The Body Beneath

Andy Milligan has firmly established himself in my mind as probably the worst horror director of all time. Despite making decent sexploitation flick 'Seeds' in 1968, Milligan has succeeded only in boring me to death with the rest of his crappy oeuvre since then, and this film is certainly no exception. I really don't understand this director at all; it seems like he's trying to make some sort of point as his films all have a similar style, but somehow nothing comes out of them but boredom. Take the plot pace of this film as an example; it's painfully slow and the dialogues are delivered by actors who sound like they're close to death. Quite how Milligan made this film and didn't realise how dull it was is anyone's guess...my only thought on the matter is that perhaps it was the director's intention to torture his audience? The plot supposedly revolves around vampires but for all I care they could have been clowns, postmen, FBI agents or French maids...it doesn't really matter. No film made with as little enthusiasm as this is ever going to be interesting, and after seeing five Milligan films; I doubt I'll be seeing another.

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

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

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.

One of The better Milligan films that actually sort of works if you give it a a few allowances. One of Milligans English films, this movie actually is a good...okay...just...story of a vampires and such trying to get new blood into their family. (that maybe giving too much away, or not since the movie doesn't wholly make sense.) Technically competent which only has to survive the need to keep all of the actors in close huddle and some make up that would be too thick even on stage, this is a decent drama/thriller thats actually one of the few Milligan movies I can recommend on any level. Sure it dances the fine line around being a bad movie (and crosses over into that territory a few times) but its the sort of time killer you may actually watch to the end. Both better and worse than I'm making out this maybe the Milligan movie to start with if you have a yen so long as you understand what you're getting yourself into.