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The Blood on Satan's Claw

Play trailer Poster for The Blood on Satan's Claw R 1971 1h 40m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
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73% Tomatometer 11 Reviews 60% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
When a mysterious corpse is accidentally dug up by a boy in a small town, a group of local teens starts acting very strangely. The adolescents, led by a girl named Angel (Linda Hayden), are convinced the corpse was once possessed. Hoping to get in touch with the devil through the body, the teens act out a series of demonic rituals that causes a stir among the townspeople. When word of the satanic activity spreads, certain parents start trying to lock up the kids behind the spooky stunts.
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The Blood on Satan's Claw

Critics Reviews

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Tom Huddleston Time Out It's visually beautiful, too, with an unusual but effective use of in-camera framing, and the score by Mark Wilkinson is creepy and immersive. Mar 17, 2020 Full Review Margaret Hinxman Daily Telegraph (UK) Blood On Satan's Claw practises the black arts in seventeenth century England with rather more blood-curdling relish than I enjoy. Mar 17, 2020 Full Review Vincent Canby New York Times It has a good deal of the quality of an H.P. Lovecraft work, in the vulnerability of even its heroic characters, as well as in its pastoral landscape that contains the threat of "eeveel" within every sun-dappled glade. May 25, 2005 Full Review Jennie Kermode Eye for Film It touches on an underlying anxiety in British society as few other films have done. Rated: 4.5/5 Nov 4, 2021 Full Review Rob Aldam Backseat Mafia A fiendish folk horror which is both extremely creepy and deliciously demonic. May 23, 2019 Full Review Lucius Gore ESplatter A little hard to find these days, but well worth searching for, 'Blood on Satan's Claw' is a classic. Rated: 4/4 Jun 17, 2008 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Michael S I enjoyed this one-something about the simplicity reminded me of a what Director Eggers has been doing recently with film. While its not perfect I found it fascinating and had alot of visceral power to the storytelling. I especially liked the demon and the screen direction. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 11/03/25 Full Review john w genuinely scarey when I first watched this in the 70s , still something unsettling about it today Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/29/25 Full Review JLD D. Entertained me through the entire movie. Worth watching. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/21/25 Full Review Zahara B Did not really draw me in, nothing interesting about the characters, not a lot of detail on the few plot points that happened. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 08/09/25 Full Review Allan C Surprisingly good British folk horror The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) **** Quite good British bit of Folk Horror about a Satanic cult spreading amongst the children of a remote English village. I was expecting the film to be a cheesy but enjoyable film along the lines of TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER, but it ended up being a surprisingly shocking and genuinely frightening film closer to Michael Reeves’ brilliant WITCHFINDER GENERAL. The real standout of the film is the ringleader of the cult, Linda Blake, who’d appeared in a ton of British horror films, but never made much of an impression on me until this film. It could be her crazy, over-exaggerated eyebrows that grabbed my attention, but the scene where she tries to seduce the local reverend is a high point of the film. I’m going to have to investigate more of her movies. There’s one where she plays a teenage hitchhiker who gets pregnant and then drives Peter Finch to madness that I’ll definitely want to check out. But this film is filled with all sorts of strange little moments, such as the kids convincing a weakling peer into skipping scripture class to play a game in the woods that goes horribly wrong. Or when the children begin to sprout patches of demonic fur that need to be flayed off their bodies. There are some moments that genuinely send a shiver up your spine! As with most folk horror, it’s a horror sub-genre that’s not for all tastes, but if you enjoyed THE WICKERMAN, WITCHFINDER GENERAL, or the more recent MIDSOMMAR, you’ll probably dig this film. FUN FACT! Director Piers Haggard is the great-great-nephew of the pulp writer H. Rider Haggard, author of KING SOLOMON’S MINES and SHE. AI CAPSULE REVIEW: The Blood on Satan’s Claw is a surprisingly chilling slice of British folk horror, closer in tone to Witchfinder General than the campier occult fare of the era. With eerie imagery, unsettling twists, and a standout performance by Linda Blake, it’s a must for fans of The Wicker Man or Midsommar. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 07/16/25 Full Review Jason W I'm generally not much into period style films or British films, but this one was very unnerving and had some pretty decent parts, albeit it also had some disturbing scenes (the r*pe scene for sure was uncomfortable), and kept my attention for the most part. Quite an interesting film. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 07/06/25 Full Review Read all reviews
The Blood on Satan's Claw

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Movie Info

Synopsis When a mysterious corpse is accidentally dug up by a boy in a small town, a group of local teens starts acting very strangely. The adolescents, led by a girl named Angel (Linda Hayden), are convinced the corpse was once possessed. Hoping to get in touch with the devil through the body, the teens act out a series of demonic rituals that causes a stir among the townspeople. When word of the satanic activity spreads, certain parents start trying to lock up the kids behind the spooky stunts.
Director
Piers Haggard
Producer
Peter L. Andrews, Malcolm Heyworth
Screenwriter
Piers Haggard, Robert Wynne-Simmons
Distributor
Cannon Films, Facets, MGM/UA Home Entertainment Inc.
Production Co
Chilton Films, Tigon British Film Productions Ltd.
Rating
R
Genre
Horror
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Apr 14, 1971, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 3, 2019
Runtime
1h 40m
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.85:1)
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