In 1795, after moving to her fiancé Charles Fengriffen's family estate, Catherine experiences visions of an undead corpse with a heavily birthmarked face, empty eye sockets and a severed right hand.

Some 50 years earlier, Henry raped the bride of his servant, Silas – whose son, the woodsman, is the spitting image of his father.

Henry later showed remorse and bequeathed Silas land, where the son has stayed to watch his dead father's threat come to fruition.

There's an awkward performance by Stephanie Beacham, who amply heaves her ample bosom whenever the horrors warrant it, but is less successful at gradating or controlling her frightened facial expressions and screams – admittedly no easy matter when the script ... dictates these effusions at nearly every turn in the plot.

Indeed, a heaping on of repetitive horror-visions simply leads to a diffusion of effect ... Unhappiest of all, Denys Coop's graceful camerawork ... is severely compromised by the unfortunate lab work it has suffered.

Roughly the first forty minutes of the film and the final fifteen are rendered in a greenish tint which is striking, but hardly congruent with the more conventional palette of colours that prevails between these two sections.

"[5] A. H. Weiler reviewing the work in The New York Times commended Cushing's contribution, deeming it superior to the rest of the cast's, although considered its plot contrived.

[6] Mark Burger, reviewing a home video release for the Winston-Salem Journal in 2002, noted the strong cast but found the muddled screenplay led to a merely "watchable" film.