Rasputin - The Mad Monk

Russia, the early 20th century: a monk called Rasputin is expelled from his monastery and travels to St Petersburg, where he encounters two ladies-in-waiting to the Tsarina. Using seemingly unnatural powers of persuasion, Rasputin hypnotises one of the Girls, Sonia, and gives her a sequence of sinister instructions. Acting under Rasputin's influence, Sonia causes harm to come to the Tsarevitch. With the royal heir gravely ill, Sonia tells the Tsarina that she knows of a man who could bring his extraordinary powers of healing to bear. Rasputin attends to the injured boy and is rewarded with a villa where he sets up practice as a faith healer. Rasputin's evil influence has now extended to the peak of Russia's high society...

Directed by Don Sharp in 1965, Rasputin the Mad Monk is dominated by the towering performance of Christopher Lee as the manipulative - and seemingly indestructible - Grigori Yelimovitch Rasputin. The film also stars Richard Pasco, Francis Matthews and Barbara Shelley, Hammer's most prolific leading lady.