Thirty-One Days O’Horror: Children of the Full Moon (1980)

Hammer House of Horror

Originally broadcast on ITV, Hammer House of Horror was a 1980 anthology series that ran for thirteen episodes. I plan on reviewing a few episodes of this series during Thirty-One Days O’Horror and the first one that I want to take a look at is Episode 8: Children of the Full Moon.

In the episode, lawyer Tom Martin (Christopher Cazenove) and his wife, Sarah (Celia Gregory), find themselves stranded in the English countryside when their car breaks down. They manage to find an isolated home in the area where they are greeted by Mrs. Ardoy (Diana Dors). Mrs. Ardoy introduces the couple to her many children, all of whom act quite bizarre around Sarah. As the night goes along, Tom is attacked by and narrowly escapes from something in the woods and then Sarah is attacked by a werewolf in the bedroom she and Tom are staying in overnight. Tom falls from the side of the house while trying to get to Sarah and when he awakens, he’s in a hospital bed. Sarah tells him that he had a concussion due to a car accident and that he must have dreamed the events of the evening before. As the days pass, Sarah becomes more animalistic in the bedroom and begins to eat raw meat. Soon enough it is discovered that she is pregnant. She is drawn back to the Ardoy house when it is time to deliver her baby, and Tom scrambles to save her, his child, and his sanity. Check out the episode to find out what else happens!

The episode is extremely creepy and Diana Dors shines as the “den mother” for her pack of wolf children. There’s another werewolf, an alpha male, if you will, who roams the countryside as well, but even his furry features aren’t as creepy as Mrs. Ardoy. All of the cast do excellent jobs and the werewolf doesn’t look too shabby, either. To top it all off, we get to see a young girl eating a lamb right at the beginning of the episode. If that doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies, I don’t know what will!

Be sure to check out this and other episodes of Hammer House of Horror. I plan on reviewing at least two more episodes of this series, so be on the lookout for them soon. Thanks for reading my post. I appreciate all of your support.