Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)

Lack of good storyline.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Dr. Phibes is back after 3 years of being in a state of suspended animation. He awakens from his 3 year slumber to find his home has been wrecked and the papyrus that contained the information he needed to bring his dead wife back to life has been stolen. Needless to say, Dr. Phibes is out for revenge once again. Those that have ruined his chances to resurrect his wife will be destroyed in a cleaver way that only Dr. Phibes can dream up.Good follow-up flick. Almost as good as the first film. Like the first film, the sets and costuming are elaborate, the deaths are bizarre, the humor is quirky and Vincent Price is great.Worth watching... it's best if you watch the first film The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) then watch "Rises Again" but it's not necessary.8/10

In this dull, less-than-scary, and, totally predictable, little horror film from 1972, the ever-effeminate Vincent Price, once again, lisps and minces his way through yet another one of his roles as some insufferably sadistic, little movie-villain.Tongue-in-cheek performance, or not - I have to admit that I, for one, find Vincent Price to be way-way too gay to be at all convincing as the sinister, little culprit that he liked to make himself out to be. And, besides that, I think he was way too old for his roles, as well.Anyways - As the story goes - After spending a decade in suspended-animation, Dr. Phibes awakens (with absolutely no muscle atrophy, whatsoever) and heads to the tombs of the Pharaohs in Egypt with his beautiful aide and the perfectly preserved corpse of his long dead wife.It's here that Phibes attempts to resurrect his dearly beloved.In the meantime he goes on a predictable, little killing spree, murdering people, left, right, and center, in the most cleverly thought out ways imaginable.Ho-Hum.

Even though it has some outstanding sequences, great music, great production values, one of Vinnie's greatest performances and one of the most memorably creepy endings in the genre's long history I have to tell the truth: I never cared much for the original Dr. Phibes movie. I don't hate it, but I just didn't find it to have the qualities it is most often praised for, and those I did find certainly were not as effective as they could have been.That said, I was expecting the often lambasted and so-called 'inferior' sequel to be a waste of time. I was dead wrong!I will concede that this film is technically inferior as a film to the original, and the script is so full of holes it is ridiculous, it also features a crass waste of actor Peter Cushing that is simply unforgivable, several 'guest stars' appeared in the previous film and several elements that kept the original film glued together are missing. But that doesn't matter, because the film is FUN FUN FUN!("Theatre of Blood" is still better, though.)All of the elements of humor and horror that the original is often praised for are actually more prominent, and much better handled in this film. Several scenes are truly frightening, and the comedy bits are hilarious without becoming just silly.The story is quite simple; Phibes is restored to life because of movement of the planets, which replaces the embalming fluid he replaced his blood with at the end of the previous film, and(now much more talkative; spouting dialog worthy of Dr. Doom through his phonograph)he summons Vulnavia again(confirming that she was a supernatural figure) and is about to take off on a quest to the river of life, only to discover his former lair ravaged by the greedy, corrupt businessman and archaeologist Darius Biederbeck(Robert Quarry)and his map stolen. Phibes doesn't need the map, and Biederbeck; who is also seeking the river, has no knowledge of his existence; but that's okay, it gives the No-good-nick Doctor a chance to pass the time doing what he does best.....in Egypt no less!! Although hardly 3-dimensional fleshed out characters, all of Biederbeck's allies are given flaws and personalities so that we either like or dislike them and thus get to either fear for them, or laugh to death at their murders. The Egyptian-themed murders range from truly unpleasant(a man gets pecked to death by vultures, another has his flesh sandblasted off)to laugh-out-loud funny(Big Milton Reid; the evil Mulatto from 'Captain Clegg' and a henchman from the James Bond movies ends up 'phoning it in' quite literally after battling robotic cobras, and a horny guy seduced by Vulnavia gets....well, you'll see...) even the lamest of them puts the ones in the original to shame(Never mind that Phibes couldn't possibly have planned or had the materials necessary to carry out a single one of them....).The film is no masterpiece, but it's very entertaining, and the film has a feel reminiscent of both the Indiana Jones movies and the Adam West 'Batman' show if 'Batman' had actually been funny. It features all the qualities the original is praised for a 1000x better; plus, it features the ear-splitting spectacle of Vincent Price 'singing' "Somewhere over the Rainbow" in a grating mechanical voice!!!!!!! How can you hate a movie with THAT in it??? Pull out the weed and enjoy.~

Years after going into hibernation, Dr. Phibes comes back to life and so has his fashionable female assistant Vulnavia (too bad she has only one other acting credit, "The Great Muppet Caper"). How Vulnavia survived the acid attack from the first film, I have no idea. Anyway, together they travel to Egypt to find the river of life that flows once every 2000 years in order to resurrect Phibes' wife Victoria. Biederbeck, running out of water from the last two thousand years, is racing to get there first. Who will win? Depending on how you look at this, the movie is either awesome or campy or both. I think both. Vincent Price (Dr. Phibes) never fails as a mad scientist and Phibes is a good character to demonstrate this. The supporting cast is also well-picked (with even a cameo from Peter Cushing). And the deaths are particularly cruel -- scorpions, snakes and one of the most painful ways to die you have seen (which involves crushing but you will have to check it out for yourself). Price, good deaths and a smoking hot woman. What more do you want? Well, there's the camp aspect. So many questions are raised here, besides how Vulnavia survived and where she was hiding. How does Phibes survive undetected if his house is torn down? How does he build so many elaborate traps in Egypt? How does he hide the bodies so quickly? And then there's the Clockwork Wizards (his robot friends who play instruments with him as he plays his organ). They are great (and call to mind Argento's "Deep Red") but it seems unlikely they would be able to be transported with such ease. Oh, and if Phibes needs his special tool to speak, why does he ever disconnect it? It is not like it gets in the way or something, except maybe while sleeping.You like Vincent Price. You like 1970s horror films from American International Pictures. You will like this film. Some say it's not as solid as the first, other say it's on par. I would suggest seeing the first one first (that makes sense) but there's no reason to avoid this film. It deserved more sequels, but this was not to be.