Terror is a 1978 British horror film directed by Norman J. Warren from a screenplay by David McGillivray. Producers Les and Moira Young provided the storyline.
It stars John Nolan, Carolyn Courage, James Aubrey, Sarah Keller, Tricia Walsh and Glynis Barber.
Royal ancestors feel the wrath of the curse of the condemned witch Mad Dolly, who spews forth her prophecy while she is burned at the stake. The victims suffer death by having their heads removed in various fashions, getting their limbs caught in animal traps, knife wounds, and other methods of medieval torture.
“McGillivray’s script is efficient and unobtrusive, its sole purpose is to string together the many delightfully exuberant set-pieces. Warren’s direction is assured and all the members of the cast appear to be having a wonderful time. Particularly praiseworthy is the standard of the special effects, which are especially impressive when one considers the tight budget within which the film was concocted.” Harvey Fenton, Ten Years of Terror, FAB Press, 2001
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“The lack of practical congruence between the murders and the witch’s curse isn’t just something that becomes evident in retrospect, nor is Anne’s absence of motive any less immediately obvious. Whatever resolution Terror might offer in the end is unmistakably foredoomed to be total bullshit, if indeed it will deign to offer any resolution at all. That being so, the whole midsection is mere wheel-spinning, and McGillivray, the Youngs, and director Norman J. Warren are all powerless to make it seem otherwise.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting
“The ending is mind-bogglingly stupid and pointless, the deaths seem to bear no relationship to the initial curse, and there’s even an appearance by a particularly fat and washed-up ex Doctor Who companion, in the portly form of Michael Craze. If you like your horror short, bloody and daft, Terror is for you.” British Horror Films
“It is unfortunate, though, that Warren’s penchant for marking every climax with excited closeups of mangled and maimed throats – a tendency further aggravated in his Inseminoid (1980) – makes this a cheap and nasty movie.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror (edited by Phil Hardy, 1997)
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