The Body Beneath

To say THE BODY BENEATH is a *GOOD* film might be sugaring things a bit heavily, but it certainly stands as one of the more professional achievements put forward by schlock auteur Andy Milligan.

The evidence of more technically adept workmanship than in many of his other projects is multi-directional within this eerie little vampire opus, though the the gore is noticeably slight this time around. It's a fairly unembellished bloodsucker story with a few novel twists...a vampire-priest calls a meeting of all existing vampires at his Old England lair. During this meeting, he expresses his concern with the rapidly diminishing numbers of their blood-line, and motions that they move, collectively, to the United States.

THE BODY BENEATH looks like a project which Milligan took a bit more seriously than many of his other horror offerings. It's fairly coherent(an amazing achievement for him), and the pacing and exposition actually aren't miles away from the accepted norm. Is this merely a film which denotes the natural progress of it's maker? Is it a sincere attempt to bring something palatable to mainstream horror film fans? Is it a sellout? ...I dunno...all I can say is that it has all the quirky Milligan hallmarks, but it's far removed from the schlock quality of much of his other work.

4/10

Nonsensical garbage, cheesy costumes and long meaningless dialog. Seriously sucks.

In England vampire Algernon Ford (Gavin Read) realizes his bloodline is disappearing. With the help of his silent wife Alicia (Susan Heard), humpback Spool (Berwick Kaler) and three green-faced female vampires he abducts descendant Susan Ford (Jackie Skarvellis) to use her to breed more children. Her boyfriend Paul (Richmond Ross) come looking for her and they try to escape the vampires.

For Andy Milligan this is actually well-made. I saw the restored version by Something Weird. The color is bright and strong, the picture clear and the audio can be heard. Still this doesn't make it a good movie! The plot is more than a little vague, the pacing is VERY slow (even at 82 minutes) and it all leads to really nothing much. To make things worse the makeup on the three female vampires changes from green to blue for no reason! Also there is totally inappropriate music in some scenes that destroy any power they might have had. The vampires don't have any fangs either! On the plus side is the strong color, the incredible dresses the female vampires wore and some pretty good acting (noticably by Skarvellis, Ross and Kaler). Also Ross and Skarvellis are introduced in a pretty lengthy nude sex sequence which is quite erotic. They're both good-looking with nice bodies so there's NO trouble watching it. It adds nothing to the movie but is still one of the best parts. Andy Milligan made all bad movies but this is (arguably) one of his best made. Still, it's just too dull to enjoy. I give it a 2.

The Reverand Alexander Algernon Ford (Gavin Reed) is from a long line of vampires, and tries to ensure the continuation of his lineage by abducting distant relative Susan Ford (Jackie Skarvellis), imprisoning her at Carfax Abbey, and using her as breeding stock. Susan's boyfriend Paul Donati (Richmond Ross) isn't about to let that happen without a fight...

Any review that claims that this is a good Andy Milligan film is misleading: it's not good... it's just not his worst.

A vampire film set in London, The Body Beneath sees Milligan taking a stab at classy horror, the director striving for style and atmosphere, but failing to achieve either. His attempts at a dreamlike Jean Rollin-esque ambience is ham-fisted, in particular the scenes featuring a trio of female vampiresses: dressed in garish coloured outfits and with crudely painted faces, they're like an unholy cross between Princess Fiona and Grotbags, unlikely to strike fear in the heart or arouse feelings of carnal desire. Andy simply doesn't have Rollin's flair for cool compositions, gothic eroticism, or ethereal vibes.

Milligan's clumsy direction makes this film a challenge to finish, but the dreariness is compounded by amateurish performances, a diabolical script, and a lack of gore, the only graphic scene of horror being a woman stabbed in the eyes with a pair of chunky knitting needles. The final 15 minutes or so see Milligan's awkward Euro-style surreality taken to extremes, with canted angles aplenty and vaseline on the lens for a weird vampire feast, where the Reverand announces that he and his clan will up sticks from Highgate to California, where he has secured tombs at Forest Lawn. I almost dozed off.

In what is clearly intended to be a poetic, darkly romantic ending, the now vampiric Susan and Paul awaken in Carfax Abbey to find the place empty... it's all theirs, for eternity!

2.5/10, rounded up to 3 for Spool (Berwick Kaler), the hunchbacked henchman, 'cos every film should have one.

A loosely threaded film - it's "stringy", cheesy and rather lame at best. It's a loosely knitted story and seems to be quickly thrown together to make a fast buck, yet it does get a little bit interesting once you get past the first 45 boring minutes of the film. I would have liked this film better if the first part of the film held my attention better - the last part of this one is pretty good though.

Green vampresses - and not all of their hands are covered in green... sloppy make-up here. The rest of the characters are fine, I just did not like the three green vampresses, rather silly to me. The best character in the entire film is the blood sucking priest.

Andy Milligan wrote and directed this - and for some weird reason I preferred his 'Guru, the Mad Monk' over 'The Body Beneath'. I guess "Guru" had enough cheesiness and strangeness to make me giggle harder.

3/10