THE REPTILE (1966)

DIRECTED BY John Gillingham

SCREENPLAY BY Anthony Hinds (as John Elder)

STARRING - Ray Barratt as Harry George Spalding,  Jennifer Daniel as Valerie Spalding, Michael Ripper as Tom Bailey, Noel Wilman as Dr. Franklyn,  Jacqueline Pierce as Anna Franklyn, John Laurie as Mad Peter, Marne Maitland as The Malay.

PLOT - After the mysterious death of his brother, Harry Spalding inherits his brother's country cottage. Accompanied by his wife Valerie, Harry arrives to find that the nearby village is being plagued by a series of mysterious deaths (of which his brother was only one of many). The victims of this strange plague known as the "Black Death" appear to have two strange puncture marks on thier necks accompanied by blackened skin.

Investigating further (with the help of local pub landlord Tom) Harry finds yet more victims of the deadly affliction.

Everything seems to point towards the involvement of a mysterious doctor - Dr Franklyn - and his beautiful, yet strangely fearful, daughter Anna.

What is the secret of the Black Death, what is Franklyn's part in it and who or what is the Reptile?...

PERFORMANCES - Whilst the Reptile doesn't feature any of the "Hammer A-listers" (i.e Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee), it still features a strong and capable cast.

Ray Barrett and Jenifer Daniel play Harry and Valerie Spalding, the doting young couple who move into the dilapidated old cottage. Harry is quite an old school type of hero - quick tempered, square jawed, brave but a bit dim (in one scene he waltzes into the village pub and demands to know who's responsible for poisoning his brother to death. He berates the ENTIRE bar by basically offering to fight everyone there until they tell him the village's secret. Despite the fact that he'd A- probably get the living shit kicked out of him because he's outnumbered ten to one, and B - pissing off a close knit community probably isn't the best way to get people on your side, Harry still persists in acting like this. Obviously this tactic gets him absolutely nowhere fast.). 

Valerie doesn't get to do much except act like the dutiful little wife to Harry and or/get menaced by the monster, but this is pretty much par for the course for female characters in horror movies of this era. Valerie gets a few moments near the end where she gets to be the "plucky" heroine (when Harry temporarily falls victim to the Reptile woman's venom) but this doesn't last for long and a newly reinvigorated Harry has to (predictably) come to the rescue.

A much more interesting hero is (the brilliantly named for a horror actor) Michael Ripper playing the local pub landlord Tom. Tom befriends Harry (despite him picking a fight with his pub regulars and emptying his pub, personally I'd have just barred him) and helps him to solve the mystery of the Black Death. Tom is quite a quiet and stoic character, the sort of bloke you'd want on your side if the shit was about to hit the fan (and it does). Ripper was a veteran of many Hammer films, he normally mainly played cameo roles or minor characters (usually either an innkeeper, a policeman or a grave robber), so it's really nice to see him get a much meatier role here. He was a good character actor and probably one of the more unsung heroes of both Hammer horror and British horror in general.

Onto the villains. Noel Wilman plays Dr. Franklyn, he's more coldly aloof and pragmatic rather than being an out and out villain really. He's a man in a hard place, his precious daughter Anna has been cursed to transform into a venom spitting snake woman, so really he's only looking out for her best interests. Unfortunately though he chooses to do this with "tough love". He keeps Anna locked away from the world and totally controls her life, given the situation this is understandable but the way he goes about it makes even the strictest Victorian father look like a soft touch.

For her part Anna (played by Jacqueline "Servalan from Blake's 7" Pierce) is absolutely terrified of her father. He in turn is just as terrified of her. It's a mutual cycle of fear and loathing which feeds off itself and it makes Franklyn and Anna fascinating characters to watch. 

The villains are rounded out by a sinister Malay (Marne Maitland) who's the kind of "evil foreigner" that just wouldn't fly today. He seems to be the one that's really pulling the strings but eventually gets his comeuppance.

SFX - The makeup design for the fully transformed Anna is superb. A truly iconic monster, unfortunately we don't get an actual transformation sequence, which is a bit of a shame.

VIOLENCE - Lots of neck biting, fang chomping action courtesy of Anna when she's in full-on Reptile mode. So much so that you'd be forgiven for thinking that you where watching a vampire movie (and then you realise that Anna physically transforms into the Reptile woman at night-time and you realise it's actually more like a werewolf movie).

What happens to the victims who've been bitten is HORRIBLE !!! They have these gory looking neck wounds that have black bruising around them. If that wasn't bad enough thier skin goes a marbled looking blackish/greenish colour and they start drooling shaving foam everywhere. They go into a kind of delirious state and soon die. It goes without saying that Franklyn himself ends up dying in this manner.

The Malay ends up being killed by being thrown bodily into a pool of boiling hot Sulphur.

Perhaps the most ridiculous death is reserved for the Reptile herself. It turns out she's vulnerable to cold air. She's defeated by Harry breaking a few windows and and the cool air from outside causes her to fall down in a weak shivering heap. This is RIDICULOUS !!! Surely they could have thought of a better Achilles heel than that for thier monster. If she's so easily defeated by a soft, cool breeze (particularly in a country like England where it's bloody freezing a good sixty percent of the year) then that severely undermines her as a credible foe. Anyway, thus weakened Anna/Reptile girl collapses and perishes in the obligatory house fire that always seems to happen at the end of Hammer films of this vintage. A clear case of the writers writing themselves into a corner methinks...

RATING - Apart from the poorly conceived lackluster ending and lack of more prolific Hammer stars this is still an entertaining slice of mid period gothic Hammer horror. Worth a look.

4 Vampiric Were-Reptiles out of 5.

ART -