The House That Dripped Blood

1971 "Vampires! Voodoo! Vixens! Victims!"
6.5| 1h42m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 31 March 1971 Released
Producted By: Amicus Productions
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

A Scotland Yard investigator looks into four mysterious cases involving an unoccupied house.

Genre

Horror, Mystery

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Director

Peter Duffell

Production Companies

Amicus Productions

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The House That Dripped Blood Audience Reviews

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
qmtv Boring. I only made it to 18 minute mark. I just can't continue.Boring all the way. Music sucks. Cinematography is boring. Sets are boring. Acting and dialogue sucks. The story sucks.I just cannot sit through this nonsense.F, 1 star. Failure.
BA_Harrison Another anthology from horror studio Amicus, The House That Dripped Blood features four macabre tales written by Psycho author Robert Bloch, with a wraparound story in which Detective Inspector Holloway (John Bennett) investigates the mysterious disappearance of a famous horror movie-star and learns of several other cases all linked to a creepy old house.The first case is that of Charles Hillyer (Denholm Elliott), a horror novelist who moves into the house to write his next novel, Dominick the Strangler. As Hillyer gets stuck into his work, he becomes convinced that the titular character from his latest book is stalking him. It's a solid way to kick off the film, with Elliot putting in a fine performance, and director Peter Duffell delivering plenty of suspense and chills, helped no end by Tom Adams as grinning loon Dominick, who looks convincingly deranged as he lurks in the shadows.Tale number two, Waxworks, is my least favourite, which I find surprising since it stars Peter Cushing, one of my all-time favourite horror actors. Cushing plays retired businessman Philip Grayson, one of a pair of old love rivals who lose their heads after paying a visit to a Museum of Horror, where one of the exhibits bears an uncanny resemblance to the woman they both loved. Duffell does his best to make something of the weak material, using strong red and green lighting to add a sense of the unreal, but the result is still rather forgettable.Another horror legend—Christopher Lee—turns up for tale number three, but like Cushing, he is unable to turn what is a rather predictable tale into anything special. If you can't guess how this one is going to end by the halfway mark, then you clearly haven't seen enough horror films. Lee plays the frightened father of a young girl with a secret; Nyree Dawn Porter is the teacher who cannot understand what he is so scared of.For my money, the final story offers the most entertainment value, and here's why: a) the story is fun and delivers quite a few genuinely amusing moments (with a couple of neat in-jokes for horror fans), b) Ingrid Pitt's cleavage is fantastic, and c) it stars both Worzel Gummidge and The Crowman (Jon Pertwee and Geoffrey Bayldon AKA Catweazle). Pertwee is wonderful as pompous horror actor Paul Henderson, who buys a cape from Bayldon for his latest role as a vampire; the only problem is that whenever he wears the cape, he becomes a vampire for real.Pertwee and Pitt pop up again as vampires in the last part of the wraparound tale to attack Holloway, who has payed a visit to the house against the advice of estate agent A.J. Stoker (John Bryans). Stoker closes the film by finally revealing the secret of the creepy property, but the explanation for the supernatural occurrences is something of a damp squib.5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for Pertwee and Pitt.
oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- The House that Dripped Blood, 1971, Shortly after renting an old English country, a horror film star disappears and a Scotland Yard inspector arrives to investigate. Inquiring at the local police station, the inspector learns the house's history of multiple odd occurrences.*Special Stars- Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Denholm Elliott, Jon Pertwee *Theme- Old houses in England have a long history, possibly ghosts, and influences beyond the grave.*Trivia/location/goofs- British, Many short stories anthology revolving around this house's various occupants. Watch for Chris Lee's character "Dracula" tableau in the Waxworks segment with P. Cushing passing it several times. Christopher Lee is seen reading a book in his new rented home's study, 'Lord Of the Rings'. In 40 years, Lee would star in that film based book. Jon Petwee was still performing in the English science fiction series Doctor Who during this film's shooting. If you look closely in his dressing room mirror, there is a Dr. Who production photo of Pertwee in his Dr. Who car, 'Bessie'. The American actor, Vincent Price was asked to perform a major role in the waxworks scene. Price gained USA notoriety playing in the 3-D film, "The House of Wax' with an early film role for Charlse Bronson.*Emotion- An enjoyable series of stories putting England's best horror actors through their paces, but my most enjoyable one was a comedic tale with Jon Pertwee in it as a cowardly reluctant vampire. Having met him at several sci-fi fiction events and getting a taste of his personality, I wish I was on-set for this to be shot. It must have been a hoot.
Foreverisacastironmess They really should have called it:"The Shanty that Trickled Mediocrity". I did not enjoy this picture, I just could not for the life of me get into it. All the tales were so weak, and horribly old-fashioned, and the 'twists' were laughable, it completely without any of that classic old Grand Guignol magic and feeling, there was no sense of the macabre, ghoulish fun that any halfway decent horror anthology should have. They were some of the worst tales I've seen yet in a movie like this. I didn't find any of them to be remotely interesting or even amusing in any strong way. Pretty much all the effects were just too cheap and horrible looking and for me it, among other things really wrecked the fun. "Best film ever", yeah, sure.. Nothing was scary! Or ironic, or funny. It was just dull and boring. Even Torture Garden was a better film and that in of itself was not a fantastically sparkling effort! This is the worst Amicus movie of this type that I personally have ever seen. I do however completely love the 72 classic"Tales from the Crypt", so it's not like I'm against the style of this or the time that it was made or anything.. This thoroughly weak effort is everything that masterful classic of Gothic good old-fashioned terror is not. ::: The house that is supposed to link all the stories together-which I would also like to point out was entirely devoid of blood, I think was supposed to be all eerie and impressive in appearance, but it just looked like an ordinary bland little slab-sided affair to me. It actually reminded me of my Granma's cosy old cottage! ::: I thought the lurky and sinister imaginary killer named Dominic was kinda creepy for about ten seconds but then he just came off as a bit too goony for me. The actor obviously didn't know the difference between playing it sinister and retarded. And what a ridiculous surprise twist at the end that was! Oh, the goofy Dominic wasn't really just an eerie figment of ugly, boring and totally unimpressive fat shlub Charles's imagination, and was actually plotting with his equally boring wife to drive him insane for some reason-Wait, he really was! Wait, what? Is that what they were saying? That's just silly. It doesn't make sense! ::: The waxworks story was truly terrible. Were those things supposed to be waxworks or mannequins? Whatever they were they all looked incredibly fake and were not frightening. I did think Peter Cushing was good at least. The man never acted badly a day in his life. RIP. I read somewhere that as he was playing his role in this his wife was dying. I thought there was a certain haunted, pained look to his face, something that was more than just good acting. Even his prestigious talent couldn't save the tale, however. The pathetic looking imitation head at the end was just too silly looking to me for it to have any real shock value. ::: I didn't find the little girl in the third story to be particularly scary or ominous either. She just looked like an ordinary little girl to me, although granted there was one scene where she did almost have me for a second. It was the part where she's talking about her mother as she gazes into the fire. I thought Bruce Lee did a good job of appearing terrified of a sweet little girl, which is pretty funny when you think about it! I think they got the idea for the end of Creepshow from this story. ::: I found story the fourth to be a slightly amusing. I thought the horror parodying worked OK. It stank like the rest of course. The final scene with the bald guy talking was practically identical to the end of Tales from the Crypt. IE: blah, blah, blah, looks at camera-"perhaps, you?" The major difference being that film did it about a thousand times better. ::: I thought I'd enjoy this as I have usually enjoyed the other Amicus anthologies that I've seen. And I was surprised that Robert Bloch had written the stories as he's written some of the best short horror stories I've ever read. I gave this a four, for being basically watchable, but not particularly fun or very enjoyable in any meaningful way. If you want to watch some decent Amicus anthologies, I would strongly recommend you watch some of the later ones. Good day!