Review – Blood on Satan's Claw

Particularly early on, this picture features a few genuinely spooky moments. As one might expect, it suffers from many of the defects endemic to British horror movies from the 60s and 70s: it’s slow, the production values are bad, the acting is melodramatic, and so on. Indeed, this tale of an evil presence that lures the young folk of an English village into a coven turns out to be more visceral than many other productions from this time and place. A graphic rape sequence stands out as a strong example of the sort of thing that wouldn’t show up the average edited-for-television Hammer horror flick. However, the film-makers wisely decided not to use the makeup effects too far beyond their usefulness. The result features several scare spots that end up subtle enough to actually be scary. Mildly amusing