Doctor Blood's Coffin

Six years before the world's first human heart transplant, Dr. Blood's Coffin saw Kieron Moore star as Dr. Peter Blood, a biochemist determined to bring a man back to life by giving him a new heart. Of course, this being a horror flick, Blood is seriously deranged, his procedure requiring the donor to be still alive while the transplant takes place. In order to carry out his plans, Blood returns to his rural home village in Cornwall (where absolutely no-one has a West Country accent), and proceeds to drug and abduct locals, taking them down to the tunnels of a nearby disused tin mine where he has set up a rudimentary operating theatre using medical supplies half-inched from the local surgery run by his unsuspecting father. When he's not injecting victims with curare (which causes paralysis) and playing God in the mine, Peter spends his time wooing his father's curvaceous widowed nurse Linda (Hammer babe Hazel Court). As time goes on, Linda becomes suspicious of Peter, leading to a shocking climax that sees the demented doctor reanimating the nurse's decomposing husband. While all of the above sounds like a lot of ghoulish fun, Dr. Blood's Coffin is less entertaining than it might have been, suffering from too many dialogue-heavy scenes and a lack of genuine horror, the only slightly disturbing scenes being the hasty removal of organs by a flustered Peter (he's a fast worker, completing the surgical procedure in minutes). The finale, in which Linda's mouldy husband comes back to life is incredibly silly, but easily the most enjoyable part of the film, director Sidney J. Furie finally delivering on the movie's macabre premise.

Slow-moving, low-key mad scientist flick about a young doctor joining his father's practice in a small Cornish town. The young doctor sets up a secret lab to pursue unorthodox experiments involving transferring organs from living victims into corpses. No wonder he got thrown out of university. What makes this modest effort mildly interesting is the actor who plays the mad scientist: Kieron Moore, a James Bond lookalike who exhibits a perfectly charming side when he's not butchering the townsfolk. The luscious Hazel Court is his nurse and love interest. I cannot honestly recommend this movie to even the most devout horror fan, even with a suave mad scientist. Of course, seeing Hazel Court in anything is OK by me. She and the equally beautiful Barbara Steele were the horror movie queens of the early 1960s.

People sometimes complain that horror movies nowadays lack originality, and that most of them are uninspired and blatant imitations of just a few half-decent films. Well, that may be correct, but it's definitely not a phenomenon that only popped up now. Shameless rip-offs always existed, and here's an example of the late 50s/early 60s to prove it! Sidney J. Furie's "Dr. Blood's Coffin" clearly got made to cash in on the tremendous success of Hammer Studio's first real horror production; - "The Curse of Frankenstein". It must be said that, in spite of the obvious budget restrictions, "Dr. Blood's Coffin" is a grisly little flick with reasonably gruesome make-up effects and quite a bit of violence. On the other hand, "The Curse of Frankenstein" was gruesome as well and, unlike "Dr. Blood's Coffin", it also had a solid screenplay, terrific scenery, great acting and a continuously tense atmosphere. Furie's film is rather incompetent and overall boring, to be honest. The film opens with a feeble attempt to keep the identity of the mad doctor secret, but after ten minutes or so, they realize that idea was just dumb and unfeasible. Dr. Blood Jr. (with a name like that, you're just destined to make a career in mad science) gets kicked out of the medical university in Vienna for conducting unorthodox experiments on deceased patients, although he personally prefers to think of them as revolutionary and courageous. He returns to his hometown in Cornwall, where he settles at his father's small doctor's practice and flirts with the widowed nurse. His main objective naturally remains to complete his research, and thus Peter Blood paralyzes unsuspecting villagers with curare and subsequently drags them to an improvised laboratory in an abandoned mineshaft. Personally, I don't think it's very smart to kidnap people in a town with a population of barely 50 people and I also don't really see the added value of killing people only to revive them via primitive heart transplants. But hey, the idea is sick enough for a horror film and there are filthy make-up effects, especially during the utterly grotesque climax with a revived zombie husband! The rest of the film is unfortunately dull and endlessly repetitive. One of Blood's victims escapes, for example, and the poor sucker spends the next fifteen minutes crawling over the ground. Dr. Blood himself whines so much about his cowardly fellow scientists that he forgets to seduce the nurse! "Dr. Blood's Coffin" is passable Brit-horror from the early sixties, only worth seeking out in case you already watched all the much more superior Hammer, Amicus and Tigon productions from the same era/decade.

I thoroughly enjoyed this 1960s take on the Frankenstein cautionary tale. Outstanding spooky atmosphere and great acting with an exciting finish. Love the clothes and cars from the early 1960s.

Seeing the films very low rating on IMDb,I began to suspect that I had wasted some cash picking up this luckily,during my viewing of the movie,I was thrilled to find that this film is actually an excellent,over-looked,moody low budget Frankenstein-riffing British Horror. The plot: With some fellow students and doctors beginning to question the nature of his operations,Dr Peter Blood decides that he should leave Vienna and pay a visit to his father, (Dr Robert Blood)to get a job at his local quiet community hospital in a small English countryside town called Grenville. On his arrival,Peter successfully covers up all of the "troubles" that happened in Vienna,and makes all of the locals and doctors believe that "the local boy dun good" has come back to help all of the residents with his new,vast knowledge of medicine.As Peters father and the rest of the staff, (including Nurse Linda Parker,who is developing a deep crush for the good doctor…)start to show him a huge amount of respect and begin giving Peter the chance to become the head doctor of the hospital. Peter Blood discovers that the small town is surrounded by a vast number of disused mining mountains,which start to make Peter consider if he has found the perfect location to continue his operations,of bringing the dead back to life View on the film: Checking the credits of director Sidney J. Furie,his career seems to be filled with some very interesting moments, (such as the post-Bond Ipcress File, Scorsese- praised 1982 horror The Entity,the almost forgotten Robert Redford film Little Fauss and Big Halsy and an early music bio-pic with 1972's Lady Sings The Blues)that are over-shadowed by some truly cringe-worthy moments. (2005's American Soldiers and the franchise-killer Superman IV:The Quest For Peace) For this film, (which also has future director Nicolas Roeg as its camera operator)Furie thankfully shows the best of his directing ability's,with the beautiful Cornwall location allowing Furie to give the film a good "wilderness' mood, due it being shown,that since everyone has put their trust in Peter Blood,none of the locals begin to suspect for a moment that the recent disappearance's of people near the disused mining mountains,may possibly be connect to the newest resident of the area. Whilst the screenplay by Nathan Juran,James Kelley and Peter Miller does not shy away from showing its Frankenstein influence,the movie still puts an excellent,fresh spin on the Frankenstein story,with the madness of Peter Blood, (wonderfully performed ruggedly by Kieron Moore) only being see-able in a few,well-paced accidental drop of the mask moments from Blood,who the rest of the time is given a terrific tense mood,as the writers and director start to show the creation that Peter is attempting to secretly make in the forgotten,empty mountains. Final view on the film: An excellent,sadly forgotten moody British Horror film,with great location directing from Furie,a terrific screenplay and a fantastic creepy performance from Kieron Moore.

Creepy little horror film that I like a great deal. The plot has Dr Blood returning to his home in England to take over for his dad. Unfortunately for the town the younger Blood is actually trying to follow in the footsteps of Dr Frankenstein and revive the dead, and to that end he has set up shop in an abandoned mine and has been kidnapping the locals to continue the experiments that got him run out of Vienna. Coming out of the British horror boom of the late 1950's and early 1960's this is neat little low key film that uses its locations and a muted color scheme to great effect. Where the Hammer films in someways heightened everything into an almost fairytale like feel, this film goes the opposite way using the drabness of the real world to make a real feeling film. Indeed the film doesn't throw too many unreal twists or way out ideas at you its all low key and close to reality which helps to add to the feeling of unease. Is the film perfect? No. Its clunky in some of the ways that the revive the dead films are and perhaps things are a bit too contrived, with Hazel Court's rescue being too aptly timed. That said its still a nice way to pass a rainy Saturday night n front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn and a soda. 7 is out of 10.

This is an ultra-cheap movie made in the UK with little in the budget to allow for big name stars. So it's left to Kieron Moore to play the young and severely misguided Dr. Blood. It seems that the young doctor has been away in college conducting experiments but he's now returned home to assist his father in his practice. What exactly his previous experiments were is unknown to everyone--they just know he's a nice guy and they can trust him to look after the good people of this small town. The only "big name" in the film is Ian Hunter, as the Sr. Dr. Blood. Unfortunately for the town, the young doctor's experiments have to do with reviving the dead--a practice frowned upon in most municipalities. And, when he starts killing people to do this research, people eventually realize he is at the heart of the murders. Poor guy, as he sounded so sure of himself and sincere! The movie is much better than the low rating on IMDb. It's not a great film, but very watchable.

A young biochemist Dr. Peter Blood(Kieron Moore)arrives in remote Porthcarron, Cornwall to move in with his father(Ian Hunter) the well respected doctor of the lonely village. The elder Dr. Blood is proud of his son but questions some of his strange medical practices. Young Dr. Blood is far from suspect in the mysterious disappearances of villagers...who are kept hidden in abandoned tin mines where Peter Blood experiments with the locals as part of his heart transplant research. When not carrying out his hideous experimentation the young doctor is wooing his father's nurse Linda Parker(Hazel Court). This chiller at times seems very disjointed and clueless in direction, but ends eerily in imitation of famed Hammer films. Also in the cast are: Fred Johnson, Kenneth Warren and Paul Stockman.

The 1961 British horror film "Doctor Blood's Coffin" is here given the DVD treatment by an outfit called Cheezy Flicks, but I believe that appellation does this film an injustice. Far from cheesy, it is, rather, an intelligently written, well acted and atmospherically shot picture that makes excellent use of its English coastal locale. In it, Kieron Moore plays Dr. Peter Blood (hey, wasn't that Errol Flynn's character's name in the 1935 swashbuckler "Captain Blood"?!?), a modern-day research scientist who returns to his hometown in Cornwall after his experiments on bringing the dead back to life with still-living hearts cause him to be kicked out of Vienna. Back home, he enters into a relationship with his father's pretty nurse assistant, Linda, played by Hazel Court (in the late '50s and early '60s, surely one of the prettiest actresses the U.K. had to offer), and secretly continues his work, using several of the town's unwilling test subjects. Moore is just fine in the lead role as the dedicated but quite insane scientist, Court is gorgeous as usual (especially when shown in a low-cut sundress), and Australian character actor Kenneth J. Warren (who will always be Emma Peel nemesis Z.Z. von Schnerk to me!) is quite sturdy as the local police sergeant trying to get to the bottom of all the mishegas. The film gets increasingly bizarre as it progresses, especially when Dr. Blood decides to prove his case by bringing Linda's late husband back as a nice surprise. There are several mildly gross surgical sequences to please all the gorehounds out there, and, for me, the highlight: a fine and heated discussion between Blood and Linda regarding the moral consequences of his work. This three-minute scene provides possibly the best thesping I've ever seen either actor give us. Ultimately, this supposedly "cheesy flick" turns out to be anything but, and is highly recommended for all fans of levelheaded British horror.

Dr. Peter Blood (Kieron Moore) shows up in a small Cornish village to move in with his father (Ian Hunter) to carry on with the old man's experiments. Maddened by his ambition and arrogance, Peter paralyzes unwilling victims with curare (African arrow poison) until their still-beating hearts can be removed and transplanted into other bodies. Will his new widowed nurse girlfriend Linda Parker (Hazel Court, as always, a strong female lead) catch on before it's too late? Saddled with a very implausible plot and pretty minor compared to some concurrent Corman and Hammer films, this still has good acting, nice location filming, atmosphere and a decent surprise ending.