The Blood Beast Terror  | 1968 | UK | Vernon Sewell

A horror in the oldest British tradition, Sewell’s Blood Beast Terror was released when Hammer Horror was at its most popular, though this film is from Tigon Productions, who gave us Witchfinder General and Blood on Satan’s Claw. A spate of ghastly killings has erupted in the London countryside, attracting the attention of Scotland Yard Inspector Quennell who discovers that a witness to the killings describes a winged creature with large eyes. Initially suspecting a bird of prey, Quennell soon begins to unravel the threads of the abominable truth, that it is in fact a monstrous human hybrid, interlaced with moth parts and thirsty for the blood of its victims. Due to the film’s age, the effect on most viewers would be quite muted, but the film was nevertheless seized on various occasions by police before being embarrassingly sent back, presumably because of its use of ‘Blood’, ‘Beast’ and ‘Terror’ which were in many of the legitimate nasty titles.