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

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 Body Beneath: Directed by Andy Milligan. N.B. IMDb 82mins. It's difficult not to like a vampire movie with an odd bit of atmosphere filmed and produced by the late Andy Milligan, a director people love to hate. He was well known for producing movies with budgets ranging between $8 and $30, 000 dollars on a regular basis and giving the viewer in this case something creepy and surprisingly well put together. It was shot on location in England and some scenes were filmed in one of the most wildly filmed gothic cemeteries, Highgate Cemetery. An ancient coven of avant-garde vampires are hunting for their last living relatives in order to find a new bloodline in order to continue their existence. Their leader, the Reverend Alexander Algernon Ford, (Gavin Reed ) has the usual streak of cruelty in him but he's also a very different kind of vampire. He needs a blood transfusion before he can walk outside in the sunshine. I never saw a vampire having a blood transfusion before. Our friend the reverend has a lease on Carfax Abbey near Hempstead Heath. Very Draculaish, don't you think? He's accompanied by a trio of ladies, in particular a green painted, very red lipped vampire, looking more like a zombie, who walk about during the day and a sad blonde haired ski hatted mortal hunchback called Spool, (Berwick Taylor), their servant, who all follow their master in this schlock horror feast. Normally in a vampire movie you would expect a lot of blood and gore ,but in this one you get a lot of talk and talk. In fact, that reverend vampire never stops talking , especially when he reveals his final plans. The sepia unfocused green tinted look and its terrible mono sound with its home movie look about it seem to fit well with the severity of the decaying building where most of the filming occurs. The idea of the story has the makings of a good vampire movie but all those painted maidens and poor Spool (rather a strange name) get in the way of the actual story. Finally the movie itself is a bit slow at times but the last fifteen minutes are so crazily weird enough to make it worth watching though it's really for someone who loves a bad movie. bcarruthers-76500

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.

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.