1966 **1/2A man reads a note left for him in his cottage, and then angrily trudges out the door. He reaches a nearby mansion, enters, and climbs the staircase. Reaching a door in the shadowy hallway, he hesitates for the first time, when behind him a distinguished older man enters the scene. He yells "Stop! You musn't go in there!" and the younger man turns around -- and is then attacked and bitten by a form in the shadows. Released, he clutches his neck in agony, as his flesh turns black and his mouth foams, he tumbles down the staircase. He's dead before he reaches the bottom.
(Note to self: It might be worth paying attention to "movies in which shouts of warning only serve to distract the warnee and open them to danger.")
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? As the words "A Seven Arts-Hammer Film Production" graced the screen, I realized I've only seen one other Hammer movie, barring those I saw as a kid and have forgotten. The other movie is To the Devil a Daugther from 1976. The films share a similar difficulty in plot, but The Reptile has an advantage being made ten years ealier and being a period piece: it's so very British.
The distinguished man's Indian servant is seen hauling the body to the graveyard, and we're treated to a title shot with a slightly incongrous typeface.
You can just make out the body lying behind the bottom of the P. Curiously, he's buried in that exact spot.
Enter Harry Spalding and his plucky wife Valerie. Harry is the brother of the recently-deceased Charlie Spalding, and decides it's time for he and his wife to move to the country cottage they've just inherited. This was one of those times I was completely puzzled by the supposed charm of the English countryside. I guess it's about fifty-fifty: in some movies the landscape is indeed breathtaking, but in others it's scrubby and unimpressive, and I just can't see what the big deal is.
Harry and Valerie don't have the warmest of welcomes, however, as the moment Harry walks into the local pub and starts talking about this brother the whole group files out. The strong hints that they ought to leave town are a staple of the movie, and the Spaldings meet these with a uniformly steadfast righteous defiance. So staunchly British.
While he doesn't hit the bar, Dr. Franklyn (the distinguished man from the opening scene) also leans on his new neighbors, besides generally acting like a weirdo. His Britishness is the best, because he can be a total jerk and then effortlessly fall back on his aristocratic charm to let you stop worrying about his behavior.
Harry and Valerie have the village nutter Mad Peter over for dinner, because in the countryside homeless people wear blazers and are amusing. But whatever killed Charlie isn't really slowing down, and later that night he's Foamy Black Peter, and then Dead Peter.
As usual the townfolk just want to shrug it off and mumble into their ales, so Harry goes to work on the apathy of barkeep Tom Bailey, getting a two-for-two record for emptying the bar. It's pretty hilarious the second time, all these raggedy old Limey duffers filing out of the tiny pub. I figured they all hid around the corner until Harry left, because there didn't seem to be anywhere else to go.
Valerie befriends the young, beautiful Anna Franklyn from next door, but then Dr. Franklyn shows up and gets all politely bitchtastic. "Anna, you will come home AT ONCE!... Please forgive me, Mrs. Spalding." But he's too late to isolate Anna, she's already invited the Spaldings to dinner and it's against the rules of British not to come through. So the world's most awkward dinner party ensues and then they retire to the parlor so Anna can show off some of the musical training she learned in the Far East.
Here the awkwardness reaches a wild crescendo as Anna plays faster and faster and fixes her father with an intense stare. He glares back at her as his blood boils until finally he lashes out and does a total John Belushi on her instrument. Smash! Bang, smash! Not even a "sorry."
"I think we shall be going, Dr. Franklyn."
The problem that The Reptile shares with To the Devil a Daughter is that even when the plot is arguably moving it still seems more like an ever-growing accretion of suspense and clues. It's not as bad as And Now the Screaming Starts!, because things do actually happen, but after a while the smaller details get blurry, and you start forgetting why it matters that whoever it was looked in the window and saw whatever it was they saw.
It's a subtle flaw, because the performances, setting and general idea are pretty solid. But there's a mistake in the math, and the plot arcs too long on the upward curve. The wrap-up seems a bit too quick (and why did he smash that sitar? They never say). And it's also a bit too goofy, as if the movie wore your patience just a shade too far to buoy its own ridiculousness.
Or maybe it's that the monster wore a tight green evening gown that should have made it very hard to walk. You never see it as clearly as you see this model, but it's pretty accurate. What, was that her skin?This doesn't end so badly I'd call it a fizzle, but I can't really recommend it. It's a worthy study in British horror, and in laying ground for suspense, but it doesn't get three stars. Nyah.
