Trivia / The Blood on Satan's Claw

• Completely Different Title:
  • Denmark: Satan's Cult
  • Finland: Devil's Skin
  • France: The Night of Hexes
  • Germany: In the Claws of the Witch Hunter
  • Italy: The Skin of Satan
• Contractual Obligation Project: Inverted. The casting of Linda Hayden as Angel Blake was contractual for the production itself.
• Costume Backlash: Simon Williams pokes fun at his costume, saying he looked like "a cross between Lady Penelope and Russell Brand". He was also told off for "overacting" with his fingers.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Piers Haggard regrets how long and drawn out Cathy's rape scene was, saying he'd do it differently today.
  • Wendy Padbury herself regretted that scene and was uncomfortable with it. She later said that, had she been more experienced, she would have refused as it wasn't in her contract.
  • Tony Tenser, head of Tigon, regretted the scene of Margaret getting the skin carved off her leg; worrying that it was too graphic.
• Dawson Casting: Wendy Padbury was twenty-three, playing a character who was still in school. Margaret's age isn't stated but Michele Dotrice was twenty-two. Averted with Robin Davies (fifteen playing Mark) and Linda Hayden, who was seventeen and appeared nude!
• Enforced Method Acting: When the Judge slaps Peter out of hysteria, Patrick Wymark actually slapped Simon Williams hard.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The scenes where Margaret is ducked in the river and the Judge studies the book on witches were added at the studio's insistence.
  • The first draft had the film set in Victorian times instead, with the villain as an unidentified evil. The studio felt the Victorian period had been overdone in horror at the time, so it was changed to the early 18th century.
• Follow the Leader: Witchfinder General's success saw producers being pressured to recreate it. They share a cast member in Patrick Wymark, and the film's setting was changed from the Victorian period to the 17th century. Likewise the scene of Margaret being ducked as a witch was added in because the former had a similar scene.
• No Budget: Made for just £70,000.
• Reality Subtext:
  • The film was heavily inspired by the Manson Family killings in 1969.
  • The Teens Are Monsters theme was inspired by Mary Bell - a preteen who murdered two young boys in 1968.
• Star-Making Role: While the 1969 film Baby Love first put Linda Hayden on the map, it was The Blood on Satan's Claw that truly propelled her into cult stardom.
• Stunt Casting: Tamara Ustinov was cast as Rosalind purely because of her name.
• Throw It In!: The scene where Cathy is attacked and then raped wasn't in the original script, and thought up during filming.
• Typecasting: Michele Dotrice had previously played a fanatical cult member in The Witches (1966). The films even shared a location - the ruined church in Bix Bottom, Oxfordshire.
• Uncredited Role: Geoffrey Hughes as a drinking villager.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Christopher Lee was considered for the Judge but was too expensive. Peter Cushing turned it down because his wife was ill at the time.
  • The film was initially going to be an anthology, with three separate stories linked by the remains of Satan - Peter and his possessed wife, the mad village children and the Judge's battle with evil. When the script was rewritten, the plots were combined to create a central story.
  • The first title was The Devil's Touch and later changed to Satan's Skin, which Piers Haggard preferred. When released in America, it was retitled Blood on Satan's Claw. A 'the' was then added to the start.
  • The film was originally going to end with the Judge returning with a militia and murdering the entire village to eradicate the cult. Tigon thought that would be a bit too bleak, and it was changed to the demon being defeated by the cavalry.
  • A scene was filmed showing Angel Blake clearly "going down on the devil" but it was darkened in post production to avoid problems with the censors.
• Write What You Know: The sequence of Margaret's skin being cut off was inspired by something that happened to Robert Wynne Simmons as a child; a doctor performed an operation on him on the kitchen table.