Shudder Saturday: The Blood On Satan's Claw (1971)

A film that is probably still underseen today, or considered that way by those who love it, The Blood On Satan's Claw is a creepy and intriguing slice of folk horror that easily sits up there alongside some other classics of the subgenre (such as The Wicker Man and Witchfinder General).

Things all start to get strange when a young man finds some strange remains in a field that he is ploughing. Sensing that there is something wrong with his find, he tells others, but it's initially shrugged off. Meanwhile, something is affecting a number of local residents, not least a group of the younger folk who start to band together into a dangerous coven.

Directed by Piers Haggard (who directed a lot of forgettable stuff, but also did this and the 1981 film that put Klaus Kinski and Oliver Reed in close proximity to a deadly snake, Venom), this brooding horror film is a wonderful mix of the subtle and the bonkers. You get people acting creepy, you get mistrust and division creeping through the community, but you also get glimpses of a diabolical beast (or, at the very least, a furry hand with sharp claws), and a number of people developing patches of excess hair on their body (the Devil's Skin).

The script, mainly written by Robert Wynne-Simmons, with input from Haggard, manages to build one small moment on top of another in a way that allows things to get truly diabolical by the grand finale without having felt too silly or unbelievable. That's an impressive feat, and even more impressive when you consider the individual elements once the film has finished.

The cast all do a good job in their roles, even the lovely Linda Hayden as Angel (who ends up having to act under some extra-thick eyebrow growth, signifying her evil as she leads the corrupted youths who come under her thrall). Patrick Wymark is The Judge, the main authority figure who the locals assume will be able to get to the bottom of things, Barry Andrews is the young man who makes the fateful discovery, Anthony Ainley is the reverend who senses that something is seriously wrong, and Michele Dotrice and Wendy Padbury stand out as two girls grasped by the coven in very different ways.

If you're interested in British horror movies then this is a title that you really need to check out. If you're interested in the more niche selection of folk horror movies then this is essential viewing (alongside the two titles mentioned in the first paragraph - throw in Robin Redbreast and you have a fine primer). And if you end up enjoying it, as you should, then make sure you turn others on to it.

8/10

You can buy the movie here.
Or here.

Taste The Blood Of Dracula (1970)

Following on nicely from the end of Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, this film starts with a man named Weller (Roy Kinnear) stumbling across a scene in which Dracula is dying. Weller takes some souvenirs away from this grisly tableaux, as you would, and goes on his merry way. Some time later, three men (William Hargood, played by Geoffrey Keen, Samuel Paxton, played by Peter Sallis, and Jonathon Secker, played by John Carson) meet a younger man (Lord Courtley, played by Ralph Bates) who shares their particular interests. All of these men have a fondness for exploring the darker side of life and giving in to their base desires, so when Courtley brings up a plan to buy the items that belonged to Dracula and to use them in an unholy ceremony. Well, that sounds like a jolly good time so the men agree and go along, only to lose courage when it comes to actually finishing the ceremony. They attack Courtley and flee, unaware that Dracula has risen from the dead and now aims to destroy those who would treat his servant so badly.

Peter Sasdy is the director of this one, and Anthony Hinds is the writer, and both men are working a few levels below their best. In fact, it's only the presence of Lee in his most famous role that saves this from being a complete stinker. The rest of the cast aren't bad, they're just not all that memorable either. Roy Kinnear doesn't have a lot of screen-time, and neither does Ralph Bates, so viewers are stuck with Keen, Sallis and Carson as the main characters. Linda Hayden plays the daughter of Geoffrey Keen's character and is, of course, quite lovely, as is Isla Blair (playing Lucy Paxton), but the aforementioned actors, plus Anthony Higgins, all seem pretty interchangeable.

Sadly, even the death scenes aren't that entertaining, although I enjoyed them more this time around than I did during past viewings, and the grand finale is, in my opinion, the absolute worst of any Hammer Dracula film. There's a nice element of seediness running through the whole thing, with both the content that's front and centre and also a few things that are implied, but even that isn't enough to put this above average.

Of course, opinions vary with any movie and even more so with Hammer movies. I've quickly learned that every single instalment in the Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy series of movies that the studio produced will have one person who rates it as their very best and this film is no exception. There will be one or two people reading this who will absolutely love this film and I will never understand why.

5/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Taste-Blood-Dracula-DVD-Christopher/dp/B0001XLY5G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353796634&sr=8-1