Cushing shines in "Night of the Ghoul"

Night of the Ghoul (aka "The Ghoul" and "The Thing in the Attic") (1975)
Starring: Peter Cushing, Veronica Carlson, John Hurt, Alexandra Bastedo, Ian McCulloch, Gwen Watford, and Don Henderson
Director: Freddie Francis
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A group of drunken young people out for a drive (Carlson, Bastedo, McCulloch) get lost on country back roads. Ignoring the warning of a crazy country bumpkin (Hurt), they seek refuge in the isolated mansion of Dr. Lawrence (Cushing). When the visitors start dying messily, the secret of the mansion is revealed in all its horror.


"Night of the Ghoul" is a great-looking film burdened a meandering, unoriginal script full of badly written dialogue, which in turn leads to weak performances by most of the featured actors. The one standout performance is delivered by Peter Cushing. It's not unusual that he is the only decent thing about a movie he appears in, but his performance as the tortured Dr. Lawerence is one of his very best and most moving screen appearances. This may be because Cushing reached into himself and used the real pain he still felt from the death of his wife--who had been the center of his world in every way--in one of two tributes he gave to their love on screen. (The other appears in the 1972 anthology film "Tales from the Crypt".)

Aside from Cushing, there's nothing else particularly noteworthy here... and nothing that you haven't seen done better in other movies. Even the Big Secret of Dr.Lawrence's creepy old mansion, while pretty horrendous, is presented in such a feeble fashion that what was supposed to be shocking feels more like a "how terrible... and they were such nice people, too" moment.

"Night of the Ghoul" is a film that admirers of the great talent that was Peter Cushing should seek out. Everyone else won't be missing much if they pass on this film.

Saturday Scream Queen: Veronica Carlson

Blonde and beautiful Veronica Carlson graced several of the best gothic horror flicks during the late 1960s, being victimized by such classic movie villains as Christopher Lee's Dracula and Peter Cushing's Baron Frankenstein. In fact, never has Cushing's Frankenstein been so loathsome as when he raped Carlson's character in "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed" (1969).

Carlson married in 1974, and she retired from acting to raise her family and pursue a career as a painter.

Click here to read reviews of the films where Carlson starred opposite the great Peter Cushing at The Peter Cushing Collection.

You just can't keep a bad vampire down....

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968)
Starring: Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Christopher Lee, Ewan Hooper, and Barry Andrews
Director: Freddie Francis
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

After a craven, cowardly priest (Hooper) accidentally revives Dracula (Lee) from an icy grave in a shadowy crevice of a Transylvanian mountain, the vampire lord discovers his castle has been sealed with blessings and cruxifixes. Swearing revenge, he pursues the Monsignor who made his home inaccessible to him (Davies).


Although it's a direct sequel to "Dracula: Prince of Darkness", "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave" pays little attention to continuity. (Castle Dracula is a fortress in this movie, where it was more of a chateau in the two previous films.)

That aside, however, the film presents a Dracula who is far more evil than he's been portrayed before, cramming more nasty needs into the limited amount of time he is afforded into the story into this one movie than in the previous two. The opening of the film where a murdered girl is found stuffed inside a church's bell is one of the more shocking openers to any of Hammer's horror films. Dracula's pursuit of Monsignor Mueller and his family--particularly of the lovely Maria (Veronica Carlson) also gives rise to a number of chilling moments.

The movie also features some fine acting, gorgeous sets and great camerawork... not to mention the gorgeous cleavages of Carlson and Barbara Ewing! In other words, it's got all the elements we expect to find in a Hammer vampire flick from the 1950s and 1960s.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from the lack of a strong antagonist to combat Dracula. Rupert Davies is okay, but he's no Peter Cushing (Van Helsing in "Horror of Dracula") or Andrew Keir (Father Sandor in "Dracula: Prince of Darkness"). It also doesn't help the film that the good guys triumph in the end here because of a deus ex machina finale. (And I think that plot device has rarely been so literally on display as it is in this film.)

If you're a fan of Hammer's vampire movies, I think you'll enjoy "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave". It's not quite as good as "Horror of Dracula" or "Dracula: Prince of Darkness", but it's a nice chiller.