1972 horror, dir. Robert Fuest, Vincent Price, Robert Quarry:
IMDb /
allmovie. That is not dead
which can eternal lie…
There was no narrative reason for the film to exist, of course.
The original comes to an eminently satisfactory conclusion; and what's
more, since Phibes' whole motivation was revenge for the loss of his
wife, then his having a means to resurrect her rather undermines his
calculated madness. Ah well.
But first we have to be introduced to Biederbecke, played by Robert
Quarry, who was being groomed to be Vincent Price's replacement (even
though he clearly doesn't have the charisma). Price found out while
they were making this film; fireworks were predicted, but apparently
they got on very well.
Virginia North, who played Vulnavia in the first film, wasn't
available to reprise her role. (Also the character had been dissolved
in acid, but hey.) To my mind, Valli Kemp just doesn't have the cool
style of the original.
The first murder is splendid: a clockwork snake, with the sole purpose
of making the victim grab up the telephone, on which a poisoned needle
has been placed. But sadly that's about the best of it; and the next
murder is an entirely mundane strangling. This is not my Phibes.
Still, I do appreciate Victoria's glass transport coffin surrounded by
light bulbs like a game show prize. "And now. see what you could have
won…"
Peter Cushing is largely wasted as the captain. Beryl Reid is entirely
superfluous except to show off the Komedy Kops (Peter Jeffrey again).
But when we finally get to Egypt, I'm very impressed by the sheer
difficulty of making a scene look as though the lantern in the hero's
hand is the sole source of light, but at the same time making
everything visible.
Once more, Phibes gets what he wants: immortality for himself and
Victoria, and Vulnavia. But some of the process of getting there is
strangely tedious.
After this, Robert Fuest was asked to make another Vincent Price
bizarre murders film (next film review in the queue here), but didn't
want to be typecast, so went off to make The Final Programme
instead, one of the very few films of a Moorcock book. Meanwhile,
various possibilities were considered for an official third Phibes,
but none of them came to anything.
I talk about this film further on
Ribbon of Memes.