Yet another movie that I can't believe wasn't a Hammer production. The fact that it wasn't may explain why it was so bad.
To its credit, the movie looks fantastic.
So, what's the problem here? The movie is beyond boring! It starts as a basic gothic ghost story - we're good so far.
It takes forever to unfold, and I mean the very end of the second act, to give a flashback that reveals the reason for the haunting.
I'll just give this away here, because the movie doesn't deserve to have any secrets kept: our ghost put a curse on the land, several years ago. But why? Well, his new bride was raped by the landlord. Look, there are lots of movies I greatly enjoy that have brutal rape scenes in them - _Irreversible_, _A Serbian Film_, just to name a few - but this one was so out of left field, and so late in the movie, that it ruined the entire movie by being more intense than the film deserved. Let me clarify. I think our ghost's name was Silas; Okay, the cutting off of his hand, and rape of his wife make him into a sympathetic character - yeah, I want him to get revenge. Trouble is, he doesn't go after the people responsible, no, he goes after a girl - Catherine - who has nothing to do with it.
The next problem is with Catherine herself - or more accurately, Stephanie Beacham. Look, she could not act. This wouldn't be so bad, but she is the lead here! If the star of your movie can't act, that's a problem.
So many problems, from beginning to end, not the least of which was a scene where a character repeatedly swings a skeleton! I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. I'd call this a so-bad-it's-good movie, but that rape scene, man... I just can't get past that.

**_Bad first half, good second half_**

Catherine (Stephanie Beacham) moves to the Fengriffen manor in rural England, 1795, to marry her fiancé Charles (Ian Ogilvy) where she’s immediately fascinated by a portrait of his dead father, Henry (Herbert Lom), as well as harassed by spectral images, including that of a severed hand. Does the loner woodsman (Geoffrey Whitehead) hold the key to why the estate is cursed? Peter Cushing dominates the second half as a doctor of the mind.

Amicus’ “And Now the Screaming Starts!” (1973) has a typical plot for British horror of that era, but it lacks finesse in execution, like the curious overuse of the quick zoom on Henry's portrait to suggest a sense of foreboding and the cheesy severed hand that rears its fingers too early. Catherine’s hysterics don’t help.

Thankfully, the second half gets compelling with the arrival of Dr. Pope (Cushing) and an interesting flashback to 1745 that explains the weird goings-on. Of course Stephanie was one of the most beautiful women to walk the earth.

So this is a tale of two halves: The first half veers toward “What were they thinking?” bad while the second half is quite good.

The film runs 1 hour and 31 minutes and was shot at Shepperton Studios, Middlesex, England, with the exteriors of Fengriffen Castle done in Windsor, Berkshire.

GRADE: C

Roy Ward Baker has assembled quite a decent cast for this rather daft horror film. Stephanie Beacham is "Catherine" who is to marry the squire of "Fengriffen" (Ian Ogilvy) and so moves into his manor house. Her wedding night certainly doesn't go to plan, though - she discovers that there are ghosts and they are out to enforce a curse put upon the family many years ago. Can they sort out this scourge before it drives her mad or worse, takes her life? This really picks up after about 50 minutes when Peter Cushing ("Dr. Pope") comes onto the scene to help them get to the bottom of it, but otherwise it's all just a rather predictable, cheap and cheerful, horror with lots of squeaking violins to compensate for some mediocre dialogue and acting. The few scenes with Herbert Lom liven it up a bit, and there is fun to be had with the wandering hand, but for the most part it is just really well titled - lots of screaming,