Dr Blood's Coffin

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Good, gruesome climax mostly saves rather slow thriller........2002-08-13

Dr. Peter Blood (no relation to Captain) has a problem. His name makes it obvious he's the villain. But I jest; certainly his is a convenient moniker, at least for horror movie purposes, with Frankenstein being taken, but since the people in this movie are quite thick-headed his secret stays safe for a long time. His real problem is that he has discovered a way to bring the dead back to life, and cannot make the simpletons around him see that it is okay for him to vivisect living humans to gain the parts he needs.
He returns to his childhood home on the English coast, after being kicked out of medical school in Vienna for his grisly dealings. His town has been wracked with disappearances and thefts over the past while, and the audience knows Blood has been doing it, because the opening scene showed him to be a madman. Yet for a few minutes the filmmakers hide his face as if this movie is going to be a mystery. Apparently news of his transgressions at school did not make it back home, because he is welcomed with open arms. He promptly pitches in on trying to locate the fiend, while simultaneously using his medical knowledge and good reputation to lead the authorities astray, as well as romancing the beguilingly beautiful Hazel Court, a nurse in his father's clinic. We instinctively know all this hard work is going to catch up to Blood, because, well, he's a crazed villain. And besides, you're just not supposed to date your co-workers.
Anyway, Blood dispatches a few more villagers, is nearly discovered when one crawls away and barely lacks the strength to ID him, is discovered, kills one more, is discovered again, by Hazel, and races off to the cave where he has been keeping his still-living victims and performing his experiments.
If the flick hasn't been exactly bad up to this point, but merely pokey and obvious, here's where it gets good. He finally succeeds in his experiment, transplanting a still-beating heart into Hazel's dead husband's corpse. This he does to spite her for rejecting his creepy advances. Talk about holding a grudge. The moldy stiff gets up and attacks Hazel. The cops seem to have stopped for tea on the way, and are nowhere to be found, as the undead fiend from heck menaces our heroine. But Blood, in a fit of conscience(?), stops the thing and fights with it himself. For a dead guy, Hazel's ex sure can scrap. Not that we can see much in the sloppily-directed Toho-esque elbows-and-angles style bout. At any rate, his transplanted heart must have been like a diesel engine, because the rotting man manages to strangle Blood. Then he expires himself, for some unknown reason. Hazel stumbles out of the cave, to the police, who act like they had intended to storm the cave but had experienced car troubles.
That is a happy ending, I suppose, although I still don't know where the titular Coffin of Dr. Blood fits into the story. That seems a more fitting title for any eventual sequel. But I digress.
Kieron Moore does well as Dr. Blood, but looks vaguely like a somewhat handsomer Cosmo Kramer, spoiling his manic performance a trifle. Hazel Court does very well just being Hazel Court. Her uncredited dead husband looks suitably grody.
But the story's pacing and seen-it-all-before nature hurt. The modern setting didn't help, either; there's a lot less mystique to the 1960's than to the 1860's. With phones in existence, why didn't someone from Vienna warn the town a dangerous mad scientist was on his way? And how did Blood beat Hazel and the cops back to the cave by enough of a margin to complete open-heart surgery? In horse-and-buggy days, I might have overlooked it, but in Volkswagen times, that plot convenience sticks out sorely.
The print is surprisingly good for a company that allows typos on the box and cannot be bothered to get their brief synopsis correct.
In summation, I've made much sport of this movie, and it is funny in a dry way, but it's mostly well-done and I do recommend it for genre fans.
See also: The Hammer Frankensteins; Mania; The Body Snatcher

Classic Horror Double Feature-Doctor Blood's Coffin/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

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Classic Horror Double Feature-Doctor Blood's Coffin/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

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Digitally remastered superior picture and sound quality
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ASIN: B000EHM16A

Product Description

Doctor Blood's Coffin Kieron Moore stars as research scientist Dr. Peter Blood, who's been experimenting with heart transplants. Thrown out of Vienna for wishing to move from lab animals to humans, Blood sets up shop in the village of Cornwall. Within a few months of his arrival, several Cornwallians disappear from view. Dr. Blood, you see, has been merrily transplanting hearts in a secret lab located in an abandoned tin mine. Unfortunately, one of his resurrected humans reacts negatively to the operationespecially after he discovers that Blood has been dallying with his wife The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari In one of the most influential films of the silent era, Werner Krauss plays the title character, a sinister hypnotist who travels the carnival circuit displaying a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt). In one tiny German town, a series of murders coincides with Caligari's visit. When the best friend of hero Francis (Friedrich Feher) is killed, the deed seems to be the outgrowth of a romantic rivalry over the hand of the lovely Jane (Lil Dagover). Francis suspects Caligari, but he is ignored by the police. Investigating on his own, Francis seemingly discovers that Caligari has been ordering the somnambulist to commit the murders, but the story eventually takes a more surprising direction.

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Dr. Blood's Coffin
Starring: Hazel Court , Paul Hardtmuth , Ian Hunter , Gerald Lawson , and Kieron Moore
Director: Sidney J. Furie
Manufacturer: Cheezy Flicks Ent
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000AYELJW
Release Date: 2005-10-25

Description

We dare you to look into...Doctor Blood's Coffin! - After being expelled from medical school in the big city, Dr. Peter Blood returns to his childhood home in Porthcarron, a remote village in Cornwell. Where he is free to continue his dangerous and unauthorized experiments on people. While his father, the small towns doctor, is excited about his sons arrival, the mysterious disappearances of several citizens and medical supplies have the entire town on edge. - DOCTOR BLOODS COFFIN is a trend-setting example of 1960s classic horror, a compelling mix of strong characterization, shocking ideas with a great deal of on-screen graphic bone chilling gore.

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