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Awix (3310 KP) rated The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964) in Movies

Feb 10, 2019 (Updated Feb 10, 2019)

The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964)

1964 | Action, Drama, History

6.0

(2 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Hammer swashbuckler is an odd mixture of the colourful and the stodgy; shipload of dodgy Spanish types fleeing the defeat of the Armada pitch up in Cornwall and try to persuade the isolated local villagers that their side won, so they can get help fixing their ship.

Christopher Lee and a bunch of other Hammer rep stalwarts go through the motions professionally enough, though this isn't strictly speaking a horror movie (much talk of floggings, hangings, and tongues being cut out, though) - the 'village under foreign occupation' theme gives it the feel of a Second World War movie, weirdly enough. Decent sword fights, quite good production values - in the end it passes the time agreeably enough.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) in Movies

Feb 15, 2018 (Updated Feb 15, 2018)

Mmmm, Blood of Dracula

Superior Hammer horror movie. Victorian hypocrites looking for naughty kicks get mixed up with one of Dracula's disciples, inadvertently bring him back. Dracula is not grateful and uses their own children to get them.

Usual strong Hammer cast, polished production values, lush James Bernard score - topical (for the time) subtext about the generation gap, and the depiction of Dracula as an avenging angel of darkness is an interesting new twist on a character who seemed in danger of running out of things to do. Dracula was originally supposed to be reincarnated as Ralph Bates, but the distributors insisted they get Lee back, much against his will as usual.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated The Terrornauts (1967) in Movies

Oct 20, 2019

Almost wholly inept British sci-fi B-movie. Aliens abduct a shed containing two astronomers, their secretary, an accountant, and the institute's tea lady in order to secure their help in repelling an attack on the Earth.

Starts slow, is dull in the middle, gets very silly towards the end (it's the kind of movie which seems to assume that the audience for SF films is made up of very young children and congenital idiots). Production values and special effects manage to be even worse than you'd expect, but deserves such a low score mainly because it doesn't contain a single interesting or original idea. Every bit as poor as its reputation would suggest.