The Reptile
Director: John Gilling
Year: 1966
Rating: 7.0
The English countryside can seem so tranquil,
lush fields of green dotted with small charming villages and the quaint pub
that is the meeting place for the village folks. Except in the world of Hammer
of course. In these films it is full of danger with monsters and killers
in the shadows, where isolation doesn't protect you, but makes you a target.
Where things creep in the night and the village idiots show up on your doorstep.
Where strangers are treated with suspicion and avoided. Where murders are
not talked about. Back to back, director John Gilling made use of this heavy
atmosphere to produce Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile in 1966. In fact,
he utilizes the same sets of the village and graveyard. Both films center
around a series of unexplained deaths that the village people don't want
to talk about. And then a stranger shows up and that changes the dynamic.
Among all the Frankenstein, Dracula and
Mummy films this one is often overlooked but it is highly effective as a
horror film right from the beginning. It has always stuck in my mind because
of the central photo of a reptilian creature about to take a bite out of
a pretty woman, but this was the first time watching it. There is a sense
of dread and mystery that hangs over it like a death shroud and when the
reptile finally shows up for the first time at about the one-hour mark it
is a shock and horrifically repellant. The origin of the monster came as
a surprise to me. A sock out of right field. The film is clearly made on
the cheap - as I said using the same sets as Plague but also with a group
of mainly unknown actors; most with faces I didn't even recognize from other
Hammer films. With the exception of course of regular Michael Ripper with
a larger role than usual and Jacqueline Pearce who had also been in Plague.
But all the film needs for chills is darkness, deaths and being in places
you should not be as the camera silently follows you.
In the opening scene Charles Spalding gets
a note at his home and runs over to the house of his neighbor Dr. Franklyn
(Noel Willman) where he is killed by an unseen assailant. It turns out that
he is not the first. They call it the Black Death and people's faces become
molted and greenish. His brother Harry (Ray Barrett) and his wife Valerie
(Jennifer Daniel) come to live in the dead brother's house. People immediately
warn them to leave but do people in movies ever do that. I would be gone
in a second. Especially after a man came into my home dying with foam coming
out of his mouth. Dr. Franklyn says it is epilepsy but his color is green.
The good doctor has a daughter (Pearce) who says her father is not as mean
as he appears but is very protective of her. She plays a nice sitar that
drives her father crazy.
The only person willing to help Harry is
the inn keeper (Ripper). Whenever Spalding goes into the inn, literally everyone
gets up and leaves. You are great for my business says the owner. They notice
that the dead man has two bite marks on his neck. So off to the graveyard
they go to do a little nighttime digging. More bite marks. And then Spalding
gets a note to go over to the neighborhood's home in the middle of the night.
Sure, why not. No trips to the English countryside for me thanks.
