The House That Dripped Blood

A Scotland Yard inspector, tracing a missing film star, arrives at a house in the country. The estate agent tells him about its previous tenants, and the film opens into four stories: a horror novelist and the killer he invents; two men fixated on a female figure in a waxworks; a father who suspects his daughter is a witch; and an actor making a vampire film who acquires an unlucky cloak. Peter Duffell directs. It is an Amicus production, and all four stories are Robert Bloch's, adapted by Bloch himself. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Denholm Elliott, Jon Pertwee and Ingrid Pitt are in the cast. The title is misleading, which is a standing complaint: no blood drips from the house, and there is barely any blood in the film at all. Duffell objected to it; the producers insisted on marketing grounds. The last story is the most enjoyable. Jon Pertwee's actor complains about how unserious vampire pictures have become and openly mocks the Christopher Lee model of Dracula, while Lee is elsewhere in the same film in another story. Who it is for: viewers who like the Amicus anthologies and seventies British gothic. Who it is not for: anyone after real dread. Most of the stories are short, the endings are guessable, and by current measure the horror is very mild.