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

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.

Please excuse me, but I forgot to put my name tag on my review and I inadvertantly hit the wrong button and ended up with a 10/10 award instead of 1/10. Could you possibly edit the review for me please. Regards. Brian Carruthers.

The Body Beneath (1970)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A family of vampires realize that their bloodline is coming to an end so they must try and get new people in so that their family tradition can continue.

THE BODY BENEATH is one of five films that director Andy Milligan made in Britian and believe it or not this film has some fans out there. Sadly, I am not one of them as I found this to be yet another extremely boring period piece that just didn't have enough working in it to keep me interested. It's strange but the more Milligan films I see the more of them I don't like but at the same time I find myself becoming a fan. That might sound weird because how can you become a fan by watching bad movies? Perhaps it's the fact that no matter which Milligan movie you're watching you can tell that it's a Milligan picture.

I must admit that I somewhat admire the fact that he was making these period looking films on such a small budget. There are all sorts of technical issues with this film and there really aren't any "good" performances. With that said, the film remains mildly entertaining just because of that weird factor that the director always managed to bring to his pictures.

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