The Reptile

Jacqueline's Pearcings

The Reptile
UK 1966
Directed by John Gilling
Hammer Studios/Studio Canal 
Blu Ray Zone 2

Warning: I guess this one has venomous spoilers in it.

I thought it was time to revisit a good old Hammer horror in the form of their 1966 entry The Reptile. It’s funny, I didn’t know it when I started it but, as soon as I saw the locations and sets, not to mention that it’s shouted out at the start that the film takes place in Cornwall, I was pretty sure this one was using the same locations to shoot as Hammer’s The Plague Of The Zombies (reviewed here). Sure enough, I checked it out and it was, indeed, filmed back to back with that movie... not to mention having some of the same cast members. It’s also got some very similar plot elements... more like a simplified version of that film. 

In this one, Harry Spalding (played by Ray Barrett), accompanied by his new wife Valerie (played by Jennifer Daniel) inherits a cottage in Cornwall from his recently ‘deceased in dodgy, pre-credits circumstances’ brother. The locals don’t all like strangers and are superstitious about a series of ‘deaths’ which they attribute to a ‘black plague’ but Harry and Valerie are befriended by the local pub landlord Tom, played by Hammer stalwart Michael Ripper, in a much more heroic and featured role than he got in many of his movies for the studio. They also have the local ‘character’ Mad Peter (played by John Laurie of Dad’s Army) helping them, a little, before he succumbs to what’s been ailing the other fatalities. 

But what’s this? Can the epidemic of bizarre, unexplained deaths have something to do with Spalding’s neighbours... Dr. Franklin (played by Noel Willman) and his lovely young daughter Anna (played by a young Jacqueline Pearce in her first feature film role, although Hammer’s The Plague Of The Zombies and another movie with her in it both made it to cinemas before this one, in the same year)? Maybe it’s the curious chap from India who lives with them and sings Anna into a frenzy so she can turn into a big snake woman and inject her venom into innocent victims that could be the trouble, perhaps?

Yep. This is how I like my horror movies... strangers coming into a small, bigoted community, refusing to move and then helping, with a small team of likeminded individuals, to rid the village of the local horror preying on them from within. It’s not got any flashy camera work on this one but it’s definitely a good ‘comfort horror’ movie and certainly a nice watch for Halloween (I watched this one the day after the 2022 Halloween Fright Fest, although I’m not sure how soon this review will make it onto this blog). Definitely a relaxing slice of genre and it’s a lot of fun too.

Jacqueline Pearce is expecially good in both her human form and when she’s pearcing... sorry, piercing... the necks of the locals with her double toothed, vampiric looking teeth. Apparently though, the creature suit and make up was too much for her to handle in her claustrophobic state so it was the last time she worked in that kind of role for anyone, by the sounds of it. 

The principal actors are all good and make a well oiled machine of a team but Michael Ripper is especially great in the role of Tom. It’s sometimes very easy to take for granted just how good some of these well known character actors were but, of course, they became known as such because they were regularly re-used by studios because they could be counted on to give a reliable, dependable and believable performance in whatever roles they were thrown into. Ripper has the bad fortune to be lumbered with a fairly fake looking, somewhat freaky and almost ‘hipster’ beard which, honestly, really works against the character but, it doesn’t stop him from being absolutely awesome in the role and he does, it has to be said, kinda steal the scenes away from everyone else in the picture, whenever he’s on. 

It was good, too, to see John Laurie in such good form as Mad Peter. He’s given some quite nice and eccentric dialogue in this one and he really chews up the scenery in this but, honestly, it totally fits the character he’s been given and it was obviously written for his comic strengths, even if he does meet a ghastly death at the hands of the title beast halfway through the movie. 

And, okay, a short review but The Reptile gets a strong recommendation from me. Sometimes the Hammer films of this time underperformed and, well, I’m not sure how well this one did (I suspect it was made for one of their double bills) but their output here was all quality stuff as far as I’m concerned and, even the ones that maybe didn’t quite make the right pace, were usually still very entertaining. This one’s definitely worth a watch or three.