later,
the opening credits are rolling over footage of a hackney carriage
travelling down a lonely road in the middle of the day. As the credits
finish, a loud, and definitely masculine, scream sounds from nearby.
(You will hear more male screaming in The Blood Beast Terror than
in almost any other horror film I can think of.) The cabbie stops his
horses, grabs a lantern, and plunges into the woods to investigate – and
suddenly it’s the middle of the night. (This day-for-night confusion,
which will recur throughout the film, is by no means its only Larry
Buchanan-esque aspect, as we shall see….) The cabbie finally stumbles
over the body of a young man, who has had his throat torn open.
Suddenly, there comes the sound of flapping wings, and the cabbie
himself starts screaming as something huge and dark swoops down towards
him. At this point, we are given only the most indistinct glimpse of the
mysterious creature. Later on, we shall learn to appreciate this
all-too-brief directorial reticence.
Things pick up then, as
Peter Cushing makes his first appearance onscreen as Inspector Quennell.
If The Blood Beast Terror can indeed be said to hold together, it
is certainly due to the straightfaced but not humourless conviction with
which Cushing undertook the role of Quennell: the man’s ability to sell
almost anything was truly extraordinary. (Conversely, if Robert
Flemyng was appalled at having to appear in that excellent Italian
shocker, L’Orrible Segreto Del Dotto Hichcock,
the mind positively boggles at the thought of what he must have made of
this.) Quennell calls upon Professor Mallinger who, we learn, is
giving his “usual Thursday night lecture” to a group of university
students. The lecture itself consists of little more than a slide-show
accompanied by “this is a picture of a moth, and this is another picture
of a moth”, which makes the wrapt attention displayed by the young men
in the audience a little hard to understand – at least until the lecture
concludes, and refreshments are brought in by Mallinger’s busty
daughter, Clare, towards whom the young men instantly stampede. Quennell
sidles up to Mallinger, speaks briefly but enthusiastically of
entomology as a subject, then starts to question Mallinger about a
former student of his who, we learn, is one of a string of recent murder
victims. What Mallinger may have said we are destined never to know,
since he and Quennell are startlingly interrupted. One of the students,
evidently a graduate of the Errol Flynn School Of Courtship, has chosen
to play a practical joke on Clare with a rubber spider – who belies her
robust appearance by screaming hysterically and then fainting. Mallinger
furiously orders all of the students out of the house, while Quennell is
summoned by Sergeant Allen, who – through pathways unexplicated – has
the body of the young man from the woods in a carriage outside. (Glynn
Edwards’ performance as the phlegmatic Allen is one of the film’s better
aspects.) Finding that “He’s not quite dead yet”, Quennell begs
Mallinger – one of those useful movie doctor-scientists – for help.
Mallinger agrees. Insisting that Quennell stand right back, Mallinger
leans into the carriage, and--- “Oh, he’s died!”
Quennell is next seen
talking to the coroner. (The geography of The Blood Beast Terror
is at all times hazy, but it seems that Quennell is attached to Scotland
Yard, and Mallinger’s house is on the outskirts of London.) The cabbie
who found the most recent victim is, mysteriously, alive, but has been
pronounced insane, as he does nothing but rant about giant flying
creatures. Quennell and the coroner then visit the morgue, allowing for
an appearance by that character most beloved of horror movie
screenwriters, The Comical Morgue Attendant Who Has Lunch Amongst The
Corpses. In fairness, this particular example of the breed does get one
unexpectedly witty moment when, after pulling the usual half-wit
routine, he suddenly pronounces of the latest murder victim: “Severe
injury to the cranium region, thorax severely damaged, and ribcage
subject to extreme pressure.” And just as well the morgue attendant
is on the ball, too, since we subsequently learn that this is the
first of the six murder victims that the coroner has bothered to
examine! The tearing of the throat is commented upon, as is the lack of
spilled blood. (Hmm….) Quennell then meets up with Sgt Allen, who is
supervising a search of the heath where the murder took place (and never
mind that we saw the cabbie run into the woods). Allen hands Quennell a
number of flat, shiny objects about an inch across, which were found at
the scene. These send the puzzled Quennell back to Mallinger. First
having his theory about a homicidal eagle dismissed by Mallinger (who,
like all good movie scientists, is an expert on pretty much
everything), Quennell then flashes the strange objects from the
heath. At the sight of these, Mallinger gets a little….sweaty….and
after a brief Whoops did I try to take them all how silly of me!
tussle, Quennell hands the scientist a single specimen and departs.
Indignant squawks come
from nearby, and we cut to Mallinger’s scar-faced butler, Granger, who
is tormenting Mallinger’s – gasp! – pet eagle. The bird appears
to be of that rare species, Seenonceonly redherringus. Mallinger
abuses the butler and sends him from the room, then begins feeding the
animal himself – and Robert Flemyng very nearly loses a finger. Owie!
Mallinger then goes down into his basement, where again like all good
movie scientists, he keeps a secret room behind a locked door. First
donning some singularly goofy protective headgear (which looks like it
was designed by the makers of The Return Of The Fly: you know,
the guys who decided that Andre Delambre’s human-sized fly head wasn’t
scary enough – or silly enough) – Mallinger ventures in, to be
greeted by a series of strange harsh cries….
And then it’s time to
catch up with Mr The Sun Never Sets Upon The Empire – aka
Frederick Britewell, naturalist and explorer, our old friend from the
opening sequence. Britewell ventures into the local police station to
ask directions to Mallinger’s house, and as a stranger instantly draws
the attention of Sgt Allen. Determining that Britewell could not have
had anything to do with the murders, Allen sends him on his way with the
unfortunate bobby who has drawn the night watch duty on the heath as a
guide. At the house, Clare greets the visitor warmly – very
warmly – and has just gotten around to inviting him to attend a small
theatrical party at the house the following evening when Mallinger shows
up. Britewell comments favourably upon Clare’s interest in entomology –
so unusual in a woman! – provoking the exchange of A Highly
Significant Look between father and daughter. Mallinger carts Britewell
off to the lab, where the specimens collected by the young explorer have
been delivered. Britewell is surprised by Mallinger’s interest in the
largest of the chrysalids that he has brought back, as they are
remarkable for nothing but their size. But no, no, Mallinger assures
him, it is the size that matters. Btitewell then has a flash of
inspiration, and inquires whether Mallinger is trying to breed a larger
species…?
Upon reflection – he
probably shouldn’t have said that….
We cut abruptly to
perhaps The Blood Beast Terror’s most inspired sequence – and
typically, it has absolutely nothing to do with the business at hand.
The “theatricals” we heard about involve Mallinger’s students, plus
Clare, staging a play featuring mad science, resurrection of the dead,
and a (tin sheet) violent thunderstorm – not to mention Clare flashing
more leg and bosom than you’d expect from a young lady of this era.
(Amusingly, much of this film’s original poster art prominently featured
this non sequitur of a scene, and Clare’s cleavage in
particular.) Engaging in its own right, the scene is capped when
Quennell, who just happens to be passing, glances through a window at
the shenanigans on stage – and Peter Cushing has what I’m quite sure was
a genuine laugh at the distinctly Frankensteinian nature of the
proceedings. Afterwards, a flirtatious Clare invites Britewell for a
walk in the garden, to which the young explorer, doubtless in the belief
that he’s about to get lucky, readily agrees. But it’s Clare whose luck
is in. No sooner are the two out of sight of the house than she begins
to transform….
….and we finally get a
good view of the film’s monster – which, I swear, looks like nothing so
much as the bastard offspring of Roger Corman’s Wasp Woman and Larry
Buchanan’s Zontar.
It is usual for
reviewers – or apologists – to speak of the tiny budget for which The
Blood Beast Terror was produced; and while that may be true in
relative terms, I find it hard to believe that the film didn’t cost
rather more than The Wasp Woman and
Zontar, The Thing From
Venus put together. And yet that – that! – was the best
monster they could come up with! It could just make you cry. Or giggle
hysterically, however the spirit moves you.
Anyway--- The newly
lepidopterous Clare (and yes, I do like the word “lepidopterous”
– so there!) latches onto Britewell’s throat. He immediately lets out a
series of screams – remarkable screams, for someone having his throat
torn open – which attract the attention of the wandering Quennell. As he
draws near, the re-transformed Clare flees – and in doing so raises all
those old questions about what, exactly, shape-shifting monsters do
about their clothing, only more so. The Blood Beast Terror really
does strike a blow for the female sex here. To paraphrase that famous
quote about Ginger Rogers, not only can its female monster do everything
that a male monster can, she does it while having to deal with bustles,
corsets, and an impossibly elaborate hairdo.
Quennell finds
Britewell bloody and dying, and tries vainly to get him to say something
useful. The explorer, however, a traditionalist if ever there was one,
and mindful that all last utterances must be cryptic ones, gasps out
only, “Death’s Head!” – which, in these pre-Silence Of The
Lambs days, conveys to Quennell precisely nothing. Quennell hauls
Britewell to Mallinger’s house, only to have Mallinger (i) pronounce him
dead; and (ii) deny all knowledge of his identity. He also, it seems,
decides that Clare has made the vicinity to hot to hold them any more.
Next we know, all the furniture in the house is swathed with covers.
Granger the butler takes this final opportunity to torment Mallinger’s
eagle just once more. This time, however, the bird is waiting for him,
and Granger is soon an ex-butler. And no, I haven’t the faintest idea
what that whole Granger subplot was supposed to be about, either.
Quennell, meanwhile, is
reporting Britewell’s last words to his superior, who takes the
opportunity to suggest – seven unsolved murders in – that Quennell might
want to take a break from the case. Quennell takes perfectly proper
British exception to this, and is immediately reassigned. As with so
much in The Blood Beast Terror, there seems to be very little
point to this scene, except that we get our first mention of Quennell’s
daughter, Meg. I can’t help wondering whether the film’s producers felt
that, with their sexually charged female monster and her exclusively
male victims, they were going a little too far off the beaten
track. At any rate, Meg Quennell ultimately serves no purpose at all in
the story, beyond providing a little balance by being menaced in a
thoroughly traditional manner.
Upon being introduced
to Meg, we realise that the film-makers adhered to one more movie
tradition, namely the one that insists that clever fathers have moronic
daughters. Consequently, Meg is a dithery airhead with a singularly
annoying baby-doll voice. Quennell is about to see her off on the
holiday he’s not taking himself when Allen reveals that Mallinger knew
very well who Britewell was. This sends Quennell hot-foot to the house,
where he proceeds to find first that secret basement room – a
web-shrouded dungeon, containing skeletal human remains and more of
those strange shiny objects found on the heath – and then Mallinger’s
lab, with Granger’s body poorly concealed in a cupboard. (In another
totally pointless side-trip, we visit the morgue again to learn that
Granger was murdered “at least three hours” after the eagle attack!?)
Questioning of Mallinger’s abruptly dismissed servants and two porters
at Waterloo Station reveals that Mallinger and Clare have fled to Upper
Higham, a locale known for its excellent fishing. Not yet believing that
they have sufficient evidence to get a warrant for Mallinger’s arrest
(!!!!!!!), Quennell decides to follow him incognito, with Meg as
window dressing. Meanwhile, at their new abode, while Clare is amusing
herself by going all D.H. Lawrence over the under-gardener, Clem,
Mallinger is--- Well, it turns out I spoke more truly than I knew when I
made that crack about Bela Lugosi: Mallinger’s research into
galvanism bears a distinct resemblance to experiments once carried
out by a certain “kindly Dr Carruthers”…..
Clare’s abrupt entrance
provokes an exchange of dialogue full of loaded phrases such as, “How
much longer must I wait!” and “You must be patient!” It doesn’t take
much mental effort to figure out to what immediate end Mallinger’s
“research” is directed. At the same time, this scene underscores the
fact that The Blood Beast Terror never does bother to explain
Clare’s existence: whether Mallinger has, for reasons best known to
himself, transformed his daughter into a gigantic, rampaging, vampiric
were-moth; or whether he simply has a gigantic, rampaging, vampiric
were-moth masquerading as his daughter. Certain events do tend to point
in the latter direction – but on the whole, the screenplay kindly allows
us to make up our own minds on that point…. (Come to think of it, the
screenplay never explains why the were-moth feeds on human blood instead
of nectar or honey, either; or why it has two legs instead of six; or
why Britewell should have died gasping “Death’s Head!”, when Clare bears
about as much resemblance to a Death’s Head Moth as The Blood Beast
Terror does to a good film.) Anyway, Mallinger tells Clare that his
work will progress much more swiftly if she stops interrupting him, and
warns her to stay inside the house. Of course, now that Clare has laid
eyes on the toothsome Clem, fat chance of that.
At the local inn,
Quennell – aka “Mr Thompson” – is discovering that his fellow
guests are a fishing enthusiast from Birmingham and his son, William,
who just happens to be – well, what a co-inky-dink! – a budding
entomologist. The young William is just as insipid as Meg, so before
long the two are conducting a decidedly syrupy romance. One of William’s
butterfly-catching expeditions leads him and Meg into the grounds of the
Mallingers’ house, where until now he has had a free run. This time,
however, Clare angrily orders the two from the premises. Inside,
Mallinger is charging an odd little device with electricity. This he
takes to another dungeon-like room where, encased in a see-through
cocoon, hangs a second giant were-moth. Mallinger zaps the creature with
his strange little galvanic doo-dad, but seems displeased with the
results. Clare bursts in on the proceedings, and swiftly intuits that
something is wrong. “Galvanism isn’t working,” confesses Mallinger. “It
needs – nourishment!” Clare is quick to interpret this as the need for –
“The blood of a young girl!”
Ah, well – nice to know
that Meg is good for something.
Clare drives out and
overtakes Meg in the midst of a walk, apologising for her previous
rudeness and offering to take her up. If we needed any proof of the fact
that Meg’s presence in this story is pure Contractual Obligation, we
have it in the abrupt cut to the girl lying unconscious in Mallinger’s
lab, her capture, overpowering and hypnotising taken completely for
granted. Having transfused some of the girl’s blood into the developing
were-moth, Mallinger orders her to return the following day, same
moth-time, same moth-channel; and further orders her to remember nothing
of what has happened. Meg then returns to the inn, where her vague and
spaced-out behaviour causes her fond father no concern whatsoever.
Clare, meanwhile, has her eye – and her mouth-parts – fixed on the hunky
Clem. She leads him away from the bonfire he has just lit – “I don’t
like fire!” she breathes, in a line that just reeks of Subtle
Foreshadowing – and before long Clem is going the way of the previous
seven….
At the inn, William
serves his purpose by showing Quennell a specimen of a Death’s
Head Moth he has just captured, and some moth scales under a microscope.
And that ping!ping!ping!ping! noise you hear is the sound of
pennies descending in a positive torrent.
Clare, disobeying
orders, stands contemplating her future mate. Mallinger storms in,
having just stumbled over the remains of Clem out in the garden. “You
couldn’t wait, could you?” he rages and, when Clare laughs at
him, slaps her. “Wasn’t it I who created you? And how have you
rewarded me?” Mallinger further rants – the notion that a gigantic,
rampaging, vampiric were-moth ought to feel grateful for its creation
being one of this film’s odder notions. It transpires that while
Mallinger was prepared to put up with seven murders, eight
are just too much. He douses the developing male were-moth with –
something – and it instantly goes up in flames in a most impressive
manner (if you ignore the fact that the blaze actually starts on the
floor in front of the monster). Mallinger then informs Clare that he
intends to destroy her, too – and has the temerity to look
surprised when she promptly transforms and tears his throat out.
(For the record, those
clothes just….disappear.)
William’s father is out
fishing when he manages to hook the hastily disposed of body of Clem. At
the inn, Sgt Allen arrives in answer to Quennell’s summons, bringing
with him files on Mallinger and Britewell than allow the Inspector to
join the few remaining dots. Allen is then mistaken by the landlord for
the copper he sent for, and asked to inspect Clem’s body. Immediately
realising that it is, as he puts it, “one of ours”, Allen blows
Quennell’s cover. The landlord then identifies Clem as under-gardener at
The Old House, which is occupied by “Dr Miles and his daughter”.
Every time it rains
It rains pennies from heaven
Don’t you know each cloud contains
Pennies from heaven….
And then, there being only minutes left to
go, events conspire to bring all the remaining characters together in
one place. Quennell and Allen hare off to The Old House. Meg obeys her
hypnotic suggestion and heads that way too, where she stumbles over
Mallinger’s corpse, comes out of her trance with a shriek, tries to run
away, trips, knocks herself out, and sets the house on fire by dropping
a lamp. Ugh! William calls on Mallinger to show him his specimen
of a Death’s Head Moth, and having unwisely shown it to Clare instead,
gets invited to “take a walk”. Having arrived in time to rescue Meg and
put out the fire, Quennell and Allen then get to rescue the menaced
William, too. Hey, like I keep saying, it’s an equal opportunity film!
Clare, in moth mode, is circling the garden and proving darned hard to
shoot, considering her size. Quennell then has a moment of inspiration,
and---well, we all know what they say about moths and flames, don’t we?
You know – I’ve seen some truly lame
monster disposals in my time. The aliens being “lighted” to death at the
end of Attack Of The The Eye Creatures probably still takes the
cake, but Clare-the-were-moth’s decidedly out-of-focus descent upon a
bonfire runs it a close second. Anyway, like her male counterpart, Ms
Were-Moth goes up in flames as Quennell and Allen look on making “What
the @#$%!?” faces – as well they might. The were-moth obligingly
transforms back into Clare for a moment, just to let the police officers
in on that little secret, and then she collapses in a heap of ash. And
now, let’s have that line again, shall we? – this time rightly
positioned as an epitaph:
“They’ll never believe it ANYWHERE!”
Want a
second opinion of The Blood Beast Terror? Visit
The Bad Movie Report.
Click
here
for some Immortal Dialogue from this film.
 |
Director:
Vernon Sewell