Director: John Gilling
Writer: Anthony Hinds (screenplay) (as John Elder)
Stars: Noel Willman, Jennifer Daniel, Ray Barrett
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/3e57InF
Synopsis
A man is being followed across the countryside. He finds a letter and walks across the road to another house. He goes inside and something kills him. It’s the fastest-acting snake venom ever, and it wasn’t a snake the killed him. A man dumps his body in the cemetery for someone else to find. Credits roll.
The dead man’s will leaves his house and property to his brother Harry Spaulding. Harry is told the brother died of heart failure. Harry has never been to the cottage, and he and his wife decide to move there, sight unseen. Everyone says “You’re not really thinking of living there, are you?” When they arrive at the house, everything inside is wrecked; somebody really ransacked it badly.
Valeria meets Dr. Franklyn, who is searching for his daughter out in the fields. Harry meets “Mad Peter,” who says that “they” killed his brother. They invite Peter over to the house for dinner and quickly regret it; he’s pretty much as mad as his name implies. That night, Peter returns to the house, clearly poisoned. He mentions Dr. Franklyn’s name just before he dies. Franklyn is evasive and rude. The villagers call this manner of death the “Black Death,” and they’ve all seen it before.
Valerie meets Anna, Dr. Franklyn’s daughter. Anna invites Valerie and Harry to dinner tonight at their place. The doctor arrives and takes Anna away rudely. That evening, Franklyn explains that he’s travelled the world researching primitive religions with Anna by his side. Anna plays music, and Franklyn freaks out and smashes her instrument, ending the festivities.
Franklyn’s servant says he will be punished for the rest of his miserable life. It’s clear that Dr. Franklyn is not the one in charge of his household.
Tom the bartender has, out of the blue, dug up Mad Peter and found fang marks on the back of his neck. He wants Harry to help him dig up Harry’s brother as well. The marks are the same; they were both killed by the same creature. Harry says it looks like the bite of the King Cobra.
Harry gets a note from Anna, “Help Me!” He goes over to their house and slips inside. He finds Anna, who is a giant reptile-woman now. She bites him on the neck and he runs away. He rushes home and cuts the venom out.
Franklyn returns home to find that Anna has dissolved into a husk of her former self. She’s shed her skin. Valerie goes over to their house and sneaks inside. Franklyn pulls a sword off the wall and goes after Anna, but then he stops to let all the little animals out of their cages. The servant rushes in, and a lantern gets broken. Franklin and the servant fight, and the servant ends up in the molten pit of goop.
Franklyn explains everything to Valerie. There was one particular cult that kept evading him, the “Snake People.” He finally tracked them down and learned their secrets. The Snake People took Anna and cursed her to become a snake person. Franklyn locks himself and Valerie in a room and waits for the fire downstairs to consume them. Meanwhile, Anna wakes up. Anna kills Franklyn and menaces Valerie as well until Tom and Harry break in a window and rescue her. The house burns down, taking Anna with it.
Commentary
Once we knew who the servant was, the main idea of what was happening became clear, but the mystery was why this was happening in the first place; it’s still not quite clear what Franklyn did to anger the natives, but it must have been something terrible.
Michael Ripper, who has been in most of the Hammer films, finally gets a role with some serious screen time playing Tom the bartender. Noel Willman as Dr. Franklyn was also good in this, switching between grouchy old bastard and terrified father from one scene to the next. We’ve previously seen him in the title role of “Kiss of the Vampire.” The other actors are pretty bland and interchangeable.
This was a bit long, but if you generally like the Hammer films, this one is a little rarer to get hold of, and it’s worth the effort.