“Well, it can’t be human, can it? It feeds on human flesh!”

Beautifully shot, with fog-shrouded moors, a lovely period setting and a racist "white-woman-blacked-up-to-play-an-Indian" bit of casting, The Ghoul is a Gothic horror in the Hammer tradition, which unfortunately by the time it was made was woefully out of whack with the trends at the time. Still, with the benefit of hindsight, it's a cracker. Racism aside.

Peter Cushing (as great as ever) keeps his son (a pre Bullman, pre Tango ads Don Henderson wearing nowt but green body paint and a big nappy) locked in his bedroom after he contracts a strange tropical disease. 

John Hurt (years before a baby Alien made a mess of his white t-shirt and ruined everyone's breakfast) is a nutty gardener working for Cushing on his Cornish estate (what is it about Gothic horrors and Cornwall? You'd be forgiven for thinking the production crew fancied a holiday there, except that the nearest this film gets to a fog shrouded moor is a dry ice-shrouded Shepperton studios). 

Enter a group of hooray Henrys and Henriettas (including horror stalwart Ian McCulloch and annoyingly over-confident Alexandra Bastedo), who have been enjoying the most boring car race in history. 

Well, you can guess what happens next, can't you? Bumpings-off galore, a fair amount of blood letting… yup, all the things we love. And all done with a lot of class. A late night must-see. This was one of the last of the 70s attempts to ressurrect the Gothic horrors that had proved so successful in the 60s, and it has all the ingredients.