The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Nice effects though.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The first must-see film of the year.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I wasn't expecting much from this movie and I was pleasantly surprised.This was the first horror movie I watched in awhile that actually made some sense and wasn't full of plot holes.While the cops in the movie did say and do some dumb stuff.Like saying to double check the bats for rabies after they killed a guy.Would they give rabies shots to a corpse?Besides little things like that it wasn't too bad.I'm not sure if I have ever seen any other Vincent Price movies but I was assuming everything he did was cheesy and this definitely wasn't.It was a good story and it wasn't boring.There was too much bad music but the story makes up for it. Six stars.

Vincent Price has always been a personal favorite of mine and he gets to go full monty here on a host of victims in this stylized, colorful thriller. For those of you wondering how to pronounce the title, I would have been at a disadvantage myself if I hadn't seen a brief intro to the picture last night on Turner Classics. The host pronounced 'Phibes' like the word 'fives' but with a 'b'. So I thought that was pretty helpful or I'd still be wondering about it.The story line borrows an interesting concept from the Biblical 'Ten Curses of the Pharoahs', as the title character, portrayed by Price, begins to dispatch a team of doctors who failed to save the life of his wife during an operation some years earlier. The attack on the first victim brought to mind a 1959 Vincent Price programmer simply titled 'The Bat', in which a fiend unleashes a bat as his calling card when he commits his evil deeds. Phibes' other murders are fairly creative as well, the head shrinker who got his head shrunk was kind of unique (you'll have to see it for yourself). And here's something you don't think about - it's one thing to learn the body contains about eight pints of blood, but to see it lined up on a shelf in bottles is kind of eye opening. Poor Dr. Longstreet.Well I think Vincent Price fans ought to have a good amount of fun with this flick. The picture borrows concepts from a couple of Roger Corman's films - 1959's "A Bucket of Blood" and 1960's "The Little Shop of Horrors". Stylistically, I couldn't help thinking of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", more so for the weirdness of the set design and effusive use of color throughout. One thing you might have to get used to is watching Dr. Phibes express himself without using his mouth, the voice is clearly that of Vincent Price, but in keeping with his diabolical character, it sounds like it was run through a synthesizer.

*Spoiler/plot- The Abomidable Mr. Phibes, 1971. A modern time (1927) Renaissance Man, Doctor Phibes loses his beloved wife during a surgical operation. He decides to get vengeance on each member of the surgical team in the most horrific biblical way.*Special Stars- Vincent Price, Joseph Cotton, Peter Jeffrey, Virginia North, Terry-Thomas, Hugh Griffith, Caroline Munro.*Theme- Vengeance is a strong emotion.*Trivia/location/goofs- There is a film sequel to this film called, "Dr. Phibes Rises Again". Enjoy the 1925 Art Deco styling of the sets. In order for Joseph Cotten to know his cues, Phibes' dialog was read aloud by a crew-member. Vincent Price said Joseph Cotten was very uncomfortable doing his scenes, so he intentionally made a lot of funny faces to make him laugh. The name "Vesalius" is a reference to Andreas Vesalius, a Flemish scientist who cut up corpses to learn about the workings of the body. The "Vampire Bats" were really flying foxes, very docile fruit-loving bats. A very young Joanna Lumley appeared as a laboratory assistant, but her scenes were cut. Virgina North appeared in a play in London called "Council of Love," in which she was silent throughout her performance. "I played the daughter of the devil," she told the Associated Press in 1971. "I'd go around and do terrible things. The people who made the movie saw me in the play and decided I was what they wanted. You might say I was ready made for the movie part." For the many scenes in which Vincent Price was required to speak without moving his mouth, he was painted with a substance called 'collodion' which literally immobilized his face. GOOFS- The film is set in 1925. The automobiles, airplane, and film projector seem to be from the 1920s, but the house interiors, including the lights around Dr. Phibes' organ, and clothing appear to be early 1970s "mod" style. At the end Dr. Phibes plays "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" which was written in 1935. You can clearly see wire attached to the flying bat. After Vulnavia dances with Phibes, he lowers the cage of bats into the cellar. Vulnavia runs up the stairs, then appears downstairs seconds later, in different clothes. It is established that Phibes is murdering the surgeons he hold responsible for the death of his wife; but at the masked party, Dr. Hargreaves introduces himself as 'a psychiatrist'.*Emotion- A visibly rich and 'campy' stylistic film with many film 'exploitation' elements added for good measure. This melodrama is enjoyable and has genuine elements of horror. Clever and memorable as one of Vincent Prices best films. It's a must see film.*Based On- Popular news articles from the horror and crime pages.

Vincent Price is diabolically amusing as Dr. Anton Phibes, who is systematically murdering the nine doctors he blames for screwing up his wife's operation, resulting in her death. Phibes, a man of seemingly limitless resources, cunning, and patience, concocts a merciless scheme of using the ten biblical plagues to exact his vengeance, and though he is relentlessly pursued by the authorities, he always is one step ahead, leading to a self-created climax involving the playing of an organ and "Over The Rainbow"! Not to be taken seriously, film is a bit too grisly and violent to really work as a dark comedy, and too campy to work as straight horror, but nonetheless is a much remembered cult picture, and followed by a sequel.