The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971)

	Director: Robert Fuest
	Starring: Vincent Price, Joseph Cotten, Hugh Griffith, Terry-Thomas
	Run Time: 94 mins
	Certificate: 15
	Rating:

Plot
Organist and biblical scholar, Dr Phibes, takes a brutal revenge upon the team of doctors who oversaw his beloved wife die on the operating table. His revenge is anything but normal as he uses the ten Biblical curses that Moses called down on Egypt to murder the team one-by-one.

Review
Arguably Vincent Price's best film and a true genre great, The Abominable Dr Phibes is a cult classic filled with an overwhelming sense of strange campy elegance which I've found hard to match up with anything since.

The story could have been played out straight like many revenge-themed horror flicks but The Abominable Dr Phibes goes overboard on the absurdity and grand sense of occasion and style. Phibes isn't just some recluse living in a dank basement, he's got a huge underground lair filled with art deco, a clockwork jazz band and his dead wife in a sealed container in a secret underground chamber. He has a mute assistant to help him and has laboratories and all manner of scientific equipment to aid his thirst for revenge. Not only that but Phibes plays a Phantom of the Opera-style organ, creating a haunting soundtrack to his lonely existence. The production design is top notch in every aspect, creating a vivid and highly stylish atmosphere which works very well against the obvious camp goings on.

Each of the devilish plagues are classic death scenes in their own right, my particular favourite being the draining of Terry-Thomas' blood.

Vincent Price hardly says anything for the majority of the film with his character only being able to talk through the use of a voice box which he has to plug in (another awesomely camp idea which comes off brilliantly). When he is able to talk, Price's velvet voice produces some Shakesperian-esque monologues which would have Jigsaw from the Saw series feeling proud.

We shouldn't root for Phibes. After all he is killing people in quite gruesome ways but you can't help but admire the sense of style that he brings to the table. We can sympathise with him because he clearly adored his wife and her death has turned him into a broken man.

Verdict
Slapped with a healthy dose of black humour throughout, The Abominable Dr Phibes never really takes itself too seriously and with a truly classic turn by Price, it ranks up there as one of his best work and one of the best horror films from 70s Britain.