When Harry Spalding’s brother, Charles, dies in mysterious circumstances, he moves with his wife Valerie down to Cornwall to the little cottage he has inherited. But they find the locals superstitious and unfriendly – all, that is, except innkeeper Tom Bailey and an eccentric old man, known as Mad Peter, who tells them of strange, ghostly sounds on the moors and of the death that always accompanies them. Then, later that very night, Harry and Valerie are horrified to find Peter on their doorstep, dying, his face black and swollen, his eyes bulging and his mouth frothing, as if something very venomous has bitten him….
Production Details
A Seven Arts-Hammer film production presented by Associated British Pathe Limited and released through Warner-Pathe Distributors Limited (UK) and Twentieth Century Fox (USA)
Copyright MCMlXVl Hammer Film Productions Ltd, – All rights reserved
MPAA Approved Certificate
The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious and any similarity to the name, character, or history of any person is, entirely accidental and unintentional
RCA Sound System
Produced at Bray Studios, England
Technicolor 91 mins
Filming Began: 31st August 1965
UK Release: 6th March 1966
Studio:
Bray Studios, Down Place, Oakley Green, Berkshire – Village
Location:
Oakley Court Hotel, Windsor Road, Oakley Green, Windsor, Berkshire – Dr Franklyn’s house and mansion seen burning in the final frames
Frensham Ponds, Farnham, Surrey – Moorlands
Stills from film
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Original Poster
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Footnotes
Ray Barrett was well-known to television audiences in the mid-sixties as the star of the BBC’s “The Troubleshooters”.
Scottish actor John Laurie had been in films for many years – among his early roles was that of Peggy Ashcroft’s crofter husband in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” (1935). Later, he became a household face as the ever-pessimistic Private “We’re all doomed!” Fraser in BBC TV’s classic sit-com “Dad’s Army”.