The Monster Club
1980 film by Roy Ward Baker
The Monster Club is a 1981 British anthology horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Vincent Price and John Carradine. It is based on the works of the British horror author R. Chetwynd-Hayes. It was the final film from Milton Subotsky, who was best known for his work with Amicus Productions; Amicus were well known for their anthologies, but this was not an Amicus film. It was also the final feature film directed by Baker.
Plot
Prologue
A fictionalised version of author R. Chetwynd-Hayes is approached on a city street by a strange man who turns out to be a starving vampire named Eramus. Eramus bites the writer, and in gratitude for the small "donation", takes his (basically unharmed but bewildered) victim to the titular club, which is a covert gathering place for a multitude of supernatural creatures. In between the club's unique music and dance performances, Eramus introduces three stories about his fellow creatures of the night.
The Shadmock
A young, financially struggling woman takes a job at a secluded manor house owned by Raven, a hybrid creature called a Shadmock, who leads a troubled and tragic existence and is notorious for its demonic whistle. As time goes by, the girl, Angela, develops a friendship with the mysterious Shadmock, and he eventually proposes to her. Alarmed, Angela refuses, but her controlling boyfriend forces her to go through with it to gain the Shadmock's vast wealth.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Monster Club” is 1980 film by Roy Ward Baker. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Monster, Club and film, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1980 film by Roy Ward Baker” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3221513. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “The Monster Club” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.