House of the Black Death

Two elderly brothers who are warlocks, Belial and Andre, have been feuding with each other for years over the family estate. Belial, who sports small goat's horns on his forehead and runs a coven of witches, has been using his black magic to bewitch members of the family, while Andre spends the entire film bedridden. Andre keeps warning people that his brother Belial is evil and up to no good. Belial turns Andre's son into a werewolf by way of a magical spell and bewitches Andre's daughter (Serena) into dancing and gyrating sensuously. Much of the plot involves scenes of the sexy witches belly-dancing in front of their satanic altar. == Cast ==

• Lon Chaney Jr. as Belial Desard • John Carradine as Andre Desard • Andrea King as Dr. Katherine Mallory • Tom Drake as Paul Dessard • Dolores Faith as Valerie Dessard • Sabrina as belly-dancer • Jerome Thor as Dr. Eric Campion • Sherwood Keith • Catherine Petty • George Mitchell • Katherine Victor as Lila • Margaret Shinn ==Production==

The film was originally to be titled Night of the Beast or The Widderburn Horror, Afterwards, the producers felt the film needed something more, so Jerry Warren was hired to add some extra footage to pad out the running time and edit the film. Warren brought Katherine Victor into the project, casting her as the leader of a coven of witches. Interviewed by Tom Weaver, Warren said "They had a terrible mishmash of a movie. It wasn't a movie, it was a bunch of film. It came out bad but it came out playable, and it did pull out some money for the people who made it". ==Critical reception==

Fred Olen Ray claims to have seen the film under the title Blood of the Man Devil in the drive-in in the early 1970s on a quintuple "Blood" bill with Blood Mania and three other films. The fact that the film was made in black and white might have had something to do with its distribution difficulties. Stephen Jones called it "an incomprehensible mess ... with plenty of gratuitous belly-dancing". ==See also==