Rent The Reptile (1966)
3.3 of 5 from 82 ratings
1h 26min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- A deadly epidemic is spreading through the remote Cornish village of Clagmoor Heath. As darkness falls its victims are found foaming at the mouth with savage wounds upon their necks. After his brother becomes another fatality, Harry Spalding travels to Clagmoor to investigate his sibling's mysterious death. With little help from the superstitious locals, Harry follows a trail of macabre intrigue that leads him to the sinister Dr Franklyn, his strange but beautiful daughter and a truly horrific family secret.
- Actors:
- Noel Willman, Jennifer Daniel, Ray Barrett, Jacqueline Pearce, Michael Ripper, John Laurie, Marne Maitland, David Baron, Charles Lloyd-Pack, Harold Goldblatt, George Woodbridge
- Directors:
- John Gilling
- Producers:
- Anthony Nelson-Keys
- Writers:
- Anthony Hinds
- Studio:
- Optimum
- Genres:
- Classics, Horror
- Collections:
- A Brief History of Hammer Horror, A Brief History of Film...
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 18/06/2012
- Run Time:
- 90 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.66:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- World of Hammer Episode 'Wicked Women'
- Brand New Documentary: 'The Serpent's Tale'
- Restoration Comparison
- Restored Trailer
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Reviews (2) of The Reptile
The snakes in Cornwall stay mainly on the plain... - The Reptile review by Count Otto Black
This companion piece to "The Plague of the Zombies", shot on the same sets by the same director with some of the same cast, unfortunately suffers a bit from the fact that they'd spent too much on the previous film, so it's a more modest affair. The picturesque Cornish village of Clagmoor is beset by a frightful curse which has caused the locals, plus one slightly more upper-class fellow who moved there for some reason, despite the suicidal stupidity of living in a place with a name like Clagmoor in a horror movie, to drop dead on a regular basis for the past year or so. But that last victim has a brother who wants answers...
If anyone in this film could put two and two together and make more than one and a half, it would be a very short film. It takes forever for the hero, who is of course much smarter than any of the villagers, to notice a subtle clue they've missed all along: everyone who dies of the "Black Death" has two incredibly obvious bite-marks on their neck, suggesting an attack by a large fanged creature not unlike that beastie on the DVD cover. And then there's the weird unfriendly aristocrat who lives in the big house from which strange oriental music can be heard playing every time somebody dies, and for company has only an incredibly creepy Malay manservant and a beautiful daughter whom he's oddly reluctant to let out of his sight for one single moment. Hey, do you suppose they might be in some way implicated in the killings...? Actually, they must be, because there's literally no-one else in the small cast who could possibly be responsible. And anyway, when is it ever not the fault of the haughty bloke in the big house and the thing he keeps in the cellar?
On the plus side, Jacqueline Pierce is wonderful as the tormented Anna; her sitar-playing scene is worth the price of admission by itself, and really made me wish we'd seen far more of her character's seductive side - Ken Russell's "The Lair of the White Worm" owes a huge debt to this film, in a ham-fisted barking mad kind of way. Noel Willman is over the top but great fun as her even more tormented dad. And good old Michael Ripper, the unsung hero of Hammer films (that's him at the top of the page, wearing his best "this beard is not false and the spirit gum doesn't itch" expression), gets to play a well-developed sympathetic character with lots of screen-time instead of being killed almost immediately as he so often was.
Unfortunately we also get a typical manly-but-dull Hammer hero, an equally typical damsel-in-distress who can't act (to be fair, she's better than some, but only by Hammer standards), and too much padding while they try to figure out the bleeding obvious because the plot's too thin and the budget's running out. Though anyone who really hates Private Fraser from "Dad's Army" has a treat in store! It's not a great film, but it's got some great bits in it. I suppose that's why Hammer near-as-dammit remade it two years later as the dreadful yet bizarrely entertaining "The Blood Beast Terror".
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Spoilers follow ... - The Reptile review by NP
It is a huge shame that – and this may be considered a spoilers – the make-up for the titular creature is so tatty and unconvincing, because just about everything else about this film is excellent.
Charming couple Valerie (Jennifer Daniel) and Harry Spalding (Ray Barrett) arrive at a remote and unfriendly Cornish village to read the will of Harry’s recently deceased brother. They have been left only ‘the cottage’, a place that the locals spare no time in assuring him is not a place they want to live. Assuring landlord Michael Ripper even says ‘they don’t like strangers round these parts’, as Harry succeeds in emptying his pub on more than one occasion.
The Spaldings are excellently played, and for a ‘second-tier’ Hammer film, they are aided by an exceptional cast. Mighty veterans John Laurie, George Woodbridge, Charles Lloyd Pack, Marne Maitland and a superbly sinister Noel Willman prop up every densely atmospheric scene. Future ‘Blake’s 7’ phenomenon Jacqueline Pearce is exceptional as fragile, frightened Anne Franklin, displaying the same compelling talents as she does in ‘Plague of the Zombies’, which Director John Gilling filmed back-to-back with this, using many of the same sets, and locations.
The Cornish coasts have always been used to great effect in surprisingly few horrors, but they once again prove a perfect fit.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.