This film is flatly directed by veteran Vernon Sewell, and involves a mysterious creature stalking the British countryside relieving local youths of their blood.Robert Flemyng plays entomology professor Dr. Carl Mallinger in a role originally designed for Basil Rathbone, who sadly died before shooting began. His daughter Claire is persuasively played by Wanda Ventham. Peter Cushing stars as the perpetually chewing Detective Inspector Quennell with a subtle edginess compared to his usual genial performances. As the undertaker, Roy Hudd appears in the kind of role Miles Malleson might have essayed ten years earlier, endlessly making puns about corpses etc. Vanessa Howard plays Meg, Quennell's daughter; in one of those bizarre decisions typical of films made at this time, her voice is dubbed, very badly, by an artiste who sounds a great deal younger than the character. This practice has always baffled me – why take the time to hire an actor only to rob them of one of their most important hallmarks, their voice? Glynn Edwards, most famous for his role in television's 'Minder' is Sgt Allan (one of this film's highlights is the occasional banter between Allan and Quennell, apparently suggested by Cushing) while veteran Kevin Stoney plays Mallinger's scarred retainer Granger.The cast are capable, but the film plods and seems to last longer than its 88 minutes - there are various reports that both Flemyng and Cushing were not happy throughout. In the opening scene, which the film didn't need to show as events are recounted later anyway, Africa is represented by a muddy English river and forest with ill-matching stock footage of wildlife inserted (including a Central American Macaw!). There is an initially amusing amateur dramatics play performed that serves no real purpose, but seems to drag, for example, and far too much time is spent with minutiae at a time when the story could really do with building up some sort of tension.The Blood Beast responsible for the film's alleged Terror is a human sized death's head moth, Claire's alter ego. Impractically, to commit the various murders, Claire would have to transform from fully clothed and exquisitely made-up into the creature, and back again, from one scene to the next. The creature's eventual destruction is very badly conveyed, but at least it brings proceedings to an end, dispelling a growing feeling that the film was going to last forever.

The Blood Beast Terror is a film I recorded from the Horror Channel about 3 months ago and watched the other night. It features Peter Cushing, who should really have turned this one down, and Dave from Minder on the trail of a serial killer, who turns out to be Wanda Ventham (aka Benedict Cumberbatch's mum) transformed into a giant Death's Head Moth. No, I did not just make that up.The Moth suit is laughable - I really hope poor Wanda didn't wear it, and it was a stunt Moth-Man or something. No actor should be thus embarrassed. And the airborne Moth will have you giggling - it makes Bela Lugosi's Devil Bat look convincing.The plot makes little or no sense, the celebrated Etymologist professor, played with a suitably stunned expression throughout by Robert Flemyng, stages an am-dram play in his house which features Ventham being revived from the dead, which is arguably the weirdest scene in horror film history, and at the opening of the movie, what looks like the banks of Thames stand in for the Limpopo river! Even Cushing - the Alec Guinness of horror - can't make this work, at one point his sweetie-chewing Police Inspector even takes his daughter along to the locale where the killer-moth is hiding out,completely oblivious to the danger. The movie was made by Tigon, who either produced horror classics or dreadful crap. I'm sure you know which one The Blood Beast Terror is.....

A scientist (Robert Flemyng), working with genetics, creates a creature that is capable of transforming back and forth between a giant Death Head moth and a beautiful woman. The creature masquerades as his daughter when she is in her human incarnation and feeds on the blood of her victims when she is in the moth form.So, Peter Cushing has allegedly said this was his least favorite role or the film he considered his worst. This is taken from IMDb, and there is no source or exact quote. I can see why he might say that -- this is not the best Cushing role by any means. But it is far from a bad film. Tigon gets a rough break, being treated as the third best British horror studio (behind Hammer and Amicus), but this does not mean their films are awful.Apparently Basil Rathbone was going to play the part of the scientist. I think the only good that would come from that would be a slight increase in star power. Flemyng handles the role very well, and I am hard-pressed to say Rathbone could have improved upon it in any way.

While the concept works and Peter Cushing does his usual good job in the acting department the one thing I was really disappointed with was the fact we don't get to see much of the monster in monster form. I mean what's the point of having a monster the famous deaths head moth if you don't see his or hers back to see the skull on it. The only time you see it in monster form is in some kind of cocoon resting. Most of the movie it's in the background or in shadow. As I said before, the monster you don't see might be scarier but it's not as cool. To me, I think that phrase Hitchcock said became a lame excuse for movie makers to be cheap and lazy. You heard me, the monster you can't see might be scarier, but it's also cheap and lazier as well. The acting is wondering, the storyline works and even the fact that the monster is an overgrown butterfly works as well. But that whole monster thing is a real downer for me and for that and pretty much that alone I give it 5 STARS.