6.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Horror icon Peter Cushing stars as Inspector Quennell, a Scotland Yard detective sent to a small town in the English countryside to investigate a series of suspicious deaths.
Starring: Peter Cushing, Robert Flemyng, Wanda Ventham, Vanessa Howard, David GriffinHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 13% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
English: LPCM 2.0
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
The Death’s-Head Moth, with it’s distinctive skull-patterned thorax, appears in two fantastic films—Luis Buñuel’s Un chien adalou and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs—and one that’s utterly dull. That cinematic clunker is 1968’s The Blood Beast Terror, a Tigon British Film production starring Peter Cushing in a role he’d later remember as one of the worst in his prolific career. That’s certainly up for debate— Shatter and The Uncanny also make strong contenders—but Blood Beast is undeniably mediocre at best, a me-too picture that pales next to the most memorable British fright movies of the 1960s. It might help to think of the British horror industry in terms of levels of quality. Below relatively high-brow fare like Repulsion and Séance on a Wet Afternoon there was the vanguard of B-movie terror— Hammer Horror—and below Hammer was Tigon, mostly churning out low-budget quasi-knockoffs with cheapo special effects. Though Tigon did have a few veritable hits—the still-excellent Witchfinder General, for one—The Blood Beast Terror isn’t among them. The film has some kitschy cult charm in the form of a laughable monster, and Cushing is his typically careful, considered self—his presence does elevate the otherwise ridiculous material—but this dry, poorly constructed chiller is otherwise difficult to recommend.
The phrase that comes immediately to mind is "unexpectedly impressive." For a low-budget British horror film from the '60s, The Blood Beast Terror is in remarkably good condition. Whether this is due to a preternaturally clean print or some measure of restoration, I'm not sure, but either way, the 35mm image is very nearly pristine. You'll spot a few errant white flecks and some mild color fluctuations and brightness flickering, but these are fleeting non-issues that aren't distracting in the slightest. The film's cinematography was handled by exploitation/nudie-cutie filmmaker Stanley Long, who gives the period piece a suitably rich look, bringing out the warm, dense colors of the surprisingly decent set design and costumes. Contrast and color balance are excellent, and though black levels are a bit oppressive during the darker outdoor scenes, this is certainly a product of the way the film was shot. This 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer of the film seems entirely faithful to source. If you've been following these Kino/Redemption Films releases, you'll already know that the picture is untouched by excessive digital noise reduction or edge enhancement; the grain structure is fully intact, and the picture is sharp enough as is. Yes, there are some noticeably soft shots, but close-ups almost always display a fine degree of clarity, with visible facial and clothing textures. As you'd hope, there are no compression/encode issues to report.
The film's uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 stereo track isn't quite as impressive, but it's certainly functional and listenable. Though dialogue is always easily understood, the voices do occasionally sound distant and/or slightly muffled and/or brittle in the high end. You sometimes get the sense that some of the audio was recorded on set, while other snatches of conversation were dubbed in later in an ADR booth. This is par for the low-budget vintage horror movie course, so fans of the genre are probably so used to it that they won't even notice. The rest of the mix is suitably clear and substantial sounding— i.e. not thin—from the rare effects to the original music by Paul Ferris, who also scored Witchfinder General. There are no loud hisses, sudden dropouts, or pervasive crackles or pops. My lone complaint with these Kino/Redemption titles, on the audio front, is that there are no subtitle options included for those who might need or want them.
The Blood Beast Terror is certainly one of the lesser British horror films of the 1960s, with a lackluster story, poor pacing, and a severe lack of excitement. The movie does muster up an appealing Victorian-era science-meets-the-unexplained atmosphere—there's a neato laboratory and an X- Files-style monster—but neither this nor Peter Cushing's performance can make up for the film's deficiencies. Still, Blood Beast does have its cult fans, who perhaps love it precisely because it is so shabby, and they'll be more than pleased with Kino and Redemption Films' Blu-ray release, which is in almost shockingly good shape. Seriously, I imagine the film looks better here than it ever did during its theatrical run. For Anglo-horror collectors only.
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