The Blood Beast Terror is a 1968 British Sci-Fi Horror film from Tigon British Film Productions, directed by Vernon Sewell and starring Peter Cushing. It concerns a series of murders committed by a weremoth (played by Wanda Ventham, the real-life mother of Benedict Cumberbatch).
Cushing once said this was probably the worst movie he had ever done, although that didn't stop him from turning in a good performance. The man was a pro.
Not to be confused with Night of the Blood Beast.
This film contains examples of:
- Autopsy Snack Time: The coroner has a meat pie while examining the murdered corpses, joking that it's "a nice change from cold meat."
- Big Bad: Dr. Carl Mallinger, creator of the moth creature is at this at first, until the beast is revealed to be planning to leave the nest permanently.
- Cassandra Truth: The sole witness to the murders tries to tell the authorities about the monster, but is dismissed as having been Driven to Madness by trauma. Luckily, Inspector Quinnell decides to investigate it anyways because it's all he has to work with.
- Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death
- Heel Realization: Dr. Mallinger realizes what destruction he has wrought in the end, and tries to destroy both weremoths. He only succeeds in destroying one before getting killed.
- Kill It with Fire: The weremoth is killed when a bonfire is lit by our heroes taking advantage of its instinct to go towards light.
- Market-Based Title: The Blood Beast Terror became The Vampire Beast Craves Blood in the US.
- Moth Menace: The main antagonist is a weremoth.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted. The scientist character in the film is explicitly an entomologist, and all his science we see is somehow related to bugs.
- Our Vampires Are Different: These are blood-sucking weremoths created by mad science.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: Weremoths created by mad science. They also have a remarkably fast transformation, depicted as almost instantaneous.
- Show Within a Show: One scene features an amateur play seemingly based on the Burke and Hare grave-robbing murders.
