TheCapsuleCritic

NEITHER THE SEA NOR THE SAND (1972) is a very obscure film that predates THE WICKER MAN and Bob Clark's celebrated cult offering DEATHDREAM yet it contains elements of both. It also borrows from W. W. Jacobs' THE MONKEY'S PAW and Edgar Allan Poe's story THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR. It was the last movie to be produced by Tony Tenser's Tigon Films, one of the Big 3 during the Golden Age of British horror along with Hammer & Amicus.

A recently divorced woman begins a relationship with a young man that comes to a sudden and unexpected end when he dies of a heart attack. But that is only the beginning of the story. It seems that her love for him is so strong and her grief so extreme that he returns to her. There's just one problem...he's still dead with everything that implies. Unlike AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, his return isn't played for laughs. It's poignant, poetic, and ultimately horrifying...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

That's the question butler Oliver Reed asks of aristocrat Fiona Lewis in Andrew Sinclair's BLUE BLOOD (1973), one of the oddest movies you'll ever encounter. Novelist Sinclair had just come from doing his interesting but quirky adaptation of Dylan Thomas' UNDER MILK WOOD with Richard Burton & Peter O'Toole. This time around Sinclair adapted a bizarre story by an English aristocrat who co-wrote and co-produced the film and even allowed his historic estate to be used as the setting. On the surface BLUE BLOOD resembles Joseph Losey's THE SERVANT where Dirk Bogarde begins to dominate his employer.

This time around its Oliver Reed as the sinister butler and he employs one of the strangest accents ever heard. The story starts with an unflattering portrayal of the British upper class and then progresses from domination by domestics to possible Satanic goings on. BLUE BLOOD is incomprehensible at times and positively revels in its weirdness plus you get to see a lot of the young Derek Jacobi and Fiona Lewis as the aristocratic couple. Too bad there are no subtitles with the DVD as some of the accents and dialogue (primarily Reed's) are very difficult to understand. Worth seeing for the people involved and for the incredible house and grounds...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

THE LEGACY (1978) features Katherine Ross & Sam Elliot as interior decorators who travel from Los Angeles to an English country estate to fulfill a commission that they have received. Once there, they meet 5 beneficiaries including Roger Daltrey and Charles Gray who are gathered for the reading of a will. All 5 of them come to gruesome OMEN style deaths leaving Ross & Elliot to face the real meaning of "the legacy". Unlike THE OMEN which inspired it, THE LEGACY doesn't take itself too seriously and is a lot more enjoyable for it.

Ross & Elliot, who later became husband and wife, are solid enough though somewhat bland (although Elliot has a great shower scene) but it doesn't matter thanks to the marvelous supporting cast and the creative ways that the other guests meet their doom. The movie has big budget production values which are also a plus but the 1970s pop soundtrack by Michael J. Lewis is a definite minus. Richard Marquand made his directorial debut with THE LEGACY. He would later do EYE OF THE NEEDLE with Donald Sutherland and RETURN OF THE JEDI...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.