THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR
U.K. | 1968
Directed by Vernon Sewell
Starring
Peter Cushing
 Robert Flemyng
Wanda Ventham
Color | 88 Minutes | G
Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC)
Redemption Films
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Review by
Brian Lindsey

Film:4
DVD:6
To a middle-aged Monster Kid like me, Peter Cushing is simply The Man. I'd happily watch him read aloud the Whitstable Telephone Directory. Unfortunately, The Blood Beast Terror — a Cushing film I somehow missed seeing all these years until now — isn't far removed from being the cinematic equivalent. Fully aware of this Tigon production's dire reputation, I was interested to find out if approaching it with sharply lowered expectations might make a difference in my perception. Well, I can now attest that the film is certainly not the worst Cushing ever appeared in, not by a long shot. But neither is it particularly good.
    Victorian London is rocked by a series of bizarre murders, with each of the victims — all male — drained of blood and mutilated by what appears to be the claws of an animal, possibly some giant bird of prey. Babbling about a huge flying monster, the only eyewitness to any of the killings has apparently gone mad. The Scotland Yard detective assigned to the case, Inspector Quennell (Cushing), finds he has little to go on. His initial theory, that the killings could be the work of an eagle, doesn't really add up. He's told so by Professor Mallinger (Robert Flemyng), the renowned naturalist Quennell consults. Mallinger doesn’t prove very helpful, though; in fact, he acts downright suspicious — inordinately brusque and evasive — whenever Quennell drops by with questions. Does the egghead know more than he’s letting on? After all, he is reputed to import exotic animals for zoological research, and the most recent murder happened very close to his mansion...
    But no sooner has the inspector determined that Mallinger must somehow be involved — finding corpses, both desiccated and quite fresh, in the professor's cellar and lab would seem to cinch the case — that the eccentric scientist and his daughter Clare (Wanda Ventham) hurriedly beat feet out of London, vanishing into the countryside. Quennell tracks them to a particular rural area where he goes incognito posing as a banker on holiday, his own teenage daughter Meg (Vanessa Howard) in tow as extra cover. The detective begins making discreet inquiries, unaware that his quarry is actually quite nearby. Mallinger has rented a country manor under an assumed name, where his inhuman experiments continue...
    The Blood Beast Terror fails in almost every respect to live up to its groovy B-movie title. The nonsensical blending of Frankenstein and vampire tropes — we're just supposed to blithely accept that a 19th Century scientist somehow created a moth/human hybrid that's not only fully sentient, but also possesses the ability to shapeshift at will (including the transmutation of clothing and jewelry!) — is thoroughly bungled, resulting in a story that's completely ludicrous yet neither atmospheric or scary enough to compensate. There are some major pacing issues, as the narrative is stopped dead in its tracks with first the appearance of a painfully unfunny 'comic relief' morgue attendant (Roy Hudd, who naturally eats his lunch around the cadavers), and then an amateur theatrical performance of a Frankenstein-like play. (The latter, meant to introduce a plot point which turns out to be of little consequence anyway, lasts a grueling six minutes... A better director could have conveyed the same information in a third of the time. It's unadulterated padding at its most blatant.) Special effects and monster make-up are conspicuously poor for a late '60s film; with the exception of the moth creature in larval stage — which is passable, aided by a touch of Bava-style lighting — they're like something you'd see in a Mexican-Wrestlers-vs.-Monsters flick. Bereft of any gore or skin to liven things up, Blood Beast Terror merely plods along to its decidedly anticlimactic ending, leaving disappointment in its less-than-terrifying wake.
    Still, a spoonful of Cushing does help the medicine go down. He's just sort of going through the motions here, cognizant that he's headlining a cheap, silly monster movie well below even Hammer's penny-pinching standards, but that doesn't mean he gives an indifferent performance.
Having never before seen the film I at least didn't have to suffer through any of its previous home video incarnations, which have an even worse reputation than the movie itself. Redemption brings Blood Beast Terror to Region 1 DVD in a colorful, virtually pristine 1.66:1/16x9 transfer, marred only by brief instances of a hair in the gate. The mono audio track is clean and clear. Trailers for other Redemption titles and a modest image gallery are included as extras. (Redemption has simultaneously released a bargain-priced Blu-ray edition.) 8/03/12
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