Unicorns & Hats & Masquerades, Oh My!

The Abomindable Dr. Phibes is one of those cult classics that seems to inspire a whole lot of passion from the not necessarily huge component of film lovers who have seen it.

I am now proud to be one of them.

Quick Plot: A Phantom-esque mystery man conducts his own personal house band made up of man-sized wind-up instrumentalists in kooky zip-up masks.

Within the opening two minutes, I have already dubbed this to be The Greatest Movie of All Time.

Some might say I like to leap to big sweeping superlatives when it comes to cinema, but ladies and gentlemen, some are often wrong.

Very. Wrong.

Meet Dr. Anton Phibes, a concert organist/super genius doctor (of something or another) played with magnificence by a fully in-the-moment Vincent Price. Dr. Phibes, we learn, is working on an elaborate (and awesome) plan of vengeance using the fabled ten plagues of the Old Testament as inspiration to murder the team of surgeons and nurses responsible for the death of his beloved wife some years earlier. 

Here's what this means for us:

-We watch a kickass masquerade where a dude dons a giant frog head mask and gets masked to death

-We witness an adorable horde of bats bat a man to death

-A man is stabbed, Cabin In the Woods style, by the unicorn horn of a brass statue catapulted into action

I haven't even mentioned the locust face-eating, outstandingly elaborate hat-wearing, or old timey snake porn-watching. 

Directed by Robert Fuest (he of the wonderfully restrained And Soon the Darkness and amazingly awful The Devil's Rain), 1971's The Abominable Dr. Phibes is one of those fantastically 'alive' films that seems compelled to be something unlike anything you've ever quite seen. From the colorful visual style to the fact that Vincent Price is romantically speaking through a hole in his throat, this is a special movie.

We've got recurring word jokes, bumbling detectives...

creepy dolls that do nothing but appear creepy, 

Vincent Price drinking champagne through a hole in the back of this throat, and a credit sequence set to Somewhere Over the Rainbow that lists its cast in terms of "The Protagonists" and so on. There's both absurdity and heart, and the combination makes for a truly unique cinematic experience.

High Points
Did I mention HATS?

NOTE THAT THERE ARE PLURAL HATS!

Did I mention DEATH BY CATAPULTED UNICORN HORN?

Did I mention that the band, Dr. Phibes' Clockwork Wizards, is the greatest assembly of musicians ever put on a bizarro art deco soundstage dream theater?

DID MENTION THIS MOVIE KICKS ASS?

Lessons Learned
Even when they're eating someone's face off, bats in closeup are pretty darn adorable

Never put down the brandy

No one holds a grude with quite the same dedication as a super genius concert pianist doctor

Rent/Bury/Buy
I was lucky enough to find a double disc of this and its sequel through the Midnight Movies release at the famed Kim's Video in downtown Manhattan. Now on Instant Watch, this is a truly wonderful watch, the kind of strange genre treat that somehow manages to be funny, scary, sweet, gorgeous, and ridiculous all at the same time. See it.

WELCOME...to Medieval TIMES!

The name Roger Corman calls to mind a lot of things--MST3K episodes, 2-day film shoots, high profit margins, Lance Henrikson in Scream 3--but 'a quality film' is rarely one of them. The presence of Vincent Price, on the other hand, generally implies that SOMETHING good will happen onscreen, making 1964's The Masque of Red Death irresistible to a curious cinemaniac like myself.

Quick Plot: A mysterious man in red hands a rose to a crone passing by in the woods. You know what that means.

Well, if it was the year 1100, you would TOTALLY have known what that meant. The devil/death is sending a message to a European village that their deliverance is at hand. For most of the lowly townsfolk, this means they'll die of the plague. The wealthy or imprisoned, on the other hand, get to party/get tortured inside the castle of one Prospero, played with juicy evil by a devil-worshipping, gold lace-trimmed puffy shirt wearing Vincent Price.

Prospero isn't all black masses and pentagrams though. The man is quite the party animal, actively encouraging his guests to play dress-up, act like farm beasts, and get wasted while he observes such entertainment as tiny dancers with womanly voices performing what I guess is simply little person ballet, but what somehow feels more akin to Toddlers and Tiaras.

When that gets boring, Prospero passes the time trying to corrupt Christians, particularly when they're good-looking. His favorite good girl, Francesca, stays as a well-dressed prisoner actively trying to free her doomed-to-die lover and father. For the most part, this involves whining about Christianity and turning her head as Propsero orders lashings on others, though slowly but surely, an interesting form of mutual respect begins to grow.

As I explained in my intro, I expected very little from The Masque of Red Death. The only things prompting me to press play were the presence of Price, convenience of a 90 minute Instant Watch, and the mere words "12th century" and "plague" in the film's description. 

I am sometimes easy to seduce.

So imagine my surprise to learn that The Masque of Red Death is an ACTUAL GOOD MOVIE. If you’ve seen Uwe Boll’s Rampage, you probably know what that feeling is. It begins with doubt, as you double check IMDB to confirm that you are indeed watching the movie you planned on. Once that happens, you fall into hesitation. There’s no WAY the quality can be maintained coming from the hands of a filmmaker who keeps one eye on the clock while directing...right?

But for the most part, it does. The Masque of Red Death isn’t the greatest genre film of the ‘60s, but it’s a fun ride that toes a gleeful balance between the cheeky and macabre. Poor villagers die, wealthy lords and ladies dress up like fools and die even worse, Vincent Price mugs like a champ and Corman’s colors pop like paintball. There’s little not to like.

High Points

Holy Crayola box batman! The rich brightness of virtually every costume, haircut and furniture piece makes The Masque of Red Death an absolutely stunning visual work. Observe one of its most famous scenes, as Prospero flees Death through a series of rooms that change color, Wizard of Oz/The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover style

Low Points

For all the hubub and worshipping, I expect Satan to have a far more badass mustache than one composed of lampshade fringe

Lessons Learned (About Medieval Times)

Not too surprisingly, gorilla suits were highly flammable

The parties of the upper class made the Playboy Mansion look like Sesame Street

Bangs were totally bangin'

Rent/Bury/Buy

I’ll readily admit my weakness for any film involving plagues, dances of death, medieval torture, Vincent Price in period garb, or noblemen dressed like gorillas. The Masque of Red Death includes all these things, and it includes them extremely well. It’s not a masterpiece, but the film is bursting with life in its depiction of Death. It’s a fun, dark, and unique little watch and if nothing else, it beats just about anything else in the Corman catalog.