User Reviews

This Black comedy and it sequel "Dr. Phibes Strikes Again" show that campy horror films can be high art as well. Even more recent horror films like se7en owe a lot to this film.

Not only can this film be gruesome but campy and artsy at the same time. Prices over the top voice acting is made all the more eerie because of the fact he does not actually speak in the movie. He used his knowledge of acoustics to make devices to speak for him. To speak he plugs devices into his neck.....he also uses the same hole in his neck to drink. Price used this to good effect as during the speaking parts he moves his neck and throat muscles like he was actually speaking. Vulnavia played by Virginia North is equally weird as she does not speak as well and has many elaborate costume changes and "dance" numbers. Since these films were made in 1971 and the sequel in 1972 you do have to wonder if drugs had anything to do with the films....were they made for the drug taking public? In any case this is the pinnacle of the British horror film genre. So often the British did such bad things to the genre....they reclaim a lot of glory with these two films.

Most of the humor in the film come from inspector trout of Scotland Yard. Most of the other characters are basically fodder for Prices revenge, revenge for his late wife's operation that left her dead and Price disfigured.

No true horror film fan can truly be called that unless they see these two films. It should also be required viewing for directors and producers of todays horror films. If you have a chance catch both films if you can. If the local video store does not have them they are often shown on cable channels like Flix and AMC, netflix should have them as well. They are consider cult classic so chances are good that you will be able to find them somewhere.

If Dr. Philbes is a surgeon, I'm staying as far away from that hospital as I can get. But don't be fooled by the title: Philbes is a doctor of music, a doctor of theology, a doctor of culture. He's eccentric, passionate, humorous, dapper and sophisticated. He's also creative. When he gets a plan into his head, he takes it to the extreme, whether creating a band made out of plastic men, planning his wife's funeral, or killing the doctors he blames for her death and the accident that left him morbidly scarred. So between the birds and the bees, frog heads that crush skulls, a veggie head mold that makes a delicious lunch for locusts and all sorts of other inventive ways of torturous end of life methods, he gets an "A" in the school of evil creativity. It's so creative, in fact, that for actor Vincent Price, who plays this part, he not only got a sequel, but a sort of unofficial remake where the victims were changed from doctors to theater critics and his profession from well-rounded doctor of whatever to ham actor thriving on Shakespeare.

Dr. Philbes doesn't thrive on Shakespeare here. He lives through the science of the ancient Egyptians and the tribulations brought to them when pharaoh didn't let Moses and his people go free. It's ironically another reference to "The Ten Commandments" for the over-the-top Price who played Baka, the chief master builder in that classic Cecil B. de Mille epic and later his appearance in "The Story of Mankind" where his satanistic attorney utilized references to the ancient Egyptians and Moses himself. Then, there's his campy performance in "Queen of the Nile" where he looked like a female impersonator playing Jeanne Crain's high priest father. "Dr. Philbes" is obviously meant to be camp, and I ain't referring to Camp Snoopy.

British character players make cameo appearances as his victims, the most famous of which is gap toothed Terry-Thomas who was so memorable in this that he got to play another role in the sequel. Hugh Griffith, too, plays different characters in both films, a slightly larger one in the second, but here seen as a Rabbi who confirms the necklace Price puts around each of the necks of his victims as a Hebrew representation of the plagues of Moses which God put on the Egyptians for not obeying his word. Joseph Cotten co-stars here as the head surgeon during Price's wife's operation which presumably killed her, and Price's revenge against him is the most evil of all.

The gory death scenes will certainly gross some people out. Fortunately, watching this right before bedtime, I didn't have nightmares, but I did have to turn my head away a bunch of times. Obviously meant to represent the art-deco style of the 1930's with its choices of designs and music, it is attractive to look at and definitely creative, but I hesitate in calling this a masterpiece because it seems to take great pleasure in its mean-spiritedness even if its tongue is firmly in its cheek. I also have to say that this film didn't warrant a sequel, and that comparisons to older horror movies is quite inevitable.

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.

A movie that clearly is more about mystery and atmosphere than a character study. The story is pretty basic about a man calling himself Dr. Phibes (Vincent Price) who seeks revenge for the death of his wife and his own disfigurement. Though he cannot move his mouth he was clever enough to invent a machine that recreates his voice. Very nice setting where he lives with some great contrasts. He has his own private opera with organ and wax figures playing other instruments and a beautiful young lady (who I believe never says anything) occasionally playing violin or dancing. When one of the doctors who he holds responsible for his wife's death dies he symbolically burns the face of the wax image he created of them. Even though the killings are technically not by his hands he surely has a creative way of invoking them with 10 plagues from the Thora (Jewish) as his guide. Very creative indeed. Surely this has inspired later movies. With the operation scene in mind I had to think of the Saw movies. And the plagues might have been an inspiration for movies such as The Reaping while the killings also reminded me of the method that the killer in Seven was using. Very inspirational film indeed.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

While it may sound like just another revenge story, The Abominable Dr. Phibes is actually a beautifully well-made film that turns a well-trodden formula into a cinematic feast of style.

The film opens with Phibes (Vincent Price) at a pipe organ, rising from the floor. We see him, covered entirely in black, wind up his peculiar animatronic band, the Clockwork Wizards, and dance with a fashionable young woman named Vulnavia (Virginia North). There are no words spoken by Phibes until much later in the film, and the young woman, while always at his side, never utters a single word. This lack of dialogue sets the tone for the film, one that elevates its simple plot by setting it against an elegant backdrop of malevolent innovation and high '60s fashion.

There is a dark beauty in Phibes' murders, both in their conception and cinematic presentation. One man is exsanguinated alive by Phibes. Bottle after bottle of his blood is placed neatly in a line on the mantle over the fireplace. Another man is killed during a masquerade ball, after he puts on Phibes' ornate but lethal frog mask. As the mask tightens around his neck, the camera's point-of-view shot is bathed in red before he falls down the stairs. Murder is seldom so beautifully performed.

Vincent Price, in his 100th film performance, plays Phibes with just the right combination of remorse and determination. Price doesn't emphasize the eccentric nature of the character - his actions do well enough on their own.

It's a delicious role for Price, performed partially behind masks or makeup, and without ever opening his mouth. Virginia North, as the beautiful screen nymph Vulnavia, may have no dialogue, but still manages to convey a screen presence. There are moments in the film where we'd really like to know more about her. In one scene without Phibes, she sits listening to the Clockwork Wizards while smoking a cigarette. The scene doesn't move the plot forward, but does make us wonder what on earth she's thinking, and how she came to be involved with Phibes. Her affiliation and loyalty to the mad doctor are never explained.

Director Robert Fuest, a veteran of the long-running British TV series The Avengers, demonstrates a keen eye for exquisite composition and cinematic staging with The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Fuest's scenes often convey great depth of action, sometimes plot-driven, sometimes not. In one scene, two doctors are talking in an elevator, concerned that Phibes has infiltrated the hospital. As they leave, we see Vincent Price in the background. Other shots of multi-layered action are more aesthetically driven. When Price is at the masquerade ball watching the doctor in the frog mask, his close-up reaction contains a chandelier in the extreme foreground. And when Vulnavia stands in a field watching a plane crash, there are flowers in the extreme foreground. This is just one way Fuest brings elegance to the macabre subject matter. Another is in his use of clean, symmetrical compositions. Generally rare in film, symmetrical framing usually infers a psychological interpretation, here reflecting Phibes' neatness, order, and precision.

The soundtrack is another powerful element at play in the film. Basil Kirchin's original score stems organically from the Phibes character. Since Phibes was a concert organist before his untimely demise, an organ features prominently in the film. The Clockwork Wizards play an eclectic array of tunes, from moody blues to soaring romantic band music, but always with an otherworldly twist. Kirchin also uses electronic sounds, music boxes, and operatic vocals. The cumulative effect of this potpourri approach is a musical representation of Phibes himself - classically trained, passionate, and dangerous.

The film concludes by suggesting Phibes may strike again (as indeed he does in an inferior sequel). The film cuts to black, indicating that perhaps the audience is Dr. Phibes' final victim, put to rest by a Clockwork Wizards' rendition of "Over the Rainbow" that accompanies the closing credits.

Well, if we have to go, at least we go in style. - Scott Schirmer