scripsi

I continue watching old movies/tv series just because one particular actor, in this case Anthony Ainley. And The Blood on Satan’s Claw.

Oh, this was a bad one. The Shroud of the Mummy at least followed a narrative logic; Be warned against entering the mummy’s grave. Enter the mummy’s grave. Be killed off by the mummy. The Blood on Satan’s Claw’s plot was rather muddled, but this is what I think happens: A farmer finds a head in the ground, looking rather icky and with patches of fur. The head disappears, but young people starts to get affected by mysterious attacks and/or gets bespelled and starts to meet up for chanting and sex. They also get patches of fur growing. Then they are sacrificed and I think the fur was harvested and when enough had been collected, Satan would rise in corporeal form. It was all a bit patchy and the narrative all over, so it was difficult to follow. In the end the almost complete Satan was dispatched anyway, in a sequence with really bad special effects.

There was a lot of nudity and a rather horrifying rape scene I could have lived without. There is also a scene where a young woman is chased by a group of men who manhandles her and throw her into water to see if she is a witch and will float. She doesn’t. Later it turns out that she is possessed, but the fact is that the men didn’t know that- they just chased a pretty girl for the fun of it. Icky.

Anthony Ainley plays a priest who mainly tries to keep dicipline in school and who the very naked main possessed girl tries to seduce. He doesn’t do a bad job, but the movie is. He wears a really bad wig, but most of the men do as the movie is set in the 17th century. But there is a very nice introduction shot where he handles a snake and you get to admire his hands. He had very nice hands. He pitches his voice a lot higher than usual, possibly to sound more like a sanctimonious prig (he is a sanctimonious prig, but a rather decent one).

There is one rather good scene- a young man wakes up being attacked by a clawed and furry arm which he fends off with his knife. Only to come to his sense and realise he has hacked off his own hand. That was rather scary. But apart from that, I guess you only get some enjoyment out of this movie if you really like Anthony Ainley.

See, bad wig, but nice eyes.