Night Creatures (1962)

A kindly vicar may not be quite who he seems, and certain legends refuse to stay buried. Peter Graham Scott's "Night Creatures," released in Britain as "Captain Clegg," is a Hammer period adventure inspired by Russell Thorndike's "Doctor Syn" novels. Peter Cushing stars as Dr. Blyss, the kindly vicar of Dymchurch, an 18th-century village on the misty Romney Marsh whose residents are secretly running a smuggling operation. Years earlier, the notorious pirate Captain Clegg was supposedly captured, hanged and buried in the village churchyard. Now the locals use eerie "marsh phantoms," skeletal horsemen that glow in the dark, to frighten away anyone who gets too curious. When a Royal Navy captain (Patrick Allen) arrives to investigate, he brings along a mute brute who was once one of Clegg's crew, punished by the pirate for attacking his wife, and who can identify his old captain. Suspicions grow that Clegg may be alive and well after all. It's a well-written period adventure, with Cushing marvelous as the vicar and a young Oliver Reed giving a solid supporting turn as a romantic young smuggler.