Recent viewings

The House That Dripped Blood (1970).

Four short horror vignettes that all take place in the same old house, connected by a framing story involving a detective who's investigating a missing person case. The cast sounds promising (Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Jon Pertwee, Ingrid Pitt), but at least two of the stories fall flat, and the reason why the house (which never actually drips blood, by the way) is connected to all these gruesome tales is never very well explained. The first tale, involving a horror writer and his lovely wife who move in to the house, is not particularly convincing, although the psychological premise could have had some promise in a better production. The second, featuring Peter Cushing as a solitary retiree who becomes strangely drawn to a figure of "Salome" in a nearby waxworks museum, is almost comically silly. The wax museum looks like a rather shabby warehouse of props from B-grade horror movies (hmmmm....), except when it shows up in a dream-sequence with lots of colored lights, bright gauzy curtains, and an obviously plastic skull.

Still, the third sequence, featuring tall-&-gaunt Christopher Lee as the very strict father of a cute little blonde daughter, has a certain creepy frisson. The tutor he hires after moving to The House objects to his draconian restrictions (no toys! no candles! no school!). Creepy complications ensue. The fourth vignette features Jon Pertwee, latterly of Doctor Who fame, as an imperious, swaggering horror-movie actor whose quest for authenticity becomes a bit more cinema verite than he intended. Pertwee is in fine form stalking about the set of a low-budget production, punching his swagger-stick through the cheap scenery, chewing out the director and denouncing the low production standards. (Was the production company commenting on itself here, I wonder? Or perhaps its more famous competitor, Hammer?) When he gets his hands on an "authentic vampire's cape", strange things start to happen. It's rather silly, but it's fun to watch him go from aristocratic arrogance to rubber-faced and googly-eyed terror.

The ending is silly, of course. How could it be otherwise?

A mixed bag.