“You could have been one of us, you silly man! Now you’ll burn! You’re gonna burn!”

Christopher Lee? Island off the coast of Scotland? Human sacrifice? If you’re thinking “I’m sold”, allow me to add a few caveats. Keith Barron. Diana Dors in her “gone-to-seed battle-axe” phase. Tinier-even-than-usual budget. You may have thought this was a certain other film, but you’d be disappointed. Although Nothing But The Night is still nothing but entertaining, if not always for the right reasons.

Trustees of an orphanage are dying in mysterious circumstances. Morris Minor over cliff edge, shot in face whilst minding own business in living room, etc. Deaths with a certain early 70s vibe.

But it isn’t until a bus accident involving the children from said orphanage that the authorities really start showing an interest. On this occasion, after complaining about the incessant noise from his young passengers, the bus driver goes to light a cigarette (see? 1970s) and explodes, causing the bus to crash.

The pint-sized, beret-wielding ringleader of the bus-based shenanigans, Mary Valley (Gwyneth Strong) is now in hospital, apparently in a coma (although it’s the most lively coma I’ve ever seen) crying out about fire. Doctor Haynes (Keith Barron) is on the case, but baffled. He brings in his boss, Sir Mark Ashley (Peter Cushing), who as a pathologist is utterly ill-equipped to deal with this particular issue but who will of course be able to bring his skills to bear later in the story, when pathology is (sort of) needed. It’s that kind of film.

Also enter Christopher Lee, who has the look of an actor who doesn’t really know what his character is supposed to be or indeed why he’s here, but given his company are producing this film, there had better be a bloody part for him in it somewhere or so help me. He’s ex police chief and government investigator Colonel Bingham, who is investigating the deaths of the trustees.

In a busy day for the hospital, the next to turn up is Mary’s mother, Anna Harb (Dors). Mary has been removed from her care and orphanised (if you will), but Anna is fighting to get her back. Thrown out of the hospital, Anna goes to a newspaper to tell her story. “I am her mother. They’ve got no right to steal her from me! She’s mine!”

But it turns out that the authorities might have a legitimate reason for their actions, as the journalist on the story Joan Foster (Georgia Brown) points out that Anna has done time for triple murder. “That’s why they took your Mary away!”

Dr Haynes is convinced that hypnosis is the answer to discovering what’s going on (audience: yes please, we’re a bit baffled at this point), and it also turns out that despite knowing Anna is a loon, the redoubtable Joan has decided to take her case on anyway, whilst also striking up a romantic affair with Dr Haynes. It really is all go on the ward.

The hypnosis goes about as well as can be expected (everyone is by this point getting hilariously angry), and despite the further revelation that Anna is also a “common prostitute”, the next prognosis is to allow Mary to meet her errant mother. THIS goes about as well as you’d expect, with Haynes somehow getting a hat pin rammed through his bonce.

And so, Mary is sent back to the Scottish Isles, with the not-to-be-put-off Anna hot on her heels. Back in London the newspaper headlines are screaming MARY VALLEY IS SAFE! Apropos of absolutely nothing. Quite how this young girl, who until now has been very much out of the limelight, deserves a large point headline full-naming her is anyone’s guess. Safe from what, exactly? Hat pins, one assumes.

The music’s picked up again, apparently this news is so positive it has affected the soundtrack. And it’s catching – Mary is extraordinarily happy to be back at the orphanage. But ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE ELSE IS. For what reason, we’re not exactly sure. Joan breaks into Dr Haynes’ groovy flat to listen to his taped thoughts on the Mary Valley situation. Ashley and Bingham jump on a plane bound for Scotland, after Bingham is officially put on the case by the Home Secretary. The police are searching the UK for Mary’s missing mum (clue: try the Scottish island her daughter lives on). The nation’s press are also on their way to Scotland. Meanwhile, the audience is left utterly in the dark as to why everyone is suddenly so exercised about this young girl, whilst simultaneously shouting at the screen: “You know where she is! Just take her into protective custody! Or at least put some police officers INSIDE the orphanage, ffs!”

As the boat containing Ashley, Bingham and everyone else involved traverses the sea to the island, they spot another boat full of orphanage trustees, which promptly explodes, prompting the immortal exchange:

“There were five trustees on board, but no children.”

 “Thank God for that small mercy!”

So, we’re now ALL on the island, no-one has removed the children from the orphanage (despite one of them going missing and turning up dead from a serious case of satanic chicanery), Christopher Lee has been more Christopher Lee than ever before as he gives the ineffective local police a dressing-down (“Did nobody understand the danger these children were in?!!”, well to be honest no, not really), and with logic and sense now firmly dropped out of the window, Peter Cushing is chopping up the brains of the dead trustees, because that’s the kind of thing Peter Cushing usually does in this type of film.

Meanwhile Diana Dors has spent all this time defining the phrase “hiding in plain sight”, choosing an assortment of shrubs to fall into and gentle slopes to roll down as she continues to evade the nation’s police.

At the orphanage, preparations are now well underway for Mary’s bonfire party (because as we all know, what at-risk children really need in their lives is a naked flame). So we rush to the grim denouement, which chucks in a baffling amount of exposition as well as a salutary lesson in keeping low-flying helicopters away from ill-advised bonfire parties.

Nothing But The Night REALLY picks up in its last 10 minutes or so, escalating remarkably quickly from a laughable “child in peril” tale to a bonkers mishmash of The Wicker Man and Get Out via a remarkable mass suicide. Yes, it’s the kind of film where no-one seems bothered about the escalating body count, and a Chief Constable enjoys his meals alone at a huge table groaning with lit candles. But it also doesn’t shy away from giving us an ending which may actually be one of the grimmest in the world of classic British horror films.