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5
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5 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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While
the U.K.'s Hammer Studios was dying a slow death
in the early 1970s, American International Pictures
provided the reigning king of U.S. horror, Vincent
Price, with an indelible role in two British-produced
features. Before the The
Exorcist and Halloween's
Michael Myers, the murderous Dr. Phibes was the
fright film icon of the decade. (At least the good
doctor performed his nefarious deeds with a great
sense of style.) MGM now brings the two Phibes flicks,
both beloved cult favorites, to DVD as part of the
company's "Midnite Movies" line. Each disc presents
the film in anamorphic widescreen format with only
the theatrical trailer as an extra. Picture and
sound quality (Dolby Mono) are generally quite good.
As for Phibes flick # 2...
More of a slapdash affair than the original,
Dr. Phibes Rises Again!
looks and feels like the rushed sequel that it obviously
is. A number of the plot elements just don't make
any sense. It's still a fun movie, however. After
former Laugh-in announcer Gary Owens recaps
the events of the first film in a campy voice-over,
the abominable Dr. Phibes awakens from 3 years in
suspended animation to find his Muldeen Square manse
has been demolished while he slept. An ancient Egyptian
papyrus with which Phibes hoped to resurrect his
beloved wife Victoria is missing. The parchment
has come into the possession of one Darius Beiderbeck
(Count Yorga, Vampire's
Robert Quarry), a renowned scholar currently preparing
an expedition to a remote mountain in Egypt. Unknown
to his associates or even his fiancée, Beiderbeck
has a far more important reason than treasure or
archeological discovery to seek out this mountain...
Within its bowels, the parchment indicates, flows
a tributary of the River of Life, the pharaohs'
mystic source of immortality. Beiderbeck must find
this fountainhead of eternal life very soon or die.
Already hundreds of years old, he's been sustaining
his youth for some time with a secret elixir (the
source of which is never mentioned) and his supply
of the magical liquid is nearly exhausted.
Phibes and his ravishing female assistant Vulnavia
(this time played by Valli Kemp) steal the parchment
from Beiderbeck's safe, killing the man's servant
(Milton Reid) in a most elaborate fashion. (Dr.
Phibes never does anything the easy way.) This brings
the bumbling Scotland Yard detectives from the first
film, Waverly and Trout — who serve no purpose whatever
in the story but to pad out its running time — back
onto Phibes' trail. Beiderbeck cannot wait for the
police to recover the stolen artifact and soon takes
ship for Egypt with his fiancée Diane (Fiona Lewis)
and Prof. Ambrose (Hugh Griffith, who protrayed
a rabbi in Phibes # 1). Aboard the same vessel are
Phibes and Vulnavia, with the doctor's compliment
of life-sized clockwork musicians — as well as the
preserved body of his late wife (Caroline Munro,
who plays "dead" the entire movie) — stowed in the
cargo hold. When Ambrose turns up missing, Beiderbeck
shows little concern for his associate; the ship's
captain (Peter Cushing, in an utterly pointless
cameo) is surprised that Beiderbeck wants the search
called off and the voyage resumed immediately. Ambrose
has indeed gone overboard: Phibes killed him, throwing
the corpse, encased in a giant gin bottle (!), into
the sea. (And just how did he get the body in
there?)
Though they have no evident means of transportation,
Phibes and Vulnavia reach the desert mountain before
Beiderbeck does. Waiting for Beiderbeck at the excavation
site is the remainder of his party, four men who
are present for no other reason than to be killed
in nasty ways... The first has his face ripped off
by Phibes' pet eagle. The second is lured into a
trap by the comely Vulnavia and stung to death by
scorpions (by far the film's "best" murder). The
third man is crushed in his sleep by a ridiculously
elaborate mechanical contraption, while # 4 gets
his skin blasted to the bone by a sand-blowing device.
(Lacking as they do the "Biblical plague" theme
of Phibes' murders in the first film, these set-pieces
are nothing more than an attempt to replicate that
movie's darkly humorous tone. The crushing machine
is particularly inane... How did Phibes manhandle
the equipment into Beiderbeck's camp? Did he pull
that huge wind machine out of his ass?) By this
time Waverly and Trout have shown up, Diana has
been kidnapped and Beiderbeck must confront Phibes
within the mountain's secret chamber. "What kind
of fiend are you?" cries Beiderbeck when finally
face to face with his nemesis. "The kind who
wins," Phibes retorts, giving you an indication
of who'll be singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
when the end credits roll.
Certainly inferior to the original, Rises
Again! is, as mentioned, loaded with plot
elements that don't stand up to the slightest scrutiny.
One that really had us scratching our heads was
the reappearance of the Vulnavia character, killed
in a shower of deadly acid near the end of the first
flick. In the sequel Phibes merely "summons" her
back from the netherworld to aid him and voila!
— she appears. Now it's been readily established
that Phibes was a mechanical- scientific genius
ahead of his time... but he's a sorcerer, too? If
he can call people back from the dead then what
the hell does he need to find the River of Life
for? Still, as the film is deliberately campy —
with tongue placed firmly in cheek — much of this
can be forgiven. Price is terrific in a role he
obviously very much enjoyed playing; Quarry is quite
good as Beiderbeck, an utterly ruthless man who
paradoxically has a soft spot where his fiancée
is concerned. Robert Fuest's direction is as surehanded
as in the first film, once again demonstrating a
flair for black comedy. If you enjoyed The
Abominable Dr. Phibes then you're sure to like
this one — just not as much. No real surprise with
a sequel, actually. 5/19/01 |
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