A ★★½ review of The Reptile (1966)

A great monster design, good production values and solid performances aren’t enough to save The Reptile from the banality of its plot. This isn't Anthony Hinds’ best work for Hammer by a long shot; his screenplay is a colonialist nightmare of an exotic curse finding its way to England and resulting in a reptilian creature killing people off. And that’s all fine enough, I suppose; it’s 1960s England and I don’t expect cultural sensitivity here. But Hinds makes the whole thing so dull that I couldn’t get into the mystery. When the titular monster shows up things pop; the makeup