I had totally forgotten about this movie. Some people will say that's a good thing. However, I didn't remember it at all while watching until the very last scene. Then, I was instantly transported back to the mid 1980's, watching Saturday afternoon television on a local station.
I may be in a great minority with loving this film, which I don't even rank as a true horror film, but it's pretty close. It has shades of The Wicker Man to be sure. Lee and Cushing give some of their best performances and thankfully have a great many scenes together. All of the other actors do fine as well. The countryside near the old fishing village is so succulent you can taste the mouldering old stone walls and outcroppings and imagine the wee folk running about playing tricks at twilight.
This film is pretty slow going, mainly talky--which is a grand thing when you've got Lee and Cushing. There is minimal bloodshed, almost G rated, although there is a scene where Cushing examines the remains of some dead people, but it's obviously just some leftovers from the butcher shop and not even worth fussing over.
The plot involves a worn out old "hoor" trying to get her daughter back after the old mom was in the clink for a time on murder and prostitution charges. The daughter has been living in an orphanage run by some trustees to some dead lady's fortune on a small but enchanting isle. There are some G-rated murders, one huge red herring with red hair and a red coat, no less, and a long-limbed girl at the center of it who's all elbows and knees and is a damn pretty version of Anna Paquin. This movie seems to want to be a detective thriller until the last ten minutes when it switches gears unevenly into a strange amalgam of cultists/witchery/science gone wild. But don't let the poor ratings others have given this flick put you off. Even if you aren't huge fans of Cushing or Lee, you'll find some tastiness in this old, forgotten relic. I'm glad I unearthed it and blew the dust off after so many years. Now it sits firmly in my guilty pleasure stack.
I may be in a great minority with loving this film, which I don't even rank as a true horror film, but it's pretty close. It has shades of The Wicker Man to be sure. Lee and Cushing give some of their best performances and thankfully have a great many scenes together. All of the other actors do fine as well. The countryside near the old fishing village is so succulent you can taste the mouldering old stone walls and outcroppings and imagine the wee folk running about playing tricks at twilight.
This film is pretty slow going, mainly talky--which is a grand thing when you've got Lee and Cushing. There is minimal bloodshed, almost G rated, although there is a scene where Cushing examines the remains of some dead people, but it's obviously just some leftovers from the butcher shop and not even worth fussing over.
The plot involves a worn out old "hoor" trying to get her daughter back after the old mom was in the clink for a time on murder and prostitution charges. The daughter has been living in an orphanage run by some trustees to some dead lady's fortune on a small but enchanting isle. There are some G-rated murders, one huge red herring with red hair and a red coat, no less, and a long-limbed girl at the center of it who's all elbows and knees and is a damn pretty version of Anna Paquin. This movie seems to want to be a detective thriller until the last ten minutes when it switches gears unevenly into a strange amalgam of cultists/witchery/science gone wild. But don't let the poor ratings others have given this flick put you off. Even if you aren't huge fans of Cushing or Lee, you'll find some tastiness in this old, forgotten relic. I'm glad I unearthed it and blew the dust off after so many years. Now it sits firmly in my guilty pleasure stack.