" 'ere Tony and Laurie I've got this cracking idea for a film, there is this posh bird called Clare, only problem is whenever she gets all randy ...she turns into this bloody giant big moth and drinks a geezer's blood. So her father- who is a professor - makes a big male moth for her to mate with and as a future son-in-law for himself" How whoever pitched The Blood Beast Terror wasn't laughed out of Tigon's offices, not to mention the entire British film industry remains one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th Century.
Robert Flemyng, surely the poshest actor to ever come out of Liverpool, apparently hated every moment of working on this film, and boy does it show. There is more than a touch of authenticity in the way his character is continually yelling and blowing his top at everyone. A drinking game could be based on the amount of times Robert Flemyng loses his shit in this film. Thankfully, other actors appear to have taken a more humorous attitude to appearing in Blood Beast Terror, which does continually bleed on over into the film. Roy Hudd must have been using his own material for his role as the comic relief morgue attendant , but Peter Cushing steals the show with THAT sign off, which doubles as the film’s own greatest epitaph (“they’ll never believe it anywhere”). A final line sure to resonate throughout the decades with late night TV viewers who’ve spent the last 80 minutes or so trying to comprehend the fact that they’re watching a film about a killer, ‘were-moth’ lady.
One last thought, is ‘Billy the Bug Catcher’ the biggest drip to ever appear in a British horror film? His only pleasure in life is seemingly capturing butterflies in a net, for which he is continually belittled and reprimanded by women for, then nearly gets himself killed over when he ill-advisedly presents Ms. Deaths Head with a dead, distant relative of hers in a small box. Dennis Waterman’s wet lettuce of a character in Scars of Dracula seems positively macho in comparison.
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