Linda Hayden was catapulted into international fame after her film debut in the title role of Baby Love (1968) at the age of fifteen.

Hayden had just finished making Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) with Christopher Lee when she was offered the role of Angel Blake in Blood on Satan's Claw. She was quite excited by the script because it was such a departure from the approach of a Hammer horror film.

Hayden recalled that producers Tony Tenser and Michael Klinger had been partners on several exploitation films but had a falling out prior to Baby Love. When Tenser recruited Hayden for Blood on Satan's Claw she felt he was gloating over the fact that he'd lured a rising star away from Klinger.

Hayden stated in a recent interview that she is often approached by horror film fans who want to talk about her work in films such as Satan's Claw, Madhouse (1974), Queen Kong (1976), and Vampira (1974). She is actually happy to be remembered for these genre films and is proud of most of them with the exception of Exposé (1976, aka The House on Straw Hill) which she felt was offensive and a distortion of the film she had agreed to do.

Barry Andrews was an up-and-coming actor at the time he made Blood on Satan's Claw and had previously appeared in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968). He never succeeded in becoming a leading man in features, however, except for the embarrassing sex farce, I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight (1976). Most of his later work was primarily in British television and minor supporting roles in such films as The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and ffolkes (1979).

Supporting actor Milton Reid, who appears in Blood on Satan's Claw as the mute dog handler who accompanies The Judge at the climax, also appeared as the mute mulatto in the Hammer film Night Creatures (1962, aka Captain Clegg). Other film appearances include Blood of the Vampire (1958) as the executioner, Dr. No (1962), Casino Royale (1967), Berserk! (1967) as the circus strong man, and Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972).

Prior to his film career as an extra and minor supporting actor, Reid (born in 1917) was a popular wrestler in England known as "The Mighty Chang" due to his Fu Manchu moustache and Asian features (his mother was Mongolian and his father was Scottish). In 1987 while living in India, he mysteriously vanished and his family never learned if he died or what happened to him despite unproven sources that state he died of a heart attack.

Marc Wilkinson, the composer for the score of Blood on Satan's Claw, was recruited from London's National Theatre and had made his film debut with the scoring of Lindsay Anderson's If (1968). He became renowned for his movie score for The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969).

Screenwriter Robert Wynne-Simmons recalled that the first section of Blood on Satan's Claw involving Rosalind Barton's visit to the Vespers household was actually taken from an original story he had written at college about a man who kept a knife by his bed and had a dream about a hand attacking him.

Director Piers Haggard recalls going to see Witchfinder General during the making of Blood on Satan's Claw and being incredibly impressed by it – "how stylish, how clever" - and intimidated by the talent of the director, Michael Reeves, because he was much younger than himself and so gifted.

Haggard is the great grand-nephew of author H. Rider Haggard, who wrote King Solomon's Mines, She and Allan Quartermain.

Among the supporting cast of Blood on Satan's Claw, Tamara Ustinov is the daughter of Peter Ustinov and the niece of Angela Lansbury. Michele Dotrice is the daughter of actor Roy Dotrice (The Heroes of Telemark [1965], Lock Up Your Daughters [1969]) who dubbed the voice of Harvey Keitel in Saturn 3. Simon Williams is the son of actor and dramatist Hugh Williams who co-wrote The Grass Is Greener and other plays with his wife, Margaret Vyner. Anthony Ainley is the son of actor Henry Ainley who was a popular stage actor renowned for his performances in the plays of Shakespeare.

Haggard said that during a visit to America he met director Jonathan Demme who praised Blood on Satan's Claw, along with others in the Hollywood film industry who saw the movie during its U.S. release and loved it.

Most of Haggard's work after Satan's Claw has been in British television; he directed the Bob Hoskins version of Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven and several episodes of the Quatermass sci-fi TV series. Other films have included The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980) with Peter Sellers and Helen Mirren, the notorious snake feature Venom (1981) starring Oliver Reed, Klaus Kinski and Sarah Miles, and A Summer Story (1988), based on the John Galsworthy story.

Haggard revealed that he kept a finger of the Devil model used in his film as a memento.

When Blood on Satan's Claw was released theatrically in England and in the U.S., it was paired with The Beast in the Cellar, a thriller about two spinsters with an insane brother who murders soldiers; it starred Beryl Reid and Flora Robson.

Linda Hayden's full frontal nude scene when she tries to seduce the priest and a shot of a naked dancer in the film's climax were both darkened in the prints which were distributed during the U.S. run of Blood on Satan's Claw.

by Jeff Stafford

SOURCES:
"Don't Overact With Your Fingers!: The Making of Blood on Satan's Claw" by David Taylor from Shock; The Essential Guide to Exploitation Cinema edited by Stefan Jaworzyn
The Blood on Satan's Claw DVD commentary by Piers Haggard, Robert Wynn-Simmons, & Linda Hayden
IMDB