Mike The Monk

Rasputin the Mad Monk is a 1966 Hammer horror film directed by Don Sharp and starring Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Francis Matthews, Suzan Farmer, Richard Pasco, Dinsdale Landen and Renée Asherson. It was released on a double bill with Hammer Films' The Reptile. It is the largely fictionalized story of Grigori Rasputin, the Russian peasant-mystic who gained great influence with the Tsars prior to the Russian Revolution, although some of the events leading up to Rasputin's assassination are very loosely based on Prince Yusupov's account of the story. For legal reasons (Yusupov was still alive when the film was released), the character of Yusupov was replaced by Ivan (Matthews). The emphasis is on Rasputin's terrifying powers both to work magic and to seduce women.