We have a bulletin board hanging in our kitchen with various pins on it that are important to us for various reasons. Some were from Zox sets, some are those Niaski pins which put feline spins on famous artists. We have three pins made by Severin of some horror icons we like: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Barbara Steele.
It is only because we are such fans of Steele that we watched 1966’s Revenge of the Blood Beast, a lamentable Italian production which was also marketed under the name The She Beast. No matter what name it appears as, it is guaranteed to disappoint.
The main problem with it is Steele is only in it for as much as the filmmakers could get in the one day for which they hired her. After the car she’s riding in crashed into a lake, she returns as the reincarnation of a witch killed a long time ago. But that witch is played by Jay Riley, who then takes up the majority of the screen time.
Everything, past and present, supposedly takes place in Transylvania. It starts in the present, when a disgraced count played by John Karlsen stumbles around all fake drunk until he plops down on a bed in some ancient ruins. He starts reading the only book he appears to have, the diaries of an ancestor from what I thought we hear in narration to be the 1600s. Apparently, books were shit back then, because I swear what we see is a phone book (or something similarly cheap) with a cover that might have actually been done by elementary school aged children.
In a flashback, we will see a funeral deep in rural Ital…I mean, Transylvania. There’s a dwarf ringing the church bell, so I guess they couldn’t find a hunchback or be bothered to put a fake hump on an actor’s back. A kid runs into the church, having survived an attack from the witch who lives in a nearby cave. Odd how the outdoors are completely (and I do mean completely) black as seen behind the kid when he’s in the church, when it was broad daylight when we saw him run up to the building. It is daylight again when the villagers form a torchlit procession to the cave.
Since those torches weren’t necessary to see, I was hoping they were going to try to burn down the cave. Instead, they take her to a pond and to a giant wooden mechanism I was disappointed to learn is not a catapult. It turns out to be one of those convoluted thinks which repeatedly immerse witches in a body of water as if they were a doughnut being dunked in a cup of coffee.
The witch’s screeching is quite hilarious, sounding like nothing other than any number of old woman played by Monty Python’s Terry Jones. A spike is driven through the back of the witch and it comes out her chest. It is only then the priest orders the crowd to let her die, at which point they drown her. That seemed like literally overkill, as I’m pretty sure nobody is going to survive a spike through their chest.
The dwarf had warned the mob that, if they kill the witch instead of doing an exorcism, she will be with them forever. Well, I wouldn’t say she’s always haunting the village, as she seems to only return on what Karlsen will later say is the 200th anniversary of her death. I wondered what was so important about the 200th anniversary and whether the 100th went unmarked. Also, given the earlier statement those events took place in the 1600s, an additional 200 years would place the present events in the picture in the 1800’s.
It is clearly the mod 1960’s when newlyweds Steele and Ian Ogilvy arrive at the decrepit inn ran by Mel Welles. Like so many movies of this quality and kind, I was once again reminded of the Torgo character from Manos: The Hands of Fate. Welles may not have a master to whom he is a subordinate, but Welles is quite gross and the alleged inn he keeps is decrepit. He also spies on the newlyweds, and Manos had a Peeping Torgo. The two movies were even made the same year.
Ogilvy puts the smackdown on Welles, which I found unlikely, given our hero’s nearly skeletal frame. The innkeeper can even hold a grudge after the man has had that auto accident which will transform his wife into the witch who is 200 years old (or 300, depending up which dates you believe). Welles says of the unconscious Ogilvy: “Even unconscious, he looks arrogant.”
The unconscious husband and the allegedly deceased wife were brought to the inn by truck driver Ennio Antonelli. He had been approaching from the opposite direction when the couple’s car went flying off the road. He is worried he will be blamed for the accident, which still doesn’t explain why he would bring the honeymooners back to the inn. But there they are laid out on separate food preparation areas of the kitchen, which has to be a health code violation even faux-Transylvania (Fauxsylvania?).
Though you might not be able to tell it from my description so far, this movie is largely meant to be a comedy. It is never an especially funny comedy, but I can appreciate the effort. Alas, it is a failure as a horror film. The most horrific thing which happens is Lucretia Love’s appearance as Welles’s niece, who is only on screen long enough to have her blouse torn open, and almost be raped, by her uncle. Not only is that some major ick, but this character seems to come out of nowhere for only this purpose and then goes to who knows where. I’m hoping the destination was a better movie.
Revenge of the Blood Beast is not just a lousy picture, but it is barely anything at all. It may have Barbara Steele in it, but in so little of the runtime that it qualifies as false advertising. I would puzzle over the many bizarre inconsistencies and unanswered questions in so slight a plot, but it isn’t worth the effort. In the end, the only element I’m still musing over is that huge, wooden witch-dunking contraption. It is still by the waterside and intact (even the bucket part, which is still in the water) however many years later. I couldn’t care less about the witch. I want to know what kind of wood they used to make that thing. For something to last that long, it must be evil.
Dir: Michael Reeves (who also directed–check notes–Witchfinder General?!)
Starring Barbara Steele, John Karlsen, Brian Ogilvy, Mel Welles
Watched on Raro Video blu-ray