Doctor Blood’s Coffin
Returning to his home village on the coast of Cornwall from university in Vienna where he has been studying biochemistry, Doctor Peter Blood is reunited with his father, general practitioner Doctor Robert Blood, and introduced to his practice nurse, Linda Parker, recently widowed, with whom he quickly becomes friendly, but while he ponders his options, further research or the hospital in Portsmouth, all is not well in Porthcarron.
Several locals having gone missing, Sergeant Cook is at a loss, organising searches of the local abandoned tin mines which riddle the hills, the only clue a broken syringe found in the home of George Beale containing a chemical identified as Strychnos toxifera, the paralysing toxin curare, Beale later found barely conscious on the cliffs but dying despite Peter’s swift ministrations.
Released in February of 1961, Doctor Blood’s Coffin was opened by The Entity director Sidney J Furie, starring Mantrap’s Kieron Moore and The Curse of Frankenstein’s Hazel Court as Peter Blood and Linda Parker with Ian Hunter, Kenneth J Warren and Gerald Lawson as Doctor Blood (senior), Sergeant Cook and mortician Morton, the requisite comedy relief who mixes his own embalming fluid: “Not many do these days, it all comes in tins!”
Shot in colour with Nick Roeg acting as camera operator for cinematographer Stephen Dade, writer Nathan Juran’s Wild West gold mining premise was re-written by James Kelly and Peter Martin to better suit England, but the shortcomings of the production are inescapable, too flat to work as horror and any mystery negated by making the identity of the villain obvious from the opening scene despite their surgical mask.
The title more exciting than the actual film, Doctor Blood’s Coffin holding no menace and the authorities never sufficiently concerned about the number of missing persons in their tiny community nor the subsequent slew of bodies through the mortuary, Linda’s argument that the experiments of the local Frankenstein performing surgery in the unsanitary conditions of a cave on live subjects are an offense to God would be more powerful if she had made an intellectual and moral appeal as a medical professional.
A tedious affair where the characters potter about the hills in search of answers which the viewer already has now regarded as one of the first zombie films to be made in colour though the presence of the moldy walking resurrected corpse is late arriving and minimal, Hammer’s new 2K restoration of Doctor Blood’s Coffin is supported by a commentary by Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons, an image gallery and the original trailer.
Doctor Blood’s Coffin is available on Blu-ray from Hammer now
