Movies
[BD Review] ‘The Blood Beast Terror’
When Hammer hit it big with their horror period pieces and franchising strategy during the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, Amicus wasn’t the only British studio trying to recreate the magic. Tigon British Films, which also produced outside of the genre, entered the fray in the mid-60’s and went on to release Witchfinder General and Blood on Satan’s Claw, two “folk” horror films that are still – to this day – held in high esteem. With the exception of one or two others, the rest of Tigon’s output has fallen into obscurity in modern times. But if they’re all like The Blood Beast Terror, we haven’t been missing out on much.
Peter Cushing stars as Detective Inspector Quennell, who travels to the English countryside to investigate a series of mysterious deaths. All of the corpses have been drained of blood, which prompts the characters to start hypothesizing about strange wildlife. Quennell consults with entomology professor Mallinger (Robert Flemyng) about the scales found at the crimes scenes, whose strange behavior makes the inspector very suspicious. As it turns out, that seemingly out of place opening scene had a purpose and Mallinger has created a moth creature that masquerades as his beautiful daughter during the day. He has almost completed engineering a mate for her, but needs human blood to keep it alive and maturing in its giant cocoon.
The reveal comes halfway through the film, squashing any sort of tension or mystery that could have been developed but to be fair, director Vernon Sewell hadn’t done anything interesting before the forty minute mark either. The Blood Beast Terror is a film that will not end, packed with an endless stream of pointless scenes that serve no other purpose than to pad out an already ridiculous story with very little promise. Peter Bryan’s script is to blame, leaving out important bits of information like whether Mallinger created a moth creature who is a human by day or had a daughter he experimented on. Apparently, there wasn’t enough time to cram in a transition scene showing Quennell’s daughter being kidnapped to explain how she got hooked up to a blood transfusion scene in a dungeon, but it’s essential to show characters fishing for five minutes. Or watch a play. Or eat lunch next to a dead body for laughs.
Peter Cushing is great as usual, though he looks pretty perturbed during a few scenes which, given the quality of The Blood Beast Terror, isn’t surprising. There’s simply not enough happening to keep it going for eighty-six minutes, and the fact that they start over from scratch in many ways and introduce a whole slew of new characters halfway through is painful. Sewell’s film has decent production values and a hokey – in a good way – creature, but that’s nowhere near enough to hold anyone’s attention.
A/V
Even though the movie is not worth watching, Kino Lorber’s 1080p transfer – sourced the original 35mm negative – is incredible looking. The blacks and blues are especially deep, but the overall clarity and contrast of the film is of higher quality than expected and definitely better than the movie deserved. The crystal clear picture inadvertently puts a few technical goofs, which weren’t noticeable on Image’s terrible DVD release over a decade ago, on full display. There are no compression or DNR issues to speak of, and it’s hard to imagine The Blood Beast Terror looking better during its original theatrical run. The stereo mix is less impressive, but acceptable. There are some syncing issues throughout and background noises are a little too prominent, but the dialogue is crisp and clear for the most part.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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