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Released by: MGM Limited Edition Collection
Released on: October 26, 2011.
Director: Sidney J. Furie
Cast: Kieron Moore, Hazel Court
Year: 1961
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The Movie:
Though shot in the United Kingdom and financed by a company located therein, Dr. Blood's Coffin was actually directed by a young Canadian director named Sidney Furie in 1961 and was obviously made fast and cheap as an attempt to cash in on the horror craze that Hammer had kicked into high gear over there across the pond. The results are uneven at best but fans of vintage British horror will find enough to appreciate about this film to make it worth a look.
When the movie begins, a doctor named Peter Blood (Kieron Moore) returns from Vienna where he was accused of blasphemy. Now back in his native England, he works alongside his father, also a doctor, carrying out his experiments in secret wherein he takes the hearts out of living people he deems useless to society and uses them to resuscitate men he considers to be of more value to society. In short, he's playing God, something that rarely goes over well in horror films, but an all too common cliché plot device that we see pop up time and time again. Not so surprisingly, given Peter's preoccupation with his experiments, bodies start piling up around the small town he now calls home. Nobody suspects Peter of any wrongdoing, least of all his father's pretty auburn haired nurse (Hazel Court), but eventually his experiments go wrong and it all comes spiraling down around him.
Dr. Blood's Coffin is, sadly, a fairly tepid affair. Until the film reaches its last ten minutes or so, where it admittedly provides a pretty awesome finish, it suffers from pacing issues, stagey direction, and countless stretches of bland dialogue that does little to further the plot. It's likely that Furie was trying to get some character development going here, but it doesn't work and Peter Blood is little more than a poor man's Victor Frankenstein, albeit considerably less interesting than the grand daddy of mad doctors we've seen throughout years of horror literature and films. That ending, however, is a doozy and it at least partially justifies all of the time that Furie spends doting on the romance developing between Peter and the foxy nurse.
You have to give Moore for playing his part with a fairly natural vibe. He fits in well with the townspeople and isn't nearly as prone to going over the top the way other similar characters have before or after this film was made. This makes his 'hiding in plain sight' tactic a little easier to believe than it would be otherwise, which is a plus for the film. His chemistry with Hazel Court is also strong, and they make a nice, believable couple here and appear well matched on a physical level. On top of that the film also does a nice job of capturing the small town setting and locations used for the film. These factors makes it all the more unfortunate that the film moves at such a deadly dull pace for most of its running time.
Video/Audio/Extras:
MGM's 1.66.1 anamorphic looks quite very good here. Detail is strong, color looks excellent and are very pronounced without looking over saturated. There's not much print damage at all, really, just some welcome grain here and there. Overall this is clean, well authored presentation which is completely free of compression artifacts or edge enhancement and which offers a generally very strong picture. There's no doubt that this is certainly a marked improvement over the previous budget/public domain releases that the title has seen over the years.
The Dolby Digital Mono track, in the film's native English, is also fine. Levels are well balanced and there are no problems with hiss or distortion to report. Don't expect any subtitles or alternate language tracks, you'll be disappointed, but the audio is of perfectly good quality here. Bonus points for the score sounding as rich as it does here, it adds some welcome atmosphere to a few key scenes and serves the movie well.
If a static menu and chapter stops are your idea of extras, you'll be pleased, otherwise, once again there's nothing here, not even a trailer.
The Final Word:
Mediocre, save for the finale, Dr. Blood's Coffin sure does look good on this barebones release from MGM. A shame then that the movie isn't more engrossing, as it has all the elements of a fun mad doctor story.
