Blood on Satan's Claw (Satan's Skin) (1970)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Main Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Filmmakers And Linda Hayden (Actress) Featurette-An Angel For Satan Featurette-Making Of-Touching The Devil Gallery-Stills Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Horror Hospital, Tower of Evil, Witchfinder General,Suspiria
Rating
Year Of Production	1970
Running Time	92:49
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Piers Haggard
Studio Distributor	Tigon British Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	Patrick Wymark Linda Hayden Barry Andrews Avice Landone Simon Williams Tamara Ustinov Anthony Ainley Wendy Padbury Howard Goorney Robin Davies James Hayter Michele Dotrice Charlotte Mitchell
Case	PUSH-1 (Opaque)
RPI	$24.95	Music	Marc Wilkinson

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Sometime in the latter part of the Seventeenth century or thereabouts a workman ploughing a field unearths the skull of what appears to be a demon. When he tries to show the sceptical local judge the strange artefact he discovers that it is gone. Some of the local young people begin to behave strangely, and it is revealed that they are killing some people for some Satanic purpose. The judge is called in to investigate claims of witchcraft and to rid the area of the demonic presence.

    If you have more than a passing interest in the work of Hammer Films, you have probably also heard of Amicus, a somewhat poor relation. But not so many people are aware of an even more obscure company called Tigon British Film Productions, which made a dozen movies between 1968 and 1972. Not all were horror films. In fact they produced a western (Hannie Caulder) and an adaptation of Black Beauty. Some of their films were terrible, some were very good. This film falls into the latter category.

    Played with complete seriousness (unlike Hammer's output of the era), The Blood on Satan's Claw is a fine thriller that effectively uses the English countryside to evoke a sense of lonely menace. The actors play it straight without any of that campiness or buffoonery that often mars horror films. The only character used for comic purposes is the blustering squire played by James Hayter, and even then he keeps the overplaying to a minimum. If he had known that they would misspell his name in the opening credits ("James Hoyter") he may have played it differently. The judge is played by the fine character actor Patrick Wymark, often noted for hamming it up but very restrained and serious in this film. He looks much older than his 44 years would suggest, undoubtedly due to a severe drinking problem which led to his sudden death while visiting Melbourne in 1970. This film appears to have been his last.

    Linda Hayden also gives a fine performance in her second film as the leader of the group of Satanic children. At this time she was quite famous due to her previous film Baby Love, a Lolita-style exploration of forbidden desire. Just 17 when the film was made she gives an at times chilling performance. The rest of the cast is also fine, including Michele Dotrice as one of the Satan-worshippers and Doctor Who sidekick Wendy Padbury as one of their victims. The Doctor Who connection is completed by the second actor to play the Master, Anthony Ainley, here as the local priest.

    While the film is not perfect and has a slightly abrupt ending, it is one of the better horror vehicles to come out of Britain in the year of 1970 and worthy of release on DVD.

Video

    The film is presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.78:1 but it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    While the transfer to digital video has not been done badly, the lack of 16x9 enhancement creates a few problems. Sharpness is okay but has been boosted through the use of edge enhancement. There is a reasonable amount of detail nonetheless, but it could have been much better. There are a few murky shadows but I suspect that these were intentional, and there are no shadow detail problems as far as I could tell. Colour is acceptable. I suspect that it was never bright or vivid but it comes across reasonably well here. Greens and reds fare best, though the latter seem a little too saturated.

    Aliasing is apparent but it only takes the form of jagged diagonal edges most of the time. Some of the shutters on the local village buildings reveal more serious aliasing, but this occurs infrequently. There is some Gibb Effect and a fair amount of grain present. Film artefacts are mainly dirt and small flecks.

    There are no subtitles provided. The disc is dual-layered but there is no layer break during the feature.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The main audio track is Dolby Digital 2.0, plus there is an audio commentary. The stereo track does not have surround encoding.

    This is a nice and clear soundtrack that despite not being in the original mono is as good as the film needs. Dialogue is clear and although it does sound as though it has been digitally processed there is no excessive sibilance or distortion. There is little in the way of stereo imaging, with just occasional sound effects or off-screen voices coming from somewhere other than centre of screen.

    The film benefits from a fine musical score by Marc Wilkinson, which has echoes of music of the period entwined with often sinister themes. The score uses the ondes martenot, the keyboard equivalent of the Theremin, to good effect.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    As usual with extras on Umbrella releases, my DVD player simply shows PLAY on the front display and refuses to divulge any time information.

Main Menu Audio

    The menu features some audio from the film.

Audio Commentary-Filmmakers And Linda Hayden (Actress)

    This audio commentary features director Piers Haggard, screenwriter Robert Wynne-Simmons and actress Linda Hayden and is moderated by Jonathon Sothcott. This is a pretty good listen with plenty of information about how the film developed. The only caveat I have is the recording. Haggard and Wynne-Simmons come through nice and clearly in the left channel, but Hayden and Sothcott are at a much lower volume level in the right channel. The commentary was obviously recorded with all four present in the same studio, so it appears something is awry in the mastering.

Featurette - An Angel for Satan (12:24)

    This is a recent interview with Linda Hayden, who is barely recognisable as the fresh-faced teenager of the film made some thirty-five years before. She is quite candid about her career which she discusses here. There are a few interesting stories about The Blood on Satan's Claw. This extra is widescreen and 16x9 enhanced.

Featurette-Making Of-Touching The Devil (20:00)

    This featurette features new interviews with the director and writer and various other talking heads about the making of the film. There are interview snippets with Linda Hayden repeated from the above featurette. All seem proud of their work on the film.

Theatrical Trailer (2:52)

    A somewhat lurid trailer, which refused to play more than a few seconds on my stand-alone DVD player before freezing and returning to the menu.

Gallery-Stills (2:31)

    A handful of photographs which look to be frame enlargements, plus one poster.

Trailer-Horror Hospital, Tower of Evil, Witchfinder General, Suspiria (7:26)

    More Umbrella propaganda.

    The transfer used for the Region 4 looks to be taken from the Anchor Bay UK release. There are some differences. In comparison to the Region 2, the Region 4 misses out on

• Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
• DTS 5.1 soundtrack
• An additional trailer
• Liner notes by Jonathon Sothcott
• Cast and crew biographies
• DVD-ROM extra: the original stories by Robert Wynne-Simmons

    In contrast, the Region 2 misses out on

• Making of featurette

    The audio remixes are really neither here nor there, as they are recent reworkings of the original audio material. The only substantial missing extras are the original stories on which the film was based on DVD-ROM, and that may not be enough to persuade potential buyers to shop overseas, particularly when the making of featurette is unique to Region 4. It should be noted that the photo gallery on the Region 2 is more substantial than that on the Region 4, and that the Region 2 is also not 16x9 enhanced. I think that the Region 4 probably wins by a whisker.

    A fine minor British horror film, well worth a look.

    A pity that the video transfer is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The audio quality is good.

    A nice selection of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall