Virgin Witch

Starring Anne and Vicki Michelle 'Virgin Witch' is the story of two sisters who have run away from home to become models but instead find themselves embroiled in a coven of witches run by Patricia Haines and Neil Hallet. 

One of the final films produced by the venerable Tigon British Film Productions - home of 'Witchfinder General' and 'The Blood on Satan's Claw' - it really is a load of sexploitation tosh and if there's an award for the director most successful at getting their actresses out of their clothes then Ray Austin must have been in the running in 1972 with the first 8 shots of the movie all being of topless women - although Pete Walker would perhaps have given him a run for the title with 'The Flesh and Blood Show' which opens with Luan Peters answering the door and running around her flat completely naked for several minutes. 

The story, such as it is, is entirely secondary to the nudity as Austin shoehorns in as much nubile flesh as possible.  His direction is turgid and neither of the Michelle sisters have either the chops or presence to front the movie but I suspect their acting skills weren't top of the director's mind when they were hired and both have subsequently disowned the film.  Anne would, a year later, go on to appear as a member of 'The Living Dead' biker gang in the wonderful 'Psychomania' while her sister would appear in the gloriously trashy 'Spectre' and find fame in the dire 'Allo, 'Allo!' which she really should disown.  The movie, after a slow start, does eventually pick up the pace and makes an attempt at forging an ending that while intending to evoke the hallucinatory, bacchanalian, orgiastic excess of a 1970s idea of a witches sabbath instead just looks utterly daft and the whole thing just fizzles out. 

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The Beast in the Cellar

When several soldiers are found brutally murdered and the authorities decide that a leopard is to blame elderly sisters Ellie & Joyce Ballantyne (Beryl Reid & Flora Robson) soon realise that the cause of the problem is closer to home than that, right under their feet in fact, bricked up in their cellar.

Produced by Tigon films and written and directed by James Kelley ('Doctor Blood's Coffin') 'The Beast...' was pretty much panned on release and has yet to truly find it's audience but personally I think that's a shame.  Yes it's a bit talky, there's little in the way of suspense and the ending doesn't quite achieve the necessary level of pathos but at the heart of this proto-slasher there's a nice idea dealing with a little explored topic that makes for an intriguing premise for a horror-thriller and there're two great performances from the neurotic Reid (who made a bit of a habit of appearing in great wyrd movies, 'Psychomania' and 'Dr Phibes Rises Again') and the cool calculating Robson ('The Shuttered Room') as the two sisters with the rest of the cast which includes T.P McKenna ('A Child's Voice') and John Hammill ('Tower of Evil') providing able, if maybe a little unispiring, support.



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The Haunted House of Horror

Director Michael Armstrong's 1969 debut feature 'The Haunted House of Horror' (also known as 'Horror House') has become well known as an example of studio hackery over directorial vision as his taut proto-slasher was re-edited and added to by studio (Tigon) diktat turning it into a bit of an overlong and meandering mess.

It's late 60s London and a group of pretty young things bored by their own party head off to a derelict and supposedly haunted house to hold a séance where one of them is brutally murdered.  Realising there's a murdering lunatic among them they decide to simply cover it all up and hope for the best which of course is exactly what doesn't happen.

At its core is a solid thriller with some strong performances from much of its cast especially Jill Haworth - who made a few horrors around this time including 'Tower of Evil' - but one has to wonder if some of Armstrong's original casting choices - including David Bowie as 'Richard' - would have made for a stronger movie with US popstar Frankie Avalon - cast at the insistence of US investor AIP - making for a very ineffective lead right up to his eye-watering end and both the subplot featuring a stalkery George Sewell and the final reveal drag somewhat but this is a movie that despite its many flaws I have a real soft spot for although it is tinged with a hankering for what could have been.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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The Creeping Flesh

Professor Emmanuel Hildern (Peter Cushing) returns from an expedition to New Guinea with the skeleton of a mythological evil giant that he soon discovers can be revived through contact with water.  Having being denied further funding by his asylum running half-brother Dr James Hildern (Christopher Lee) he begins to rush his experiments to use the skeleton to immunise the world from evil injecting his serum firstly into his lab monkey and, soon after, into his daughter Penelope (Lorna Heilbron).  Needless to say things soon start to deteriorate for all involved as several storylines begin to converge leading to a grim but pleasingly ambivalent ending.

Here, director Freddie Francis has perhaps made a movie with slightly too many loose ends for them all to be successfully and fully explored in the time given but in the tradition of a number of other Tigon movies ('The Blood on Satan's Claw' & 'Witchfinder General') it's ambitions are to be celebrated and with Francis' cinematographer's eye it looks lovely.

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Curse of the Crimson Altar

Investigating the disappearance of his brother, Peter, antiques dealer Robert Manning (Mark Eden) travels to Craxted Lodge in the town of Greymarsh Peter's last known whereabouts and coincidentally the town their family had previously called home back in ye olde days.  Upon arrival he makes the acquaintance of the master of the house Morley (Christopher Lee) and his niece Eve (Virginia Wetherell) - who has a seeming penchant for throwing bacchanalian parties before dinner has even been served - and learns of their ancestor Lavinia (a body-painted and horned headdress adorned Barbara Steele) who had been burned at the stake as a witch - no prizes for guessing whose family had lit the fire - and local historian Professor John Marsh (Boris Karloff)

Lee is as effortlessly suave as ever but is essentially phoning in a part that he could play in his sleep and Eden, who had a long career including several roles in Wyrd Britain friendly TV shows but who is most well remembered in this country for his villainous stint in the soap opera Coronation Street (there's even a real world plaque marking the spot where his character died), just isn't lead material.  Steele has essentially nothing to do beyond wearing that amazing looking costume and a very frail Karloff, just a year on from his late career highlight in Michael Reeves' 'The Sorcerers') and in one of his final roles gives a typically solid performance and there's even a quick, amusing and surprisingly meta joke at his expense.

Made by Tigon British Film Productions ('The Blood on Satan's Claw' & 'Witchfinder General'), directed by Vernon Sewell ('The Blood Beast Terror') from a script by Doctor Who alumni Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln ('The Abominable Snowmen', 'The Web of Fear' & 'The Dominators') based loosely on H.P. Lovercraft's 'The Dreams in the Witch House' it's always going to be an enticing prospect but the end result is all a little flat and disjointed and Sewell never quite manages to inject the movie with any zest but it does have its charms.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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Doomwatch

If you were science fiction fan in the very early 1970s then there was a very good chance that you were one of the up to 13.6 million people who tuned in each week to watch 'Doomwatch'. Running for three series on BBC1 between 1970 and 1972 at which point Tigon Films stepped in and made a movie adaptation starring newcomers to the show Ian Bannen and Judy Geeson, written by future 'Survivors' scriptwriter Clive Exton and directed by Hammer regular Peter Sasdy (Taste the Blood of Dracula, Countess Dracula) who would also direct Nigel Kneale's 'The Stone Tape' that same year.

Created by the writing partnership of Gerry Davis and Dr Kit Pedler who had first teamed up on Doctor Who where the former was story editor and the latter the show's scientific advisor for which they created the iconic Cybermen who closed out the tenure of William Hartnell as the First Doctor in 'The Tenth Planet'. 

The Doomwatch group or the 'Department for the Observation and Measurement of Scientific Work' as they wisely avoided calling it was an agency tasked with investigating the excesses of science often in stories with a distinctly environmental slant. The movie continues that tradition as Dr. Del Shaw (Bennen) is sent to investigate the effects of an oil spill off the island of Balfe but once there he disovers a conspiracy to cover up a much more profound problem.

As was too often the case at the time the BBC in their infinite wisdom wiped the original tapes and so only 24 of the 38 episodes survive thanks to its Canadian broadcaster or as telerecordings and these are currently available as a box set here - Doomwatch - Series 1-3 The Remaining Episodes [DVD].

The movie is essentially a standalone feature and despite being made and released after the show had ceased broadcasting is a great introduction to a series whose themes have only increased in relevance over the years and is surely due a reappraisal if not a remake (other than the one made and then seemingly forgotten by Channel 5 in the late 90s).



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The Blood on Satan's Claw

When Ploughman Ralph (Barry Andrews) uncovers a strangely formed skull with one staring eye in the field he's tilling he sets in motion a series of events that culminates in one of the most revered of 1970s UK cult horrors.

Patrick Wymark plays the local judge who is dismissive of the local yokel's tale even after a young girl staying at the same house (Tamara Ustinov) goes crazy and his host goes missing.  Meanwhile teenage temptress Angel Blake (Linda Hayden) finds a claw (no prizes for guessing who that belongs too) in a field that slowly works it's magic on her and her friends turning them into a coven of furry devil worshippers.

The film was released to little acclaim but over the intervening years has achieved notable cult status and is beloved of fans of the British horror movies of the 1960s and 70s.  Originally planned as a trio of tales a late decision to amalgamate them into one narrative has left things a little cluttered and there are some dubious make up (Hayden's 'evil' eyebrows) and effects (the revealed creature) but writer Robert Wynne-Simmons and director Piers Haggard have crafted a script and a film where you can almost smell the earth, taste the blood and feel the devil's claws scratching on your neck.

Buy it here - The Blood on Satan's Claw - or watch it below.

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The Blood Beast Terror

The majestically named 'The Blood Beast Terror' was made by Tigon-British Film Productions as a deliberate attempt at Hammer's gothic horror audience.  It tells the story of the hunt for a vampiric were-moth that is killing young men on the moors and draining them of all their blood

The film stars Peter Cushing as Inspector Quennell, Vanessa Howard as his daughter Meg, Robert Flemyng as Dr. Mallinger and Wanda Ventham - now far more well known as the mother of both Benedict Cumberbatch and Sherlock - as the slightly mothy Clare Mallinger. 

Few of the actors come out of this experience well, Cushing (obviously), Howard (who only appears in the second half of the film) and British TV regular Glynn Edwards who plays Sgt. Allan being just about the only cast members who don't look like they're hamming it up in an off season end-of-the-pier pantomime.

'The Blood Beast Terror' has not aged particularly well and has been much maligned over the intervening years - Cushing thought it was one of his worst movies - and I'm certainly not going to try and redeem it but the ropey directing, the cack handed editing, the ham acting, the dumb script and the woeful effects all add up to making this movie a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.

Buy it here - The Blood Beast Terror [Blu-ray] [1968] - or watch it in all it's dubious glory below.



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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain