Amicus Strikes Back

 

(imdb)

AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS-1973-Catherine (Stephanie Beacham) & Charles (Ian Ogilvy) come to live in the ancestral Fengriffen. No sooner are they there when Catherine becomes mesmerized by a portrait of Charles’ grandfather Sir Henry and a bloody hand tries to grab her. After their wedding, a severed hand is seen crawling across the floor. Later, she sees a ghoulish, eyeless corpse, missing one hand. Then she's scared by Silas (Geoffrey Whitehead), a sinister looking woodsman with a red birth mark, who lives on the estate. After their lawyer (Guy Rolfe) is murdered, Catherine sees more apparitions and the family doctor, Whittle (Patrick Magee) informs the couple Catherine is pregnant. Then Charles and Dr. Whittle discuss telling Catherine some secret about the family. 

When the maid decides to help Catherine, she's killed. The severed hand seems to be controlling things. When her aunt Edith (Gillan Lind) decides Catherine should leave Fengriffen, she dies. When it seems like Catherine is really cracking up, Whittle calls in Dr. Pope (Peter Cushing). In a flashback, Charles reveals his granddad Sir Henry (Herbert Lom) turned Fengriffin into “a house of debauchery” and “filled it with the scum of the earth”. Then on Silas’ father's wedding night, Henry rapes his bride, while his goons hold down Silas. Henry chops off his hand and Silas puts a curse on him. Later, Catherine gives birth to a baby with no right hand and a reddish birth mark. 

Good cast and story but not a great ending. This Amicus production was directed by Roy Ward Baker who also made THE VAULT OF HORROR for the same company in'73. It's based a on a novel by American novelist David Case.

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Deadly Dolls

 

 (wikipedia)

DOLLS-1986-After she has a daydream about her teddy bear growing and killing her parents, a young girl named Judy (Carrie Lorraine), her dumb father David (Ian Patrick Williams) and her horrible stepmother Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) seek shelter from a storm at the home of doll maker Gabriel Hartwicke (Guy Rolfe) and his wife Hilary (Hilary Mason). During dinner they are joined by another traveler, the nice but naive Ralph (Steven Lee) and two idiotic punks. Everyone stays the night. After a while it turns out Hartwicke's dolls are alive and into killing not nice people. The dolls are pretty vicious, using knives, hammers and saws on their victims. They make Rosemary jump out a window and pull out the eyes of one of the punks. The other punk puts up a good fight but is shot by some toy soldiers. Some more dolls almost kill Ralph, but Judy convinces them to stop. David thinks Ralph killed his wife, so when he tries to kill Ralph, Hartwicke turns him into a “Mr. Punch” doll! The next day Ralph and Judy leave for Boston where her real mother lives. Mr. Punch bids them goodbye. Everyone else is now a puppet and a new couple arrives. 

This imaginative little movie from Charles Band's Empire pictures was the brainchild of writer Ed Naha (who later wrote the screenplay for HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS) and director Stuart Gordon (REANIMATOR). The funny violent dolls were created by David Allen.

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Hammer In India

THE STRANGLERS OF BOMBAY-1959-This black and white Hammer production takes place in India in the 1830's when the country was still under British control. Capt. Harry Lewis (Guy Rolfe who starred DR. SARDONICUS the next year) investigates the disappearance of caravans belonging to the East India Company. The culprits are The Thuggees,a murderous cult that worship the god Kali and strangle their victims with "the sacred cloth". 

It's fairly gruesome for the time with eyes burned out,severed hands, torture and Lewis staked to the ground while a cobra attacks. Alan Cuthberson is the pompous Captain who's actually in charge and Roger Delgado (the first Master on the original DR.WHO) has an un-credited role. Director Terence Fisher made THE MUMMY,THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH and THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES the same year. Screenwriter David Zelag Goodman later wrote STRAW DOGS,LOGAN'S RUN and other high profile productions. 

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