AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Kinley
This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Uriah43
Fleeing religious persecution a group of Huguenots settle on the Isle of Devon and establish a village where they can live and worship in peace. Unfortunately, many years later the leadership of the village is taken over by greedy and self-serving men who begin to enforce a type of religious tyranny on the residents. In one particular case a man by the name of "Jonathon Standing" (Kewin Matthews) has fallen in love with a woman named "Maggie Mason" (Marie Devereux) who is the wife of one of the leaders. Although neither have actually committed adultery when they are found in each other's embrace the decision is made to punish both all the same. In fear Maggie tries to escape by swimming to the other side of a river but is attacked and killed by piranhas. Meanwhile Jonathon is caught and then tried for adultery with Maggie's husband as one of the jurors. Although he protests his innocence he is sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in a penal colony. A couple of months later he attempts to escape but is captured by a band of pirates and taken to their leader, "Captain LaRoche" (Christopher Lee) who decides to march to the village and loot it. Now, rather than detail any more of the film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this turned out to be a decent pirate movie despite the fact that almost all of the scenes happened on dry land. I especially liked the performance of Christopher Lee who I thought played the part quite superbly. In any case, I recommend this movie to all of those who think they might enjoy a film of this type and rate it as slightly above average.
Leofwine_draca
THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER, a 1962 swashbuckler from Hammer Studios, is one of their lesser outings. You can put this down to Jimmy Sangster's lacklustre story and the lack of a decent budget, which substitutes British locations for the tropics and doesn't even include a pirate ship (apart from in an opening stock shot).Of course, those of us who enjoy B-movie fare will no doubt enjoy the spectacle of some nondescript British woodland standing in for a more exotic locale - adding a single fern leaf into the shot and a couple of pot plants isn't doing much to fool the viewer! At least it helps take the viewer's mind off the plot, which after a decent first half hour soon descends into repetitive inanity.Kerwin Matthews (THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD) stars as the youthful, romantic hero figure who's sent to a penal colony after falling foul of his puritan elders. He escapes just in time to help his villagers defend themselves from the clutches of a group of dastardly pirates looking for treasure.One of the problems with the production is the lack of a sense of menace. The pirates just don't seem to be particularly villainous and the script resorts to them fighting between themselves to supply the action. It doesn't help any when all the best actors play the pirates either: Christopher Lee, Michael Ripper, Peter Arne and Oliver Reed are all having a ball, supplying endless energy, while the villagers (including Dennis Waterman as a kid and an extra-dour Andrew Keir) are a bore.Still, it's as colourful as ever for a Hammer romp, and I'm predisposed towards this genre so that it held my attention from beginning to end. But with a little more imagination, it could have been a whole lot better and more like the above-average DEVIL-SHIP PIRATES that Hammer made a couple of years later.
Spikeopath
Pirates of Blood River is directed by John Gilling and written by Jimmy Sangster. It stars Christopher Lee, Kerwin Matthews, Glenn Corbett, Michael Ripper, Andrew Keir, Oliver Reed, Marla Landi and Peter Arne. Music is by Gary Hughes and cinematography by Arthur Grant.When Huguenot Jonathan Standish (Matthews) is found guilty of adultery, he is banished from the village and sent to serve hard labour at the penal colony. However, managing to escape, Jonathan is captured by pirates led by Captain LaRoche (Lee) and forced to lead the pirates back to his home village, where, LaRoche is convinced valuable treasure is hidden.One of Hammer Film Productions pirate ventures, Pirates of Blood River is landlocked but still a whole bunch of piratical fun. Sangster's screenplay dangles interesting carrots that aren't fully unearthed, such as the religious fervour holding the Huguenot village in its grip, and questions of main character's pasts are left unanswered, but cast are very spirited and Gilling, in spite of being brought in late and being a pain in the ass, crafts a fast paced picture of excitement and tension. The small budget and absence of a ship and seafaring malarkey is barely noticed, though this place of plunder doesn't look much like a tropical island. There's good action, especially for the "big" battle at the finale, while it's good to see low cost effects, such as a piranha attack simulated by ripples on the water, actually be very effective for dramatic purpose. Blindfold duelling, too, always a bonus.Plenty of beards, jolly roger speak, bodily abuse and guerrilla warfare, enough in fact to lift it above its obvious flaws. 7/10
whitec-3
I taped Pirates of Blood River off TCM only because it showed just before Morgan the Pirate w/ Steve Reeves, which I'd seen as a boy, but my appetite was whetted when the first credit indicated it was a Hammer Film. For post-boomers' information, Hammer was a unique studio from the late 50s through the 60s. The studio's most characteristic films were in the horror genre. The plots of these films featured stereotypical characters, dubious motivations, and exploitative outcomes. But the studio had a distinctive "house style" that featured lush colors, accomplished acting, and, for those Anglophilic times (Beatles, Stones, 007), nubile Brit babes displaying rosy cleavage. Sometimes the parts all clicked. A deep memory is of being home from college in NC around 1970 and walking with friends through the cold to a surviving downtown theater to see "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave." We expected a campy hoot-film but ended up marveling at its quality--haven't seen it since.Point: given the convenience of a fast-forward button, I'll take a chance on any Hammer Film. Pirates of Blood River is outside Hammer's standard horror genre, but the very opening has the studio's look even if it's set on a lush island rather than in a Gothic castle. The color is rich, and the Maggie character with whom Kerwin Matthews dallies displays the overripe buxomness that was among the studio's signatures. Her escape from her angry husband and other Huguenot elders into a body of water where she is eaten by piranhas earns the film's "Blood River" title.After that opening, it's not much of a pirate film or a Hammer film, and the Huguenot historical framework remains undeveloped. A painted-in pirate ship appears in one gorgeous landscape shot, but otherwise the pirates grow peckish as they attack a village on foot and carry a golden statue of a Huguenot leader back to the river. Christopher Lee and Oliver Reed, who would later play Dracula, Mummy, and Werewolf in other Hammer Films, embellish their characters with stylish physicality, but most of the other pirates are only irritating or bland beyond their standard costumes. The islanders stage an impressive ambush or two, but overall it's a low-budget, underwritten adventure that feels longer than its 87 minutes. What seems most impressive or charming--and maybe a minor testament to the 50s-60s in economic history--is that such a film could ever be made at all; unimaginable today.
