THE BODY BENEATH (1970)
Article 2766 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-3-2008
Posting Date: 3-10-2009
Directed by Andy Milligan
Featuring Gavin Reed, Jackie Skarvellis, Berwick Kaler
Country: UK

A clan of vampires living in Carfax Abbey are planning on finding a way to regenerate their bloodline, which has been thinned by inbreeding.

It’s another Andy Milligan film here, folks; that’s one way to make me wish I was still covering Mighty Mouse shorts. This one looks a lot better than the other ones I’ve seen, and it avoids a number of the problems I’ve had with his other films. This is not to say that it’s good; the script is muddled, the editing is pretty bad, and the use of music is horrible. Still, the movie’s worst problem is that it’s incredibly talky. It has a couple of gory moments to catch the attention, but, beyond that, the movie largely consists of people standing around talking. Even in the big scene near the end, where we have a meeting with a whole clan of vampires, they do little more than talk, debate, argue, etc. – it’s a little like going to a horror movie and finding yourself at a speech contest instead. I suppose that’s a step up; whereas most of the other Milligan films I’ve seen have ended up annoying me, this one just bores me. Or is that a step down?