The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971)

Horror thriller set in 17th century England about the children of a village slowly converting into a coven of devil worshipers.

Director:

Piers Haggard

Writers:

Robert Wynne-Simmons (original screenplay), Piers Haggard (with additional material by)

Stars:

Patrick Wymark, Linda Hayden, Barry Andrews

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Patrick Wymark	...	The Judge
Linda Hayden	...	Angel Blake
Barry Andrews	...	Ralph Gower
Michele Dotrice	...	Margaret
Wendy Padbury	...	Cathy Vespers
Anthony Ainley	...	Reverend Fallowfield
Charlotte Mitchell	...	Ellen
Tamara Ustinov	...	Rosalind Barton
Simon Williams	...	Peter Edmonton
James Hayter	...	Squire Middleton
Howard Goorney	...	The Doctor
Avice Landone	...	Isobel Banham (as Avice Landon)
Robin Davies	...	Mark Vespers

Storyline

In the XVIII Century, in the countryside of England, the landsman Ralph Gower finds a skull with one eye and fur on the field. He summons the local judge to see his finding but it has disappeared. Meanwhile the local Peter Edmonton brings his fiancée Rosalind Barton to his aunt's house to marry her on the next day. However during the night Rosalind becomes insane and in the morning she is sent to an asylum and Peter sees a claw that has replaced her hand. Then Peter wakes up with a claw attacking him and he cuts it out, but he finds that he has hacked down his own hand. The local children have a strange behavior under the command of Angel Blake and they rape and kill others. In common, they have a strange fur on their skin. The judge returns from London and concludes that evil has possessed the children. What will he and his search party do?

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Plot Keywords:

british horror | bare breasts | fur | england | judge | 

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Taglines:

A CHILL-FILLED Festival of HORROR!

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

16 April 1971 (USA)

Also Known As:

Aima sta nyhia tou Satana

Filming Locations:

St James's old church, Bix Bottom, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK

Box Office

Budget:

£82,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Tigon British Film Productions, Chilton Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor) (uncredited)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The "serpent" caught by the Reverend is actually a slow-worm, a legless lizard found throughout England.

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Goofs

There are two spelling errors in the opening titles: the production company is called Tigron instead of Tigon (in the copyright notice beneath the main title), and screen veteran James Hayter is billed as James Hoyter.

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Quotes

The Judge: I give you His Catholic Majesty King James III, may God bless him and keep him in exile

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Alternate Versions

A deleted scene, considered too graphic in 1970, has been restored in the current UK DVD release.

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Connections

Featured in Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)

User Reviews

A Cult Film That Deserves To Be Better Known

In 17th Century England a man ploughs a field and comes across the skeletal remains of something . Summoning a judge he tells him that the remains belonged to a fiend and takes the judge to the field only to find the remains have disappeared

This acquired a cult following in DOCTOR WHO fandom circa 1990 when the fan press revealed it contained a scene where Wendy Padbury ( 60s companion Zoe ) appeared topless in a scene . Knowing this no one bothered to ask about the rest of the film but the major problem was trying to track it down . It was a time before the internet and Britain was confined to four TV channels and despite Hammer horror movies being broadcast on a fairly regular basis BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW was made by an entirely different film company and no one could recall it being broadcast or released on video . In other words it became something of a cult film and a cult film no one had seen but it eventually turned up on Channel 4 a couple of times along with the occasional screening on satellite channels

It'd be all too easy to dismiss this a Hammer clone full of lowbrow thrills and historical hokum featuring witchcraft but this would be slightly unfair to the film whose central idea revolves around Satan trying to reassert himself on Earth by using a 17th Century English village as his bridgehead . Realistic ? Of course not but my disbelief was totally suspended for the entire running time . There's quite a few themes going on at the same time such as the abuse of authority , of scapegoating , sexual repression and sexual awakening and the hypnotic power of sexuality

Piers Haggard doesn't have a massive budget to work with but he does the absolute best with what he's got . Where he succeeds best is in the production design . This isn't the expensive looking interiors you'd find in a big budget historical movie but far more cramped and drab interiors befitting of the times which comes over as being totally realistic . The cast too are very good especially when you compare to these all too good looking and sassy teens we've seen over the decades in American horror movies . Their accents might be a bit too cod regional but this is a minor flaw . The ending itself might be a too silly for its own good where the supernatural comes to the fore but this is always the problem featuring the supernatural . Up until then the human aspects is enough to keep the story going in a horror film that remains something of a cult but perhaps deserves to be better regarded in horror circles